Storm in a Tea Cup: History, Culture and Ecology of Tea

‘Storm in a Tea Cup: History, Culture and Ecology of Tea’ is an evening of conversations and performative readings around a beverage that has enlivened endless encounters, brightened mornings and evenings, and changed the course of history in Kolkata, a city intimately connected to the global tea trade.

Whatever be the impact of the economics of the trade, the Bengalis adopted this foreign drink as their own. Even the Chinese word for tea, Cha became part of the Bengali vocabulary and within decades, almost every Bengali’s morning started with Cha.

The evening features a moderated conversation between two connoisseurs of tea, who bring their unique perspectives to bear on tea – the plant, the product, and the protocol (or ritual) of tea drinking.

Nazes Afroz, journalist, photographer, writer and translator, will moderate the discussion, and introduce the way in which tea entered the consciousness of modern Bengal. Shuddhabrata Sengupta, artist and writer with the Raqs Media Collective, will forage the history of tea, and its place in the turbulent global economy of the nineteenth century, to mine its significance as an inspiration for artists and thinkers and Sonia Jabbar, third generation tea planter, entrepreneur, writer, with the historic Nuxalbari Tea Estate in North Bengal, will look at the Tea Plantation through a historic and ecological lens, and talk about how she attempts to forge an ecologically sustainable form of tea cultivation. 

The conversation will be followed by readings of excerpts from Bangla and English literature that celebrate tea.

This programme is part of the exhibition ‘Travelling Plants Kolkata’ initiated by Goethe-Institut and presented in collaboration with Indian Museum, Ministry of Culture, Government of India, Botanical Survey of India, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Government of India. Opening on 6 September the exhibition will remain on view till 4 October 2024 at the Indian Museum from 10:30 am to 6:00 pm daily (except Mondays and public holidays)

The programme is open to all.