The History of Tea
India and tea dates back to hundreds and thousands of years. It is a refreshment that almost if not every Indian family prefers during anytime of the day. You must have seen in your family that your father, mother, grandfather, grandmother and any adults waking up in the morning and putting on a kettle of water to boil it on the stove or gas cylinder and adding the mesmerizing tea leaves that flows through every corner and bricks of your house. Yes! Such is the sentiment behind tea in India, where tea is considered holistic and adds up to the energy to start your day. To be swayed away by the creativity of the Indian families, tea has also gained several flavors over the years. Some add natural herbs and spices with the preparation to make it more tasty and healthy and bring some exclusivity with the drinks. India is the land of organic spices and they are a huge part of our recipes. So, why not use that strength and explore our menus for appetizers and refreshments. The world’s largest amount of tea is being produced in India and the country itself consumes more than 70% of it. The tea from Assam and Darjeeling have solely gained the status of premium and are being produced only in India.
The Sentimental Value of Tea in India
The tea industry in our country has evolved technologically superior to other markets in the world and it has also acquired several other global brands of tea. The Tea Board of India is the government body that handles the production, the tea certification and also its exportation in India. Why am I saying all this? This is because as Indians, we should understand our roots and culture, from where we are coming from and what thrills us the most as Indians. And tea is one of them, where if we stroll down any public market and neighborhood in our city, there ought to be a tea stall around the corner and people are sharing emotions, debates, Rabindranath Tagore, economy, how their day went, football, cricket and several other topics to keep the refills of tea coming. The colleges and universities also have branches of tea stalls, where students and scholars sit and discuss lectures and share notes with each other and boost their minds in between classes. Tea is like a religion in India and being a lawyer and also a women entrepreneur in Australia, Uppma Virdi surely expresses her share of passion and love for tea or what we popularly call ‘chai’.
Tea has several health benefits if consumed on a daily basis. In the year 1689, Ovington calculated and evaluated the factors behind the advantages of consuming tea and said that banias residing in Surat prefered drinking tea without sugar or considered mixing small amounts of lemons with some added spices. This would be useful to fight any headaches and a grumpy mood. Ovington said that these methods might have originated from other countries. When the British were ruling India, tea was experimented to increase its importance in the Indian and global market. It was noticed that thicker leaves tea plants were also grown in Assam and they showed promises of a better market in India. The Singphos from the region of Assam, produced such tea leaves that came from plants with thick leaves. Around the beginning of 1820, British East India Company began to produce tea at a larger scale in Assam.
A Sip Into The Pages of History
In the year 1826, with the introduction of Yandaboo Treaty, the British Government acquired the region from the Kings of Ahom. Around the year 1837, the first tea garden was established by the British Government in Upper Assam in the region of Chabua. And in the year 1840, the Assam Tea Company started producing tea for commercial purposes in the area. By the year 1850, the tea industry in India had grown exponentially and large tracts of land were preserved only for tea plantations. A century has passed and Assam became the largest producer of tea in the entire world. From here, started the journey of tea in our country and all the emotions and memories that come along with it. Business Outreach Magazine understands the importance of tea or ‘chai in the hearts of every Indian in the country and around the globe. We will share our take on the story of Uppma Virdi and will walk through her journey to be Uppma Virdi chai walli. We all know the patriarchy related to society. It has been there for ages and might be there for some more time in the future. To be successful in life, there is no sure definition to a brochure. But a pinch of determination, a spoon of dream, a bag of hard work and a jar of hope expresses some bits of a pathway to success. Uppma Virdi is a girl from Chandigarh, who was born in the year 1990. She was brought up in the city of Melbourne in Australia. With a successful career as a lawyer, society might think that she or he has done it all. All the success that one could get and all the happiness that one could enjoy. But if one day you wake up and decide to put some action for a tiny little dream in the corner of your mind and work hard towards it to be successful, all those who have judged you or shunned you for your compassion seem to be redundant at the present. This is what happened with Uppma Virdi. She is a successful lawyer from Australia who craved a cup of chai.
