On Saturday we finally had the assembly we anticipated with Mr. Banerjee. The second assembly was with the Secretary of the DITA, Darjeeling Indian Tea Association, whose aim is to have a job of mediator between the administration of the tea estates and the staff, or between the management and the federal government. Once we arrived, we visited the Happy Valley Estate, to have an concept of how the other estates work in the area. He has been working for Makaibari for 3 years and he appears to know all the pieces about the estate, the pluckers, the tea, the region… It was interesting to hear about Makaibari with a « contemporary eye ». It has been precisely two weeks since we left Singapore, and we feel like we have been in Makaibari for a month. We presented the primary information we now have gotten from this first week, and Mr. Chatterjee gave us some precious recommendation for our subsequent week in Kolkata. We are going to leave on Monday to Kolkata.
Next week will be all about organizing the data we collected with a purpose to reply a easy query: how one can make our marketplace viable in the long term. Makaibari tea plantations are surrounded by forests that make the place a real ecosystem. We also received to talk with a couple from Germany who had come to Makaibari for tourism purposes. Today, we mentioned goodbye to Makaibari’s stunning landscapes, our households, and all of the workers who has really helped us understand the spirit of the area. We met Nayan, who is accountable for Makaibari’s homestays and had our first cup of Makaibari Tea. There are also a number of species of tea bushes: China tea (85% of the bushes in Makaibari), Assam Hybrids and Clones. While wandering between the tea bushes, we coated a spectacular number of subjects with him, from tea bushes species to tea pluckers’ wages. These techniques were developed by Rudolf Steiner at first of the 20th century, and had been first used by Rajah Banerjee in the 70s. They are aimed toward conserving the bushes healthy, by creating natural sprays and compost for them.
We’re starting to know everybody on this small village. We’re separated in several rooms and different households, however we are very close to each other, since the village is small. Upon demand from the consumer, some teas should not sorted, however some employees have to take out the waste that continues to be within the tea leaves. Throughout the previous few days, our group spent our whole time visiting marletplaces throughout Phnom-Penh, so as to (a) get some insight about how food and items are sold in Cambodia and (b) find ideas for our personal market undertaking in Smile Village. After 8 days spent in Smile Village, time to get back to Phnom Penh for the last phase of our on-the-area venture. ESSEC MSc in Management college students engaged on the Asian Strategy Project not too long ago embarked on the sector Research Phase, the place they spend 3-4 weeks in an emerging country in Asia gathering research materials and refining their research speculation. This morning we enjoyed an insightful tea tasting session with Mr. Banerjee, our instructor Mr. Chatterjee, and the entire ESSEC staff. At the tip of our stroll we saw tea workers coming back from their morning plucking.
Ultimately of the day we met with Sanjay, Makaibari’s supervisor, with whom we discussed about our week’s schedule and our expectation in regards to the mission. New day means exploration of recent markets. This is our final day on the tea fields. Within the afternoon we sat all collectively to analyse Makaibari’s totally different packages throughout time, and especially the final one, made by a team of Italian designer. Later that day, we wished to visit certainly one of Makaibari’s competitor, Castleton, to have a third point of view. However the go to for the vacationer is much better organized and ends with the store, which really triggers consumption. We understood higher the various kinds of tea. Mr. Banerjee offered the 6 tea treasures, defined us the principle differences, and we were capable of scent the tea, the leaves, and to taste them. Today, we had one other very attention-grabbing visit of the tea plantations with Satyadeep. Today, we had a forest visit scheduled by Nayan, with one of many forest ranger.