The Wild Side

Forest Pick is introducing wild teas to tea drinkers across the region and around the world

Like the wild teas of Yunnan Province in China, wild tea has been growing in the wild mountains of Southern Manipur from time immemorial. For most locals, like elsewhere in the region, the day doesn’t start without a cup of tea, that they process and brew themselves. But, surprisingly, the wild tea never got commercialized, despite the economy dwindling due to fragile jhoom cultivation or slash & burn agriculture.

Three sisters, Aijulie, Jemshe and Julie, wanted to do something about that. They had always wanted to create something that would impact people positively and not just make profit, which ultimately led them to Forest Pick. A family start-up, it is based out of Churachandpur district in Southern Manipur. ‘We wanted to start something that can help us showcase what our land holds to the outside world, something that will shine a light from within. The amalgamation of such wandering thoughts, led to the birth of an idea, around the time one of us visited Darjeeling. To experience how tea can help an economy grow in a mountainous and challenging topography like ours helped us see things in a different light,’ share the sisters, who are first generation entrepreneurs.

Brewing Goodness

Not many people are aware that wild tea is not very different from conventional tea estate or cultivated tea plants, except that they simply grow in the wild, ungroomed and untarnished. The trees can grow quite big and tall, making picking difficult. Most wild tea are handcrafted.