Uppma Virdi- Putting Efforts Into A Dream
Being just 28 years of age, her entrepreneurial mindset kicked in at the right moment of her life. Australia has a population which are coffee lovers. And to instill the essence of tea in them was not an easy job. But as said by Henry Ford, “If you think you can, you can. And if you think you can’t, you’re right”. The limits of our success and goals are limited only to our minds. If we can expand our minds, we can achieve great benchmarks. These benchmarks will denote the purpose and meanings of our lives. Uppma Virdi built her company Chai Walli, which shares similar ideals and passions towards art and craftsmanship or we can say craftswomanship. Her company is a female led and female centric venture that originates from Australia. Chai Walli brings forward the importance of preserving a person’s roots and cultures through the creative blends of chai. The spices and different blended flavors originate from Uppma’s family, where her grandfather was an Ayurvedic doctor with specialties in Homeopathy. Her grandfather was an expert in adding organic herbs and spices to tea and made it an invaluable medicinal refreshment
The Benefits of Tea and Putting Uppma Into the Limelight
These remedial tea blends were a blessing for the family and the patients who were being treated by Uppma’s grandfather at that time. Chai Walli not only makes tea with mind refreshing blends and compositions that are blended with flavors and spices. It also shares principles of empowering the mind and soul with authenticity and integrity. Uppma Virdi introduced the culture of tea along with the heritage of India blended in the flavors. And Australia loved it and also awarded her the Indian Business and Community award in the year 2016. She was considered the best woman entrepreneur and businesswoman of the year in 2016. When passion turns to goal and goal turns to success, there is no looking back. Uppma Virdi was highly influenced by her grandfather, who had huge knowledge of the ancient herbs and recipes. She tried to apply the same ethics towards Chai Walli and offered the true organic tea to Australia and the world. She believes that in India, a chai maker is not considered a lucrative profession. But Uppma Virdi’s success story tells us a different tale. Uppma also managed somehow to import tea produced in India and introduced it to Australia. She launched a website ‘Chai Walli’ with her dreams of a small online tea business. Here she offers her patented blends and flavors with addition to several accessories, wellness products, chai making kits and gifts, ayurvedic and organic teas, official merchandise and many more.
From The Pages Of A Journal
Uppma loved making tea and he shared a story about an instance in her brother’s marriage, when she prepared about a thousand cups of tea for the guests. She also had a keenness towards making customisations for tea flavors when she made tea at home for herself or for her family. But to turn that into a business is something that requires applause and praises. Generally, when you share such plans of opening a tea business, when you are already a successful lawyer, it will not go well with your family. But Uppma once craved for some original and authentic tea in Australia and couldn’t find one. She was so disappointed by the situation, that it pushed her to work for an art, which she was not only familiar with, but also loved doing. Tea is such a refreshment that is a conversation starter. It connects people from different cultures and backgrounds and creates memories and relationships. This is prevalent hugely in India and Uppma wanted to bring that to Australia, a country where coffee was the only choice of a refreshing drink. She wanted to share her Indian culture with the Australians and they loved it. Her company is appreciated worldwide and her hard work, perseverance, and challenges paid off.
The Challenges and Achievements Means the Most
Uppma started to introduce several workshops and termed those ‘The Art of Chai’. In these workshops, she shared the benefits and nutritional values of consuming tea. From here, she started to sell her tea in stores and markets. There is a statement that tea is powerful enough to create its own group and communities, where divergent populations will come as a unified one. The company ‘Chai Walli’ was created in the year 2014 and from there the road towards being a role model for housewives and women in India started. Her awards and achievements are an example for any individual who thinks hard work and confidence is the key towards success. In life, if a person wants to be successful, it is obvious that hurdles will come along the way. It is the strength of the goal that will hold the hands of the dreamer to reach the point of desire. A person cannot please everyone all the time and live according to the decisions of others. Even birds are put into strict practices to learn to flap their wings and lead their own lives. We as humans are the smartest species on the planet and we should shed our mind and soul towards the things which our heart tells us to do. Sometimes we will fail and sometimes we will see the light of hope and success. Uppma broke all boundaries of challenges and went with her gut in setting up a tea business in a foreign country.
The motive itself is inspirational, fearsome and builds a sort of legend status. Pritam Singh Virdi, who was the grandfather of Uppma Virdi, used to find remedies to diseases at a time when technology, facts and information were preserved in books. But the ayurvedic tea did portray several medicinal benefits. This inspired Uppma a lot and she will be ever grateful to her grandfather for this knowledge and education. In the Chai Walli website, there are beautiful blends of tea that exhibit the smell of togetherness and legacy. The variety of blends not only offers some Indianness to it but also fights in a foreign market screaming the beauty of Indian culture. Uppma’s chai blends won her the Royal Hobart Fine Food Award that was held in the year 2017 along with several awards in the Best Health Food and Beverage domains. Her blends from Ayurvedic recipes are imported from the tea gardens in India. So not only does she share her success with Australia, but also brings the hands of hard working laborers of India to the international tea market. This is not an inch less than extraordinary and Business Outreach Magazine salutes such global women entrepreneurs.
