Their Story

Dorje began as a conversation between friends about the decaying Darjeeling Tea industry, immediately after the lockdown last year. Our families had been in the Darjeeling Tea business and we had been noticing that for the last decade or so, a combination of factors such as climate change, political turmoil, mismanagement, a dampening export market, and exploitative middlemen, had been severely affecting the operations of these heritage gardens. But last year’s lockdown seemed to be the last straw.

India has 10,000 tea gardens. But only 87 of them are in and around Darjeeling, producing high-quality teas known worldwide as “The Champagne of Teas.” While these teas are India’s pride, we realised that they are simply unaccessible, unavailable or unaffordable, for most Indians.