ITANAGAR, 13 Feb: This Valentine’s Day, tea lovers will gather near the Siang river in Pasighat in East Siang district to talk about tea, discuss ideas for tea growth and blending process, and have an opportunity to learn about new processes of cultivation and processing.
The Arunachal Tea Festival (ATF), being organised by the Arunachal Pradesh Agriculture Marketing Board, will be held at The Lhoba Resort on the outskirts of Pasighat, along the Siang river.
The first-of-its-kind festival will seek to provide a platform to commemorate the centuries-old tea culture prevalent in the state.
Tea cultivation has a long history, with the Singphos having grown and brewed it for centuries, and taught the British, who spawned an industry out of it.
The traditional teas brewed inside bamboo tubes by the Singpho and Tangsa people, known as ‘phalap’, are consumed to this day.
The festival will also celebrate the recent rise of indigenously-grown teas from the state.
In 2018, the Golden Needle tea – a speciality orthodox tea variety from the Donyi Polo Tea Estate in Oyan in East Siang – was auctioned for Rs 40,000 a kilogram by the Assam Tea Traders.
The ATF will also bring together small tea growers, tea blenders and tasters to discuss ideas for improvement and future growth of the sector.
Arunachal is one of the major tea-producing states in India, besides Assam, West Bengal, Sikkim, and Tripura. Tea cultivation is taking rapid strides in the hill slopes of Lohit, East Siang, Dibang Valley, Changlang, and Tirap districts.
Agriculture & Horticulture Minister Tage Taki will inaugurate the festival.
Representatives of the Arunachal Pradesh Small Tea Growers Association, along with government officials, and 30 tea growers are expected to attend the daylong event.
A technical session will be held on the topic ‘Marketing of tea for tea blenders in Arunachal/NER by M-Junction’ by tea taster Rituraj Hazarika, the branch head of the Jorhat Tea E-Marketplace, which manages the Jorhat tea auction centre in Assam.
Sessions will be held on tea blending, and tasting of various teas grown in Arunachal by veteran tea taster Dr Roman Gogoi.
