Tea was a gift fit for their king that the humble people of Nepal have cherished since its arrival.
Long before marketers labeled it organic, Nepal tea was grown with care. It was always the province of smallholders clinging to the mountain side like the trees they nurtured. Tea developed naturally. Unlike India there were no grand schemes by British East India Trading Co. potentates who used teams of elephants to uproot thousands of hectares of jungle to plant tea. There are no massive plantations in Ilam. Growers rejected monoculture in favor of mixed planting, often on marginal land unsuitable for food crops. Artisans there produce leaf grade orthodox equal to the most famous teas in the world.
The first tea seeds were a gift in 1842 from the Chinese Emperor brought home by Prime Minister Junga Bahadur Rana, founder of the 100-year Rana Dynasty. Ilam Tea Estate was planted in 1863 and Soktim TE in 1865. The first factory, built in Ilam in 1878, served the two estates and small gardens planted by Col. Gajaraj Singh Thapa in the 1860s. Almost a hundred years passed before the first large-scale plantation was established at Bhudhakaran in 1959.
