Jeff Koehler (JK) is a gourmet travelling chef. His passion for the best food and beverage of any region has been manifest in his earlier works. His latest account of the worlds greatest tea in the aptly titled Darjeeling: A History of the World’s Greatest Tea is a well-scripted account of the inception of tea gardens in that part of India, the establishment of the brew as a global brand as well as the challenges that confront this handicraft today.
JK flits through history, adroitly skirting the issue that the East India Company—that laid the foundation, and more, of the British Empire in India—was actually the first official drug mafia. They carted all the opium out of India, clandestinely offloaded the cargo in hidden coves off the China coast, and returned laden with handmade Chinese tea to London.
The popularity of this new and exotic brew in that country led to the smuggling of tea seeds from the various tea regions of China by the famous Scottish botanist, Robert Fortune, who had them strewn in the colonies of the British empire as well. How a strapping, six-foot-plus, red-headed Scotsman survived the perilous, pirate ridden waters of the Yangtse amongst five-foot pigtailed Chinamen without any security is simply mind-boggling. It also makes for a most interesting reading.
Robert Fortune was the most brilliant botanist of his generation. In spite of his brilliance, there was no way that he would ever be in the upper echelons of British Brahminism, as he was not English, public school or grey-walled university educated. He took up the challenge of the China sortie to establish his reputation for a pittance. Knowing full well that his utility would be over the moment his successful deliveries were made, Fortune collected rare plants of the Chinese forests and artefacts from the mandarins he befriended. These he offered as an exotic collection, both outdoors and indoors, to supplement his income. All the landscaped gardens of Europe today have a display of the treasure trove that he offered as a consultant. This offers us a peek into the canny side of his persona that enabled him to smuggle and disseminate all secret botanical and sculptural treasures out of China.
Fortunately, the activities of Fortune, the first ever plant pirate, paid handsome dividends for all of us residing in the Darjeeling hills today. The teas that sprung up from the seeds of his China sorties resulted, miraculously, in Darjeeling tea. Today, what Darjeeling is to tea is akin to what Champagne is to wine. Darjeeling is a far more picturesque place than Champagne, hence I’d rather call it the Darjeeling of Champagne.
JK and I met over three years ago at Makaibari. A bond of instant empathy was forged, as we were both passionate about what we did best. He with his recipes and I with the Makaibari tea treasures. He presented me with his rendition of Moroccan recipes, whilst I gave him my book The Rajah of Darjeeling: Organic Tea Makaibari, together with a DVD of The Lord Of Darjeeling, a film made by a French filmmaker on my life.
I was amazed at the liberal quotations from among our conversations in this remarkable book of JK’s. When he realised that the film was a Cannes award-winner, he sent me with a congratulatory note for the myriad questions that Darjeeling’s terroir had raised. I was deeply honoured when he returned again in the autumn of 2014 to polish a few loose ends and to thank me for the quotes that I had happily provided.
Thank you JK for this offering, which leaves a melange of flavours.
(The author is the owner of the Makaibari Tea Estate. He lives in Kurseong.)
