The World Of Luxury Teas

The Good Life Company (TGL Co) is a luxury tea organisation which is bringing the finest of world teas to the evolving Indian tea consumer, and also has ambitious plans to export its unique blends to a global clientele.

- Sudipta Dev

Speciality flavoured tea is a global business, it is a `50,000 crore market worldwide. In India, the market is still miniscule when it comes to volumes as there is not much awareness of such products. The Good Life Company (TGL Co), which recently launched its first experiential store in Sofitel Mumbai recently, and has plans to launch five more by the end of this month (in Mumbai and Delhi), aims to be a game changer in this space. Bhuman Dani, director, TGL Co shares how, “There are more than 25 speciality tea players in the country, we respect all of them, they have amazing blends, but we are very different. Most players source their tea leaves from the Indian subcontinent (India Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan), but we source the finest leaves from China, Japan, Taiwan.”

TGL Co's black tea comes from Sri Lanka and Darjeeling, green tea comes from Yunnan and Fujian province of China and Japan, oolong from Taiwan and white tea again from Fujian, China. “We basically have the principle of going to where these teas grow best. We go a step further in terms of R&D and sourcing. Tea like wine grows with deep roots, it sucks in the flavours of nearby plantations. So where our teas are grown we have taken efforts to grow vegetables, fruits and flowers next to these tea leaves, so when you taste them, though they are nonflavoured you get a fruity aftertaste,” mentions Dani.