New Delhi, Aug. 17 -- Mahatma Gandhi advocated against tea. It was a colonial product, after all, and he was promoting Swadeshi. He also disapproved of tea's effects on the body. He thought the tannin in teas had the same effect on the body as that used in the tanneries to harden leather. In his time, even as the nationalists set out to discourage tea drinking, the East India Company was keenly marketing it in India, a country with no prior culture of tea, except in the far eastern parts.

Eighty years later, tea is far from being a colonial habit.

A recent LinkedIn post by tea veteran Abhijeet Hazarika spoke of the first commercial production of tea extracts in Assam. Hazarika has been mentoring the team behind the company Evolving Inno...