South Sikkim, India: By Ayan Adak e-mail: [email protected] Tea time @ Temi Ayan There’s something about staying in a tea garden that ushers in an amazing sense of tranquillity within. Perhaps it’s the mountain air laden with the essence of orchids, cherries and rhododendrons. Perhaps it’s the evenly manicured bushes of tea that sprawls for greenish miles bookended by snow-clad peaks of the mighty Himalaya. Or perhaps it’s the copious cups of tea – laden with anti-oxidants and flavonoids - that you are compelled to drink, to live up to your reputation of holidaying in a tea estate. Or as in Temi’s case, you just feel privileged to sip your oolongs in Sikkim’s only tea estate, that too with views of the mighty Kanchenjunga above and the turquoise Teesta river below. While Darjeeling in neighbouring West Bengal takes away most of the tea-time glory and thunder, Temi tea estate packs quite a punch as Sikkim’s solitary fighter, reputed for its organic farming techniques that sees an output of 100 tonnes of tea every year. It owes its origin to the last king of Sikkim, Thondup Namgyal, who in 1969, presciently established a tea estate in nearby Ravangla to provide jobs to Tibetan refugees in Sikkim following Tibet’s annexation by China. The tea estate in Ravangla failed, and the refugees were better suited to trading than tea-plucking, but the idea of a tea-garden lingered on, rebirthing in Temi. Today, it is a Government-run initiative, and along with Darjeeling, Dooars and Assam, forms the tetrad of tea-growing regions in India’s north-east (Kangra in Himachal Pradesh and the Nilgiris are the other tea growing regions of India). In the initial decades, Temi tea used to be sold under the Darjeeling tea brand, but since 2000, Temi has emerged in the global tea market as a player of its own quality, blend and taste, being marketed separately as Temi tea, Sikkim’s own brand. The success of the last two decades has already proved that this identity is here to stay and grow further. The Cherry Resort lies in the heart of the tea gardens and makes for a brilliant holiday. Besides the tea and the tranquillity, you can indulge in amazing treks along the hilly slopes of the tea gardens. I had made it a point to go for long walks around the tea estate every morning, while watching a resplendent sunrise on the Kanchenjunga. The ruddy alpenglow blossoming on the Kanchenjunga – above all other peaks - to proclaim the onset of day is a magical experience and sometimes justifies the craze of travellers to declare their holiday incomplete without experiencing a sunrise or sunset on the world’s third highest peak. The view of the cordillera here is however, quite different to the ‘sleeping Buddha’ range that is seen from Darjeeling and Sandakphu, with the Kabru peaks becoming more prominent along with the Toblerone-like peaks of the Kanchenjunga. Nonetheless, these snow-clad peaks of the Himalaya, unreachable and unattainable, feel heavy in mysticism and will draw you into a meditative stance only to be disturbed by the trills of the mynahs and the oriental white-eyes. You can spend hours watching the snow-clad peaks change colours, as if waking up themselves, from light crimson to pink, to increasing intensities of dazzling whiteness. Against a blue backdrop of a cloudless sky, they will seem magical, almost heavenly, and will make you feel an accomplished pilgrim, perhaps explaining why our early ancestors would have associated them with the greatest Gods in our pantheon. Yet, they will continue to remain inexplicable and esoteric even after millennia, taking us back to the Skanda Purana that narrates that even ‘in a thousand ages of the Gods, I could not tell thee of the glories of the Himalaya.’ A TO Z INDIA ● MARCH 2023 ● PAGE 10