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My father was a tea connoisseur and so I grew up drinking the finest Indian tea.
I remember going tea shopping with him in Calcutta as a kid and it was a big ritual. The shops used to have large wooden boxes with various teas coming from Darjeeling and Assam and my father will ask, “ Dada, what’s the finest you got this time? Make me a blend.”
The Dada, i.e. the tea shop owner would then dig his steel ladle into the tea boxes and scoop up a few grams from here and mix it with few grams from there all the while sniffing the tea and nodding his head in satisfaction (or not).
A good 10 minutes later a customized tea blend would be ready for us – perfect as per my father’s taste – little heavy on body and extremely aromatic over all – a rightly mixed Assam and Darjeeling tea. Those were my first live lessons on tea and tea blends.
Back home, my mother would brew the perfect tea for us using her delicate porcelain tea set – handed down from her mother – which came with its own designer coasters and kettle cover.
About Susmita Das Gupta, Tea Artist:
Susmita Das Gupta is recognized as the first global Tea Artist from India, dedicated to teaching the art of drinking fine tea. She is on a mission to introduce Indian specialty tea to the global audience.
As a tea artist, Susmita has been conducting tea workshops and training programs across India for more than a decade now.
In April 2024, she founded the Indian School of Tea, India’s first Tea Education & Training School, aimed at both Indian and international audiences (www.indianschooloftea.com).
In 2021, she introduced “Tea Appreciation” classes at one of India’s top Hotel Management Institutes, fostering interest in tea at the graduate level and preparing future Tea Professionals to meet the rising global demand. She also organized India’s first-ever Tea Education Tour for hospitality students, inspired by wine educational tours in hotel schools.
Susmita is the organizer of Tea Festival India, hosted at JW Marriott, Bangalore, a groundbreaking B2C event that showcased Indian premium and specialty teas under one roof.
In August 2024, she was invited as a judge for Nepal Tea Challenge 2024, Nepal’s first tea championship, where she evaluated over 140 specialty teas across nine categories. In July 2018, she was appointed the Official Tea Artist and Tea Blogger for the Paris-based AVPA’s Teas of the World Contest. Additionally, she became the first Indian speaker at the Nomad Tea Festival in Europe (2020) and Australia (2022).In 2021, Susmita received the Women Consultant of the Year award for her innovative tea consulting solutions and the Best Influencer Award from VyapaarJagat for her contributions to Indian Tea. She has also served as a Subject Matter Expert for Boston Consulting Group on a state government tea tourism project and conducted one of her largest Corporate Tea Programs with Ford Motor Company.
Susmita is certified in Tea Sensory Appreciation and Tea Blending from La-quintessence, Paris, and is actively involved with the Indian Chamber of Commerce’s Tea Committee, working to promote Indian tea domestically and internationally.
With an MBA in Marketing & Finance (dual specialization) from the Great Lakes Institute of Management, Chennai, India, Susmita has been a successful Brand Strategist and entrepreneur since 2008. Her book on Personal Branding, Get What You Desire – The Personal Branding Way to Money, Fame & Respect, made it to Amazon’s Top 100 book list in 2023
Some of the major Tea workshops by Susmita are:
She was also associated with Hyatt Centric Bangalore to conduct monthly Tea based events.
As a Tea Influencer, she is regularly quoted in Indian and various international newspapers and magazines and have been interviewed by media houses like Khaleej Times, Gulf News, TOI, ET, and others.