You swirl the golden liquid in a cup first. Take a whiff of the aroma. Have a sip. Roll it around in your mouth to release the flavours. They could be full-bodied, floral, fruity or acidic; the tannins could be either subtle or pronounced. The methods for distinguishing good tea from a mediocre one are similar to wine, so why not bring the two together? That’s the thought that led Guwahati-based entrepreneur Alpana Saikia to craft the state’s first ‘tea wine’ using Assam CTC (crush, tear, curl) tea leaves. Christened ‘Hollong 9’—named after the state tree of Assam and ‘9’ being her “lucky number”—the drink is set to make its commercial debut by January next year.
The 51-year-old’s fascination with wine-making began after her marriage to a tea garden executive in 1996. “There were abundant fruit trees in the areas adjoining the tea gardens.
Like my peers, I too started experimenting with crafting wine from pineapples, mangoes, ginger, peaches and even bananas,” she says. While her fruit wines found many takers among friends and family, Saikia’s love for tea—and the fact that she was surrounded by it on the Mariani estate in Jorhat—prompted her to create wine from it. “The robust aroma of fresh tea leaves was the trigger,” she says.
Living in the back of beyond in 2000, where there was no internet, Saikia took to gathering recipes from “here and there”. “I kept adding my own inputs, learning along the way. My focus was to make the wine flavourful. Colleagues, friends and family were impressed by the outcome,” she says. The learning process went on till 2007, when she realised that she had a winner. But the idea of mass production only struck her a decade later when she came across a 2017 study by the Tocklai Tea Research Institute at Jorhat, which reiterated that wine could be made from Assam’s tea—CTC, orthodox and green tea varieties.
“I started researching and the deeper I dug, the more I realised that although a lot of study has been done on it, no one has ever tried to commercialise it,” says Saikia, who seized the opportunity to give Assam tea, “our heritage, our pride”, a new avatar. But it was easier said than done.
The state had no policy that could regulate ‘tea wine’. In 2019, the government introduced licencing for only heritage wines. Saikia was the first to seek one for tea wine. She reached out to the state excise department and after several rounds of discussions and scrutiny of earlier research on the subject, a policy supporting production of tea wine was introduced in June this year.
Saikia uses CTC, natural spices and dried fruits with 12 percent alcohol content to brew her semi-sweet magic concoction. Crafting takes around 45-60 days. The longer it steeps, the more enhanced the taste. The wine has a shelf-life of up to five years. Once readied, it has floral notes of cardamom, cinnamon and the caramalised taste of dried fruits.
“We have set up our make-shift factory in Nalbari, Tihu. What began in my humble kitchen with large steel drums is now evolving into a full-fledged factory,” says Saikia, who is also looking at focusing on organic tea for the production and is in talks with tea estates to procure high-quality leaves. “I also plan to experiment with various varieties beyond CTC,” says Saikia. Here’s raising a toast to this budding vintner.
“We have set up our make-shift factory in Nalbari at Tihu. What began in my humble kitchen with large steel drums is now evolving into a full-fledged factory.” Alpana Saikia, homemaker and vintner
