All The Way To Svalbard

Discover the magic of savouring piping hot Assam tea next to the North Pole.

- Subhasish Chakraborty

Norway, a country blessed with glaciers, magnificent Fjords and majestic mountains has been on the radar of adventure tourists for a long time now. This part of the world has also been a much-preferred locale for shooting films, largely due to Norway’s stupendous diversity of landscape and topography. The temptation of blissfully resting in the midst of the awesome Northern Lights for instance, has lured many a visitor to this fascinating country in Scandinavia. And, the best part of visiting Norway is that it is ‘unspoilt’.

The First Sip

I have always had a deep sentimental attachment with the world famous Assam tea since my childhood, as I was born and brought up in Assam. In spite of relocating to Kolkata, I still make sure that my morning cuppa is from Assam’s famed tea gardens. And the gentleman from Assam who supplies my annual quota of tea is a humble, publicity shy bloke - Pradip Chakraborty, based in India’s tea town Dibrugarh.

Pradip has silently been working as a crusader of Assam’s tea tourism for close to three decades now and he has been promoting Assam tea in metropolitan India—Delhi, Kolkata, Bangalore and Vizag through ‘word-of-mouth’ publicity via the burgeoning Bengali community domiciled in these cities. Today, the Bengali bhadralok’s penchant for tea is well known and this small town guy from one of the remotest corners of India’s Northeast has been promoting the finest variety of Assam tea with literally no support from the Government.