STiR coffee and tea magazine

36 STiR coffee and tea | 2024 Issue 6 (December / January 2025) The ITMEB also urged factory own- ers and office managers to set up free or subsidized canteens on their premises and to give the workers an afternoon 'tea break.' Elaborate brochures were shared, highlighting how such 'lost' shift time would be cost-effective due to a more productive workforce. World War II slowed the ITMEB's efforts but the campaign still had a huge impact. Dubbed "The Great Tea Cam- paign" by renowned author Lizzie Collin- gham, it created massive public aware- ness and exposed millions of Indians to their first taste of tea. "While the Indians disliked the taste of tea in the beginning, the addition of milk and sugar appealed to the Indian palate, acting as an invigorating stimu- lant, making it very popular," explains Dr. Dalal. "The spices added to the masala chai are all indigenous and that trend came on later." Despite the IMTEB's persistent ef- forts to educate the masses on the 'cor- rect' way to make tea, many refused to follow the British method, which used more tea leaves to boost sales. Eventu- ally, people realized that instead of pre- heating a porcelain pot and using sepa- rate milk and sugar containers, one could just add all the ingredients into a pan and boil them to get the same rusty red infu- sion as the elaborate British method. Founded in 1894, the Balanoor Tea Plantation was transferred from British to Indian ownership in 1937. Photo courtesy Bhavi Patel During the next four decades, thousands of acres of subtropical forests were cleared and planted with tea bushes. Indentured labor for the plantations was imported from the eastern Gangetic plain and the tribal lands to the south of it. Over time, tea cultivation spread to different regions of the country, including the southern peninsula. The tea produced in India during those early times was almost solely intended for export to the West, but as it passed through different middlemen and ports, some of the native population, especially the Anglophile elite, began partaking in its con- sumption. Fluctuations in London auction prices and the challenges of long-distance transport prompted growers and officials to envisage a potential domestic market for tea. Accordingly in 1901, the Viceroy commissioned an experiment which introduced tea to Indians in select areas. However, the efforts were abandoned in 1904, after only moderate success. Fast-forward another three decades, and the ripple effects of the Great Depres- sion and growing independence movement decisively changed the picture. Around this time, some of the British planters began selling their estates in India and going back home. "Our plantation was incorporated in 1937 with the acquisition of coffee and tea estates from the British planters in the 1930s," shares Ashok Kuriyan, managing direc- tor and producer at Balanoor Plantations and Industries, in the southern Indian state of Karnataka. "The British began cultivation here in 1894. They grew tea and set up a factory with all the machinery imported from Britain." Balanoor estate currently grows tea, coffee, pepper, areca nut, timber, and avocados. International tea prices dropped sharply in the early 1930s while production rates soared. By 1935, growers had a huge unsold surplus of tea, to the tune of more than 100 million pounds. Nurturing a domestic market with a minimum of 350 million people seemed promising. In 1935, the then Tea Cess Committee was reorganized as the Indian Tea Market Expansion Board (ITMEB) and given a massive budget to be- gin what was undoubtedly the largest marketing campaign in Indian history. Hundreds of 'tea propagandists' were dispatched, sometimes in motorized 'tea vans' that dispensed millions of cups of free tea. 'Pice packets' of tea – small paper packets of leaf tea or leaf fragments ('pice'― the lowest unit of currency in India at the time) were also given out. These pice packets led to the wide-scale pay-per-use packag- ing of shampoo, detergent, etc. in sachets. Enamel placards were posted at railway stations and in markets detailing the 'correct' British process for infusing tea. Demonstration teams were dispatched to festivals and bazaars with all-female units being sent to conservative, purdah- observing households. Soviet style poster for ITMEB by Annada Munshi, 1948 from the Urban History Documentation Archive, Center for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata.

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