ANTH 206 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Darjeeling Tea, Camellia Sinensis, Terroir
8 Jun 2018
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Department
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Professor
9/28/17
• Besky studied the links between terroir and Darjeeling tea in the Darjeeling region.
• Different levels of identity conflicts: West Bengal wants to force people in the state to learn
Bengali, previously Gorka ethnicity focused on Hindi and English, do not want to change
o Bengali is linked to a more regional identity and economy
• Terroir
o Taste of place
o Combines distinct ecological conditions, made by certain people in traditional/hand-crafted
ways
o Examples are Cognac, Champagne, x-virgin olive oil (consumers will not necessarily consume
commodity in the way producers envisioned, meaning changes as you change cultures),
American craft-cheese makers (inverted engineering process, instead of starting by making
cheese they found processes adapted to local setting- process is emphasized).
• GI's Political Economy
o Actors:
▪ State/Nationalism- "invented tradition." TRIPS agreement is that intellectual property
rights are the government's. Want people to feel the sense of belonging that a
commodity that represents the place can give, boosts national feelings.
• Restrict the tea's production, drive up prices, creates myths (conspicuous
consumption).
▪ DTA/tea boards- marketing: branding terroir and labor. Fake rareness- cultivate
certain descriptions, emphasize aspects of production and place.
▪ Plantation Owners- sanitized images, gardens, tourism.
o Isn't just economic interests- creating the image of a "garden" is to disassociate from British
colonial roots. Don't want to be regarded as a colonial manager, have their own identity.
• Ecology
o Similar climate, sloping mountains and humidity in Nepal.
o Same ethnic workers- lack of colonization in Nepal made access to market difficult, people
suffered famines. Needed to go to India (even though it was exploitative) for food and
shelter (no wages).
o Camellia sinensis- the tea itself was imported from China- one of the biggest industrial
espionage endeavors, Robert Fortune went to China to steal the secrets of tea production in
the 19th century.
▪ Didn't know how to process and preserve tea
▪ No descriptions of what kind of soil the tea itself actually needs.
▪ Political ecology? Article does’t really ephasize tea productio- Vayda critiqued
those claiming to be political ecologists by focusing purely on ecology.
• Besky looks at relations of production and society- how the benefits are shared
• Political ecologists would look at if the production is sustainable, what impact
the tea has on the soil, etc.
• Women Workers
o Shown as figures of nationalism and fertility (wear traditional clothes in advertisements,
wear normal work clothes when actually working)
o Purity- closeness to nature, intersect with race (Nepali women have attributes seen as being
attractive in India)
o "Traditioal" koledge of a idustrial process that has’t chaged since 1800s.
o Nepali labor force managed by non-Nepali
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