Darlings,

Great piece of news.

Excerpt from the Financial Times.

FYI.

Ciao

Vish

Darjeeling to pop the Champagne?

Dylan and Sarah Cameron — from Leeds (UK) — are planning their 15th wedding anniversary, sometime in mid-June, in Darjeeling. “Dylan is a great lover of tea,” Sarah told HT over email. “When he read on the web that Darjeeling tea has been given Geographical Indication (GI) status, he jumped.”
The Camerons are one of the foreign ‘tea-tourists’, whose tribe will now increase given that Darjeeling’s brand equity has gone up several notches after the tea growing in the region has been accorded the international GI mark.

It happened in Champagne, Bordeaux and Tequila — so, why not Darjeeling?

Last week, Forbes reported that high-end travel planner Abercrombie & Kent (A&K) was organising 14-day packages to Darjeeling and Bhutan priced at $7,000-plus per head. Bookings are full up till the beginning of October. “With Darjeeling tea being accorded GI, tea tourism is the best bet,” said Sandeep Mukherjee, secretary, Darjeeling Tea Association (DTA).
“Earlier, tea gardens were producing and selling teas but lately the gardens are diversifying towards tea tourism.” Gardens like Glenburn Tea Estate are even organising helicopter charters “on request”.

GI for Darjeeling tea means that it's now officially recognised that the tea grown and produced in 87 gardens in the region has special and inherent qualities, that cannot be replicated and imitated.

Darjeeling tea will now be called just Darjeeling, just like Champagne (wine produced in Champagne district), Bordeaux (wine produced in Bordeaux region), Tequila (spirit made in Tequila, Mexico) or Cognac (brandy produced in Cognac).