All tea leaves are green when harvested. High in the Himalayas, tea pickers are hard at work, plucking only young and the most flavorful leaves from the plant, called Camellia sinensis. Although tea plants flourish in tropical climate, the best organic black teas are those grown in high altitudes where the clouds and cool mountain air comfort the tea plant and moisturize its leaves.
After the tea leaves are picked, they are inspected and sorted and withered. All of this is done by hand. As water from the leaves evaporates, the natural process of fermentation begins to take place. Fermentation, also known as oxidation, is the reason why organic black tea is black.
Unlike the fermentation done …

KOLKATA: The Darjeeling Tea Association (DTA) has mounted efforts to increase the production of organic tea so that the majority of the champagne of teas is organically produced by 2010.
Industry sources say that at present about 37 per cent of the total crop grown on the slopes of the eastern Himalayas is organic tea, as per certifications given by European and Japanese agencies.
“Efforts are on now to cover at least two more gardens that contribute 13 per cent of the total yield under the organic cultivation norms,” a source at the DTA, the apex industry body, told The Hindu.
Given the fact that the annual Darjeeling tea crop averages at about 9.5 to 10 million kg …