Tea awakes you in the morning and cools you down in the evening. The refreshing nature of tea makes people crave for it. The demand for tea is increasing uniformly all over the world. As a result, tea plantation grows every year.
India is the largest producer, exporter and consumer of tea. There is an ample scope for making a career in this field. The demand for human resources to operate and handle them with professional expertise increases tremendously. Although, this is not a very popular career option among the students, jobs can be very interesting.
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Personal Attributes Required:
- Outgoing nature
- Leadership qualities
- Level headed
- Work under pressure
- Agile & prompt
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There are a plenty of jobs emanates from the Tea Management. Tea tasting is the highly specialized area of work. Other areas are researchers, plantation managers, tea brokers, consultants etc. Apart from this, hands-on training is the best way to start and progress in this field. Tea associations and the Tea Board of India offer lucrative positions to the talented.
Work in the Tea industry includes plantation, processing, auctioning, branding, marketing and research. Plantation work involves nurturing tea plants in the plantations, which includes preparing the soil, applying the appropriate fertilizers, choosing the right variety best suited for the prevailing conditions and supervising the pinching and plucking of the leaves. Processing work involves the crushing, tearing and curling of the leaves that take place in factories. The tea is then packed and dispatched to auction centres. The various samples of tea from different plantations are tested, blended and branded by the tea tasters in the auction centres. Tea brokers who have a background in planting, tasting and a know how of market trends auction the tea and the Marketing personnel market the final product. Although computers are now being used for blending varieties of tea, the tea taster’s verdict is still considered the ultimate test for determining the quality of tea.
An experienced tea planter can move into tea brokerage or tea tasting or take up a job in a tea broking house. Very senior professionals can branch off into becoming consultants offering advice on the varieties of tea to be planted, new varieties and their sources, recruitment and training of personnel, compensation, benefits and incentives to labor etc. and academically inclined people may get into research positions open at many tea plantations. They have to be trained to make their palates proficient enough to register even the minute differences.
There are a number of Institutes providing training in Tea management. These institutes teach tea production to processing, finance marketing and sales where tea tasting forms part of the curriculum.
CAREER OPTIONS
| Plantation / Factory Manager |
| Tea Taster |
| Researcher |
| Tea Brokers |
| Consultants |
Institutes providing Tea Management courses are:
1. Assam Agricultural University.
2. Department of Tea Husbandry and Technology, Jorhat, Assam.
3. Dipras Institute of Professional Studies, Kolkata.
4. Darjeeling Tea Research and Management Association, Kadamtala.
5. Assam Darjeeling Tea Research Centre, Kurseong, Darjeeling.
6. UPASI Tea Research Institute, Nirar Dam BPO, Valparai.
7. Birla Institute of Futuristic Studies, 17A Darga Road, Park Circus, Calcutta.
8. The Tea Tasters Academy, Coonoor, Nilgiris.