Tea Amo, co-founded by Monalisa Borkakoty, is the country’s first curating company
Tea Amo Goa, founded by Monalisa Borkakoty and Stanley Sequeira last October, is the country’s first tea curating company that aims to help small-time farmers.
Borkakoty is from Assam and has been staying in Goa for some time now. She met Sequeira there and decided to start Tea Amo.
A tea curator is the one who is responsible for preserving the traditional methods and propagating the culture to revive one of the most revered produces from the North East.
Tea Amo is solely dedicated to give access to quality tea to mainland India and ensure a better pay to small-time farmers by quality control.
More than 50 per cent of the tea that is produced in India is exported and the producer country does not have much access to the top quality resulting in the availability of only low-grade tea in the domestic market.
“The high level of capitalism is making it worse. Tea Amo is working closely with small-time farmers and doing quality control and helping them maintain traditional methods with the right R&D (research and development). We are assisting them with the right packaging and the correct outreach, which in turn enables them to get a better pay. The tea sector is suffering, if we are to believe the reports and most of it is due to the high production costs and then the further costs involved in exporting. Tea Amo believes that giving access and branding it the right way will solve more than half of the problems,” Borkakoty says.
“Export can continue but creating a balance is necessary. Also, unavailability of good tea in a tea drinking country is a shame and somebody must do something about it. The tea sector will regain quality and will strike a balance with the funds,” she adds.
Tea Amo defines small-time farmers as those owning smaller plantations. They do not really produce the end product but are growing the leaves and giving it to factories. “The problem arose because they are not concerned about the quality and to give quantity they started to give all kinds of leaves (two leaves and a bud is all that is required) for that is what brought in the cash,” explains Borkakoty.
On how the company helps workers in big tea gardens, she says Tea Amo’s vision is “to encompass our motives to the big gardens too but because they are already set in their ways, we are starting with the small farmers to set the path”.
Tea estate owners are not the company’s first priority and it wants to start small and make a bigger impact.
Tea Amo not just sources tea from here but packages it and resells. According to the co-founder, their knowledge about flavour, aroma and the hard work that goes behind producing quality tea “has made us realise that changing the way it is perceived and sold could change the game” in the tea sector.
The company is making perceivable changes by controlling quality of the product and creating awareness among farmers about bio-degradable packaging and helping producers see the good after effects of producing quality tea.
“It is a well-known fact that the repertoire of tea is so humongous that it is getting sold at high prices but the quality of product is not taken care of. Tea Amo’s efforts to control quality and brand the product will ensure that the farmers who are doing the most important part of the job will make the most out of it. Over the years the middlemen/brokers/auction centres and other entities and associations are just making the most out of it and the ones who are toiling are unrewarded. Our efforts are towards giving them what they deserve,” Borkakoty says.
The small-time farmers who are working with Tea Amo produce exclusively for the company. The founders are also coordinating with like-minded people based in the North East who are helping them with logistics. “Trust is one of the major factors and the farmers are doing their part and we are doing ours and collectively we are balancing the operations,” the founder maintains.
Talking about the plight of tea garden workers, especially in Assam, Borkakoty admits that the problem is huge and needs years of unlearning, which is not only a slow process but also a huge challenge. Tea Amo is working towards making changes in the way the industry works so the rest can watch and learn.
On why Borkakoty chose Goa for the curating company, she says “it is the world market” and “it is important to understand how people react to a new approach to an old product”.
In Meghalaya, Tea Amo plans to meet planters of Arsla Organic Tea Growers’ and Producers’ Cooperative Society in Ri Bhoi. KW Chyne, co-promoter of the society, says he is looking forward to meeting the representatives. “We need good marketing that has still not picked up so much. Tea curating sounds interesting but I can have an idea only after meeting them,” he adds.
~ NM