sat between them.
Shaking out their umbrellas, the buyers followed the wide, curving stairwell, lined with a wall of small tiles in vibrant shades of California blue, to the auction room on the second floor. With six gently tiered rows, each with a dozen or so seats and an aisle running up the middle, it has the feel of a college lecture hall. A square of wood attached to the armrest unfolds into a small table.
Buyers greeted each other as the seats gradually filled. Some made last calls on their BlackBerrys or stepped outside into the foyer for a cigarette. They all carried the day’s auction catalog, some fifty or so pages thick. Its closely printed sheets showed the lot number, garden, grade, date packaged and dispatched, number of kilos and of packages in each lot, and the valuation of the tea up for auction. Each lot had been available to taste beforehand, and buyers had put tick marks beside the ones they hoped to get—teas that fit their own purchasing levels and desired flavor profiles. A handful of women stood out among the mostly male crowd.
Just moments before nine a.m., three J. Thomas men entered the room. They shook a few hands as they came through the door and nodded to acquaintances, but didn’t dawdle on their way to the front, where a long desk sat on a dais. A gentleman in his sixties took a seat at one end, a man in his twenties sat at the other, and in the middle, a step higher and with a slightly raised lectern before him, was a man in age between the other two wearing a striped dress shirt, silk tie, and angular glasses that gave his face a somewhat severe look. This was the auctioneer, Anindyo Choudhury, the most influential man in Darjeeling tea.
Going under his hammer that day were 794 lots from fifty-some gardens, a mix of low-, medium-, and high-end—or priced—teas. Theyhad largely been produced a month or so beforehand as the harvest moved from the shoulder banji period into prime second flush.
Choudhury’s copy of the catalog sat open before him. His right hand held a pencil to jot the final sales amount and his left a wooden gavel. No microphone, no laptop. At the back of the room, above the heads of the buyers, is a clock—the same plain, efficient digital type that hangs in schoolrooms, cinema lobbies, and rental-car agencies—which Choudhury watched closely. When the red numbers flashed 9:00, he began.
He gave the lot number, name of the garden, grade of tea, and a line about quality if superior. For most lots, he moved up in Rs 5 or 10 increments, but on some of the higher-fetching teas that fall for thousands, he would skip 100 at a time. For tea that had been valued in the catalog at Rs 1,000, say, he opened at Rs 700 to 750.
“Tata five hundred,” he called out during the bidding on an early lot, acknowledging the Tata Global buyer’s nod. Rs 505 got a nod from another buyer, and Tata agreed to 510. “Five-ten Tata,” Choudhury said. “Five-fifteen? Any takers at five-fifteen? Any takers at five-fifteen?” He paused only a beat and then said, “Knocking to Tata at five-ten,” smacking down the gavel. The two men flanking him both noted the buyer and agreed price. (A young woman from J. Thomas sitting among the buyers did likewise.) Choudhury penciled a quick note in his catalog and within a breath moved on to the next lot.
And on down the list, page after page, in a clipped, slightly impatient pace. Far from the chanting singsong of a southern-American auctioneer filling a room with a steady river of musical phrasing, or offering praise or eulogies to the tea on offer, his style is professional, perfunctory, even a bit dry. He only pauses to sharpen his pencil.
J. Thomas & Co. is the oldest and largest existing tea auctioneer and broker in the world. (The London tea auction ceased in 1998, after more than three hundred years.) The first public sale of tea in India took place in their Calcutta office on December 27, 1861, a consignment of 250 chests from the East
Shaking out their umbrellas, the buyers followed the wide, curving stairwell, lined with a wall of small tiles in vibrant shades of California blue, to the auction room on the second floor. With six gently tiered rows, each with a dozen or so seats and an aisle running up the middle, it has the feel of a college lecture hall. A square of wood attached to the armrest unfolds into a small table.
Buyers greeted each other as the seats gradually filled. Some made last calls on their BlackBerrys or stepped outside into the foyer for a cigarette. They all carried the day’s auction catalog, some fifty or so pages thick. Its closely printed sheets showed the lot number, garden, grade, date packaged and dispatched, number of kilos and of packages in each lot, and the valuation of the tea up for auction. Each lot had been available to taste beforehand, and buyers had put tick marks beside the ones they hoped to get—teas that fit their own purchasing levels and desired flavor profiles. A handful of women stood out among the mostly male crowd.
Just moments before nine a.m., three J. Thomas men entered the room. They shook a few hands as they came through the door and nodded to acquaintances, but didn’t dawdle on their way to the front, where a long desk sat on a dais. A gentleman in his sixties took a seat at one end, a man in his twenties sat at the other, and in the middle, a step higher and with a slightly raised lectern before him, was a man in age between the other two wearing a striped dress shirt, silk tie, and angular glasses that gave his face a somewhat severe look. This was the auctioneer, Anindyo Choudhury, the most influential man in Darjeeling tea.
Going under his hammer that day were 794 lots from fifty-some gardens, a mix of low-, medium-, and high-end—or priced—teas. Theyhad largely been produced a month or so beforehand as the harvest moved from the shoulder banji period into prime second flush.
Choudhury’s copy of the catalog sat open before him. His right hand held a pencil to jot the final sales amount and his left a wooden gavel. No microphone, no laptop. At the back of the room, above the heads of the buyers, is a clock—the same plain, efficient digital type that hangs in schoolrooms, cinema lobbies, and rental-car agencies—which Choudhury watched closely. When the red numbers flashed 9:00, he began.
He gave the lot number, name of the garden, grade of tea, and a line about quality if superior. For most lots, he moved up in Rs 5 or 10 increments, but on some of the higher-fetching teas that fall for thousands, he would skip 100 at a time. For tea that had been valued in the catalog at Rs 1,000, say, he opened at Rs 700 to 750.
“Tata five hundred,” he called out during the bidding on an early lot, acknowledging the Tata Global buyer’s nod. Rs 505 got a nod from another buyer, and Tata agreed to 510. “Five-ten Tata,” Choudhury said. “Five-fifteen? Any takers at five-fifteen? Any takers at five-fifteen?” He paused only a beat and then said, “Knocking to Tata at five-ten,” smacking down the gavel. The two men flanking him both noted the buyer and agreed price. (A young woman from J. Thomas sitting among the buyers did likewise.) Choudhury penciled a quick note in his catalog and within a breath moved on to the next lot.
And on down the list, page after page, in a clipped, slightly impatient pace. Far from the chanting singsong of a southern-American auctioneer filling a room with a steady river of musical phrasing, or offering praise or eulogies to the tea on offer, his style is professional, perfunctory, even a bit dry. He only pauses to sharpen his pencil.
J. Thomas & Co. is the oldest and largest existing tea auctioneer and broker in the world. (The London tea auction ceased in 1998, after more than three hundred years.) The first public sale of tea in India took place in their Calcutta office on December 27, 1861, a consignment of 250 chests from the East
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