The largest tracts of privately held land in India may well be in tea and coffee plantations. With costs of production sky-rocketing, and earnings fluctuating according to international commodity prices, estate owners are now looking to diversify their lines of business and optimize their assets. Along with other cultivation options such as horticulture, floriculture, etc., tourism is rapidly becoming a popular additional revenue stream.

It’s every tea or coffee planter’s dream. To have one’s estate brand on the shelves of the world’s most prestigious supermarkets and retail chains, to be able to command premium prices for one’s produce, the fruit of labour and toil.

It’s called a Peony Rosette and a single piece costs Rs. 50 – a little over a dollar. Made from specially grown tea leaves, delicately woven into a rosette, it comes to you in a transparent glass cup. You pour in steaming hot water, and simply watch while the rosette unfolds: the clear liquid turns amber, and a subtle fragrance awakens your senses. It’s your moment of Zen.

Is the coffee cup half-full or half-empty? Is the retail coffee revolution in India for real, or just maya (illusion)?

It’s not just the caffeine content in tea and coffee that’s causing discomfort these days. For consumers who like these beverages for their refreshing, pick-me-up qualities, the guilt trip being laid on is more like a put-me-down.

The crash in global coffee prices in 2000 resulted in two anomalistic results in the years following. The first was the posting of record profits by the coffee roasting and trading majors, and the second was the near total destruction of the economic status of the coffee grower especially the small grower around the world. This and the fear of large scale human and environmental degradation in producing countries led to fierce criticism of the coffee roasting and trading majors by influential NGOs characterized by the stinging Oxfam International Coffee report in 2002.