Originally reported and written in March 2023, this story has been republished as part of our archival content.

You may be familiar with the most popular story of the origin of tea — that it was discovered accidentally when the father of medicine, Shen Nong, was picking leaves in the forest for one of his experiments. As a pot of water boiled, a few leaves fell into it, and the drink was magical, as Shen discovered. 

While the Chinese have long since associated tea with its medicinal benefits, the beverage is celebrated in cultures around the world for its simplicity. In India, a cup of chai has many roles — a welcome drink for guests, a mid-day beverage, and, when brewed with ginger and spices, a remedy for a nasty cold. In many ways, it has also been the tie that binds Indian families together. 

While few things bring joy like good old ghar ki chai, there’s no denying that the seemingly simple beverage has many avatars. We found eight brands that not only champion the diversity and nuances of the beverage, but also show us how magic brews in the most unlikely circumstances.  

Run by 23-year-old Sparsh Agarwal, the artisanal tea comes from the 150-year-old Selim Hill Tea Garden spread across a vast 973 acres. When COVID-19 brought a sudden halt to business, Sparsh and his friends revived his family’s tea garden through a unique subscription model — bringing an entire year’s worth of seasonal flavours of Darjeeling tea to your doorstep. 

Dorje Teas, they decided, would be a brand that would focus on bridging the gaps in the Darjeeling tea industry, one of which was the problem of low sales of monsoon and autumn flushes of tea. 

These flushes often did not find buyers, but Dorje Teas ensures that through the subscription model, customers can avail of all four flushes of teas at premium quality and affordable rates. 

In an interview with The Better India, one of the brothers behind the startup reminisces how through the growing up years they’d fallen in love with Kolkata, their hometown. 

“We often joked about how the streetwallahs of Kolkata possessed almost magical skills. We were almost certain that these vendors had special sauces and spices that they told no one about,” was what Ani Sanyal grew up thinking. 

So when they moved........

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