Photograph — Tea plantations, Darjeeling. Source image unavailable; caption preserved.
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Tea Gardens · West Bengal — Darjeeling hills
Darjeeling Tea
Grown at altitude in the Himalayan foothills, Darjeeling's muscatel-flavoured orthodox tea is the most internationally recognised of India's teas and one of the country's earliest and most litigated GI protections.
GI status: GI-registered, 2004 (India's first GI)
Shelf life: 12–24 months in sealed, moisture-proof packaging
Women-led sector
| Category | Tea Gardens |
|---|---|
| Region | West Bengal — Darjeeling hills |
| GI status | GI-registered, 2004 (India's first GI) |
| Typical shelf life | 12–24 months in sealed, moisture-proof packaging |
| Women's role in production | Roughly 55–60% of Darjeeling's tea-garden workforce is women, who do almost all of the two-leaves-and-a-bud hand-plucking that determines the leaf quality this tea is famous for. |
Why this fits a low-wastage SHG model: Properly dried and packed orthodox tea is shelf-stable for a year or more, which is exactly why tea, unlike fresh leaf, is a safe SHG-scale inventory item.
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