The Desire To Hang Onto The Dream
If you think you can do it, yes you can. You just need to strategize your actions and carefully trade your steps. Being kind to others and sharing gratitude towards the society will help you build an empire of wealth, riches and respect. The modern era has means and resources to take you through challenges that were considered a limitation in the past due to the boundaries of technology. We just need to pick up inspiration along the way and leverage that to our desires and goals. Coming back to the history of tea in India, the introduction of Chinese tea plants was encouraged by Robert Fortune. These plants were different from the Indian tea plants. Robert spent more than two years, starting from 1848 and till 1851, working in China as a part of the Royal Horticultural Society of London. He introduced more than 20,000 seedlings to the steep slopes of Darjeeling in India, which were on Himalayas foothills. Robert also brought several tea workers from China to grow tea plantations in India
Contributions of the Indian Government to the Tea Industry
The knowledge and information were instrumental in growing the tea industry in India. When tea from India was introduced in Britain, it was taken as a premium class product, which was highly appreciated by the British. But with time, the prices of tea decreased and the working class started to welcome tea into their daily lives. In some cases, tea also replaced beer, which was a very likable refreshment drink at that time. By the end of the 19th century, popular brands like Liptons and Lyons secured the most market shares in the tea industry. The Victorian era highly accepted tea, as the working class felt it a fresh breather in their hectic lives. This surged the value of the Indian tea market. The modern Indian tea industry also bought global brands like Tetley and Typhoo. In India, states like West Bengal, Tripura, Assam, Sikkim, Nagaland and many others produce the largest quantities of tea. The Indian Government also supports the workers in the tea industry and brought several perks and benefits to sustain employment in the sector. A special loan for tea was launched by the Indian government in the year 2004. This loan structured unorganized outstanding capitals in the tea industry with the allowance to pay from five years to seven years.
The Tea Board of India is relentlessly trying to improve traditional markets like the UK, Russia, United Arab Emirates with the initiative to market in Iraq, Vietnam and Pakistan. The economic affairs committee also planned a special fund to support the tea industry and bring in more commercial value to the industry.
These are the roots and culture Uppma shares in her journey and she built a team with like-minded individuals and delivers deep values to Chai Walli. She is thankful for the people who support her vision of sharing heritage and cultures and appreciates the work of these artisans. The ingredients and the recipes from her family have definitely taken her company to new horizons. And all these started in a basement, with courage, grandfather’s recipes and determination. Uppma truly feels that a cup of chai can sooth the mind and bridge gaps between conversations and principles. The way is just to pour chai and sip it with your spirits accepting the taste of it. What do most Indian people eat every morning? The answer is definitely a cup of chai with a conversation.
This is what Uppma Virdi believes in. Uppma, being a lawyer and also a public speaker, strongly encourages people to follow their dreams. A girl from Punjab and the first generation of migrants to Australia, she has definitely come a long way. Uppma’s story is no different than others, where she worked as a lawyer on the weekdays and experimented with different flavors of tea during the weekends as a hobby. She also prepared fresh tea for people in the nearby markets. Her journey and social media has a huge connection, where she imparted knowledge about the ancient art of ayurvedic tea to the world. She shares a time when she expressed that Indian parents want stability for their children and a nice job is the answer to everything. Being an entrepreneur was never in her books, but it happened out of love. Afterall, entrepreneurship is building something up from the grounds and taking it to the realms of success. And this is what she did with Chai Walli.
On an Ending Note
A doctor, lawyer or an engineer is the first thing that is offered to the table when considering a stable and prosperous life. Uppma is a person who really sticks to her own paths and cares only about her own journey. She has shaped her mindset in a way that is not influenced by competition from others. As a successful entrepreneur, she herself is her only competition. And that is what matters the most. Chai Walli is as transparent as it gets, where Uppma knows the A to Z of her business. Her personal visits to the farms in India and ensuring proper practices and providing labor equality is enough to make the company a people’s enterprise and not a commercial firm. Uppma knows her employees and they support her in every walks of life. She also travels and explores remote parts of India, where she maintains a journal to note different stories of chai and the sentiments that are attached to the people. Her hashtag in humans of chai tells hundreds of stories of different chai walli and wallahs, who tell their journey the reason they love their trade.
These connections and stories are what we have as our valuable assets and Uppma brings that with her to Australia and shares with the entire world. The meaning of tea holds a huge part in the mind of Indians and Uppma understands the feelings behind it. Uppma’s team also won the World Tea Brewer award, where they prepared different flavors and served it to people adding some signature touch to it. The Australian Government supported Uppma Virdi to visit India and share mutual connections between the two countries. This was an experience to hold on to, where she prepared chai for the family of Australian High delegates. During her visit, she also carried the purpose of International Women’s Day, and she spoke in universities about the path toward success and offered inspiration to the students. Her mission to speak about equality among genders was her top priority during her visit in India. Uppma lives by the way of creating an ecosystem for herself, where she will have humility and passion towards every job she pursues. Her cooperation from everyone marks it a true motto of teamwork. And this is magical for her.
Uppma Virdi surely justifies her struggle and success, where she loves working for the art of making chai. Her overwhelming thoughts and hurdles are the constant motivation that she considers a drive for achieving her goal. It is not everyday you get to meet people who are living life by their own rules. If you do meet them, take in their positive vibes and willingness to succeed in every possibility and opportunities provided to them. Sometimes life will give you mountains to pass and it is the decision of you alone, how to pass it. But if we believe in ourselves and prepare ourselves for failure, success will come in our way after some failures. The idea is to keep trying and never stop believing in yourself. This sort of ethics will take an individual a long way.
