Guwahati boy telling the tea story in different ways

After travelling the world, Guwahati boy Deba Pratim Das has brought ‘The Tea Story’ to his hometown. Though Assam is globally known for its tea, practically it has nothing to offer to the visiting tourists besides the tea leaves, feels Das.

But the 27-year-old MBA graduate has come up with something innovating. He has set up a tea joint named ‘The Tea Story’ which serves at least 55 varieties from across the South East Asian countries.

“After travelling the world, especially the South East Asian countries on my job assignment, I grew an interest in the tea. Then I realized, we as a state produce a huge amount of tea but we have failed to do justice to it. So, I decided to do something on tea and also to give people a memorable sip of tea,” Das, a former menu engineer at Marriott group of hotels in the USA told the NEZINE.

The tea joint situated at Hem Chandra Road in Uzan Bazar near the riverbank of the Brahmaputra at a 127-year-old house serves teas ranging from Assam tea to Japanese Flowered Blooming Tea.

Interestingly, the visitors here get the various flavoured teas according to their moods.

“I always make it a point to speak to my customers and I try to serve a variety of teas according to their mood. If someone is tired I would suggest for Zesty Orange or Peach Black and in a sad mood, Apple pie tea is the best thing to change the mood,” Das added.

Though all the ingredients are collected from different sources and from different places but at all are blended with Assam tea.

Among others, Manipuri black, Peppermint, Lemongrass, Hibiscus, Kashmiri Kahwa, Moroccan Mint, Lavender Bliss, Earl Gray, Tour Bus, Fruit Gateau, Pomegranate, Orange Cinnamon, Gulabo, Mango Green Tea, Tulsi Lemon Blast and Chamomile among others are some of the available varieties at The Tea Story.

In the Japanese Flowered Blooming tea, the buds are hand weaved with Japanese Jasmine before the osmosis process. Besides, he collects the Manipuri wild tea from Churachandpur before preparing it with spring water from Arunachal Pradesh.

Out of the 55 varieties, 33 are hot beverages in which 22 are aromatic and the rest 22 are cold beverages.

The idea of tea story started when Das he did his MBA on hospitality management and travelled to countries with a Japanese company.

“My work took me to several places across the globe and especially I have travelled almost all the countries in South East Asia. In that process I developed the idea experiencing different ways of drinking tea in these countries,” he said.

But this is not just about tea, we have other activities as well along with food. We have a room where we have interactive sessions and also exhibition of photographs and arts.

“It has become a good place for us to get together and conduct poetry sessions and also photo exhibitions in the premises along with the aromatic smells of tea,” said Manas Paran, a frequent visitor here.

Abdul Gani

All photographs used in this feature were taken by the author.

( Abdul Gani is a Guwahati-based journalist and can be reached at [email protected]. He received the prestigious Laadli Media & Advertising Awards for Gender Sensitivity 2015-16 in the Web/Best Feature/English category )