Fresh from the forest and rich in their wild aroma, these teas have captured the hearts and palate of many.
Varieties of wild teas from Manipur, commercialised for the first time, have got a tremendous response in the market.
Forest Pick, a start-up from Manipur, started its operations last year and brought the wild teas from the forests to the market for the first time.
The tea has also got a good response from international buyers.
“We sold whatever we produced last year and are quite confident we will do the same this year. In fact, we are in short supply for some of our tea variants like white teas, Oolong and green tea, which are produced in relatively lesser quantities compared to our black and smoked teas,” an official of Forest Pick said.
“Fresh leaves are sourced in two ways. Villagers go and pluck the fresh leaves from the forest and sell it to us. Secondly, our teams go to the forest and pluck it themselves,” the official said.
These wild teas are available in the southern part of the state, comprising Churachandpur and Pherzawl districts.
Tea trees are spread across these mountain ranges from time immemorial (since before the British era). “We are getting inquiries but have not been able to meet the demand,” the official added.
He pointed out that tea production is done for about five to six months a year but the consumption happens all the year round.
“Our immediate task is to scale up our production infrastructure so that we can have enough stock at any point in time,” he said.
The start-up wants to build its own brand.
“We have been getting good response in B2B space. However, we are not able to really focus on the retail market, which is a much more competitive market and which is where our brand will get built. We want to play big in the international market as you get better pricing there. We have been getting enquiries and also we already have customers from Europe and America both in B2B and retail. We want to explore this market not just from a price point of view, but also from the perspective of our intrinsic product value,” the official added.
