Ingenui-tea!

by Sarita Dasgupta

Since not many people know that tea is being commercially grown in Nagaland, I thought I'd write the story of the Wokhami family's enterprise. A school friend of mine who lives in Dimapur told me about this delicious tea ...it was grown, manufactured and sold locally, and the main person behind this enterprise was a woman. Intrigued, I got in touch with the son, Ahuka, a delightful young man who was happy to tell me about his family's business. I was impressed by this 26-year-old living all alone on the estate, even cooking his own food, but diligently carrying out the responsibility handed to him by his father.

Nagaland lies like a beautiful emerald in north-eastern India, bordered by the states of Arunachal Pradesh to the north and Manipur to the south; the Sagaing Region of Myanmar to the east; and Assam to the west. In fact, this picturesque region was part of Assam until it became the sixteenth state of India on 1 December 1963, with Kohima as its capital city. Established by the British in 1878 as their headquarters in the Naga Hills, Kohima remains an important centre for administration, culture, and commerce.

Agriculture has always been the most important economic activity in Nagaland, covering over 70% of the state's economy. The Konyaks of the Mon area had impressed the British by serving them home grown and processed tea, but though tea was planted extensively through the length and breadth of Assam by the British, the Naga Hills region was perhaps too politically turbulent for them to do the same there. The practice of growing tea in Nagaland was limited to home gardens for domestic use only until quite recently – in the last twenty-five years or so.

Most of these estates are small and family-run, but through sheer hard work and diligence, these enterprising families have managed to make a mark for themselves in the competitive tea market. One such family is the Wokhamis of AKAA Organic Tea Enterprise, under the guidance of their matriarch, Amenla. 

Amenla plucking tea leaves

In 1983, an enterprising young man called Kihoi Wokhami bought 53 acres of forested land in Ajiqami Village, Zunheboto District, about 150 km from Kohima. He cleared and burned 20 acres (approximately 5 hectares) of the land according to the local practice of ‘jhum’ or ‘slash and burn’ cultivation, and planted paddy.

 In 1991, Kihoi married an intelligent and ingenious young woman named Amenla. After their two children – Avini and Ahuka – were born, she encouraged Kihoi to take a chance and plant tea bushes on their land instead of rice. A tea garden had already been established in a village called Litta in their district, and they decided to follow suit. Using the first initial of each of their names, they called their estate AKAA Tea Estate. 

AKAA Tea Estate

After harvesting rice for the last time in 1994, the couple prepared the land and in due course, planted it with 5000 saplings propagated in their nursery from tea cuttings acquired from the Tea Research Association, Tocklai (Jorhat, Assam). Initially, Kihoi and Amenla looked after the tea garden on their own, but once they harvested the green leaf for the first time in the year 2000, they had to employ someone to help manage the seasonal workers who did the plucking and processing of the tea leaves.

At that time, there was no local market for green leaf, so only limited harvesting was done. Kihoi and Amenla used the ‘handpound’ method to process the tea for local consumption.

The Aboshu Akhumu for hand pounding tea

 

Handpound tea

As their son, Ahuka explains, “Hand pounding is a labour-intensive process of tea making. After plucking, withering of the leaves is done for up to 18 hours at normal room temperature. When the withering of the leaves is completed, the leaves are pounded manually in the aboshu akhumu (a local wooden mortar and pestle) till the leaves are crushed and ready for the fermentation process. Fermentation of the leaves is carried out and then they are sundried. Sometimes, due to high humidity and dampness during or after the rain, the tea is ruined by moisture, especially if we are unable to dry it in the sun.” 

Since hand pounding is a manual process, the yields are low, so the Wokhamis were able to sell whatever tea they produced. The tea was packaged and sealed in plain plastic packets and sold locally to a few regular buyers.

A few years later, the Wokhamis decided to expand their tea garden by adding another five hectares from their forested land. The remaining area is still covered in forest, and remains as a buffer zone.

A 'hands on' Ahuka

In 2016, they started planting out saplings every year with the objective of setting up their own factory within their estate, which they did, in 2018. They started manufacturing orthodox black tea and green tea the same year. As of now, AKAA is the only company that manufactures these teas in Nagaland. There are other factories manufacturing CTC teas, and some tea growers processing green tea manually. 

Kihoi has retired after handing over the management of the estate and factory to 26-year-old Ahuka, who became involved in the business in 2017, a year after he graduated. Ahuka now lives on the estate permanently, looking after the ten hectares of tea, and administering the manufacturing process in the factory. 

The factory

Ahuka’s elder sister, Avini, is also involved in the family enterprise. She designed the company’s logo, and now takes care of the paperwork, packaging design, and content writing.

AKAA products

Although Kihoi has retired, Amenla remains actively involved in the tea company they worked so hard to establish. It is not uncommon for her to join the workers plucking tea on the estate on occasion.

Amenla with her workers

Mainly, though, she oversees the packaging of the green tea, orthodox black tea, flavoured tea and handpound tea manufactured in their factory. A room has been set aside for this purpose at the Wokhami home in Dimapur, where she directs the seasonal and part-time workers employed through her extensive network of contacts.

Amenla also looks after the distribution of the packaged teas. The handpound tea, made in small quantities, is only available to their regular consumers. Although most of the orthodox, green and flavoured teas are sold locally in departmental stores and outlets, there are some regular consumers outside Nagaland, such as in Delhi and Odisha, to whom the tea is couriered. The company has built up a good clientele due to word of mouth publicity from their satisfied customers.

Ahuka got the factory licensed in 2019, and, in 2020, he obtained a certificate which will allow them to attend tea auctions where they can find potential buyers. They attend expos when invited, but where they make a lot of sales and get a great deal of exposure is at the Hornbill Festival held every December in Kohima.

Amenla and Ahuka at the Hornbill Festival

AKAA is an example of what an ingenious woman, an enterprising man, and their small family of hardworking and dedicated members can achieve in just a quarter century – produce cups and cups of refreshing tea from the dreaming hills of Nagaland.

Meet the writer: Sarita Dasgupta

Sarita enjoying a warm cup of Kawakawa tea in New Zealand. 

Read about it here

 

"As a ‘chai ka baby’ (and grandbaby!) and then a ‘chai ka memsahab’, I sometimes wonder if I have tea running through my veins! 

I have been writing for as long as can remember – not only my reminiscences about life in ‘tea’ but also skits, plays, and short stories. My plays and musicals have been performed by school children in Guwahati, Kolkata and Pune, and my first collection of short stories for children, called Feathered Friends, was published by Amazing Reads (India Book Distributors) in 2016. My Rainbow Reader series of English text books and work books have been selected as the prescribed text for Classes I to IV by the Meghalaya Board of School Education for the 2018-2019 academic session, and I have now started writing another series for the same publisher.

More stories by Sarita here : https://teastorytellers.blogspot.com/search/label/Sarita%20Dasgupta

Is this your first visit here? Welcome to Indian Chai Stories! 
Do you have a chai story of your own to share? Send it to me here, please : indianchaistories@gmail.com. My name is Gowri Mohanakrishnan and I'm a tea planter's wife. I started this blog because one of the things that I wouldn't want us to lose in a fast changing world is the tea story - a story always told with great seriousness, no matter how funny - always true (always), maybe a tall tale, long, or short, impossible, scary, funny or exciting but never dull. You will find yourself transported to another world! 
 
Happy reading! Cheers to the spirit of Indian Tea!
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