Guwahati, March 10 -- Our beloved English teacher once dramatically pronounced a line that forever changed how I viewed tea: "What would the world do without tea!" He even introduced us to the 18th-century British writer Sydney Smith, who penned a chapter filled with reflective sentences like, "Thank God for tea!" and "I am glad I was not born before tea!"

Growing up in Kamrup, Assam, my knowledge of tea was limited. I only knew about one way to prepare it (with milk and sugar), and tea gardens existed solely in the pages of books, novels, and Assamese movies. For many in western Assam, tea remained a world waiting to be explored.

Through various reporting assignments, I visited tea plantations in eastern Assam. Yet, a fantasy lingered:...