Nepal Tea Collective

A 15-year-old boy, inspired by the tranquility of Darjeeling's tea gardens, envisioned a better life for his struggling village in Phidim, Eastern Nepal. Upon returning, Deepak Prakash Baskota embarked on a challenging journey to establish the first certified organic tea garden, Kanchanjangha Tea Estate (KTE), at the age of 15. Despite initial skepticism and a lack of support for the novel idea of tea plantation, Mr. Baskota persevered, learning and experimenting to turn his vision into a reality. Now, 39 years later, KTE stands as a testament to his determination and commitment to uplift the living conditions of his community. Our story at Nepal Tea Collective (NTC) begins 32 years later, with second-generation and third-generation tea producers and Nepali immigrants Nishchal Banskota and Pratik Rijal when they started NTC in 2016. They continued their family's 40-year-long tea legacy in the industry, embarking on a vision to sustainably leverage tea as a social catalyst to uplift Nepali tea farmers out of poverty while introducing the best Nepali teas to the world. Since its inception in 2016, Nepal Tea Collective has worked closely with seven partner farms in Eastern Nepal. Nepal Tea Collective has sought to integrate extensive knowledge of Nepali and international tea markets to create long-term, sustainable change for Nepali farmers, ultimately uplifting a million farmers in the region out of poverty by 2050. Since 2016, we have grown, working with seven farms in Nepal and facilitating positive change for 712 farmers. Similarly, on the farmers' front, the average wage has increased from USD 67 in 2016 to USD 90 in 2022, a 33% increase. This improvement aligns with our vision of uplifting farmers out of poverty, benchmarking the UN's $2 per day earnings threshold. However, we are well aware that the benefits to the tea producers through access to international markets are not fully passed on to the tea farmer level. Thus, Nepal Tea Collective is constantly focused on exporting specialty tea because, on average, the tea plucking rates for tea farmers, as well as the international market for tea producers, are almost four times more than non-specialty tea.