Nilgiri Small-Batch Black | Tea Studio

This modern tea project is the brainchild of long-time tea maker Indi Khanna. Through his experience in the specialty tea market, Khanna recognized that there is “an existent and rapidly growing market opportunity for high-end, small lot Nilgiri tea.” And what he has created at Tea Studio is entirely different from traditional industrial factories and is instead a small-scale, cottage industry unit that buys fine-plucked leaf from local smallholders and turns it into unusual artisanal teas using machinery and methodology imported from China.

Khanna and his team are confident that the quality teas being made will gradually raise awareness amongst local smallholders and inspire them to improve their plucking standard and sell what Khanna calls ‘super fine-plucked’ fresh leaf (one bud and one open leaf) to Tea Studio for a much higher price (around 80-130 rupees per kilo) than the 10-15 rupees per kilo paid by the big factories. Instead of using sickles to harvest the tea and allowing the leaf to lie around before delivering it to nearby factories, the pluckers are being trained by Khanna to pick by hand, only to gather one leaf and a bud and to deliver the leaf to Tea Studio as quickly as possible.

The aroma and rich flavors are like nothing you've tasted from Southern India in the past. It more closely resembles the aroma and mouthfeel of a fine single-estate Ceylon tea.