The legacy of tea

Father and son, Sunil and Amit Daga of the Amarawati Tea Company share a unique relationship based on a passion for tea. Taking their family business forward, they produce an internationally acclaimed brand of tea—Halmari—that is sold across the finest tea boutiques in the world and forms an integral part of the menu in the best gourmet hotels.

Text: Ritumsita Biswas
Photographs: Rajesh Gupta

Imagine taking a trip to Maldives and sipping a warm cuppa during your stay at the Four Seasons hotel as you gaze at the ocean. Now imagine shopping for tea at Switzerland’s Queen Camellia, one of the finest tea boutiques in the world, or the famous retail establishment, Harrods in London. At all these top-notch international destinations, there’s one thing in common—Halmari Tea! This fine quality Assam team is produced in the Amarawati Tea Estate in Assam by the father and son duo, Sunil and Amit Daga, who epitomise the spirit of Marwari entrepreneurship. Their family, which also owns and manages the Duliabam Tea Estate, has been in the aromatic business of tea for the last 85 years.

Backed by history

The patriarch of the family, Sunil Daga recounts the story of how the Daga family came into possession of the tea estates in Assam. “This was around the time when the British were leaving India,” begins Daga, “and a lot of tea estates were up for auction. Our particular tea estate was bought by some locals and later sold to the Daga family,” he says.

Since then the family has remained in the tea business with generation after generation committing themselves to the business. Sunil Daga, born to late BD and Godaveri Daga from Nohar in Rajasthan, had settled with this family in West Bengal. “In fact my father had insisted that I go to a Bengali medium school; he knew we would never go back to our native state in Rajasthan but would always stay here.