Polish Nobel Prize-winning author Wladyslaw Reymont wrote The Peasants, a book in four volumes, each representing a season, and it was published in different years — autumn (1904), winter (1905), spring (1906) and summer (1909). The title of each volume defines a tetralogy in one vegetative cycle that regulates a repetitive rhythm of life. Parallel to that rhythm is a calendar of customs, traditions, festivals and harvests, all linked to a particular season. The division of the seasons underlines the relationship of humanity with nature. 

Reymont explains how eternal returns, through the seasons, occur in a calendar of cycles. The only tea garden in Sikkim, Temi, is also an example of “eternal returns”; it has been created by virtue of Sikkim&’s people knowing about the natural elements of the state.

Sikkim&’s neighbour, Darjeeling, has tea estates that were set up more than a century ago. Paradoxically, Temi began its odyssey as recently as 1969. As Reymont explained through his book, the relationship with humankind and nature is important. Sikkim&’s people found that the vegetative cycle involving tea plants could respond well to the state&’s conditions, exemplifying his theory that the inhabitants of a location are blessed with an inherent knowledge of the locale. 

Let us study, in brief, a few features of Sikkim. What are the factors that make it different? What else contributes to the quality of this idyllic tea estate that has amazing potential and has become the pride of the government of Sikkim? This tea garden, spread across 177 hectares in an attractive topography is reckoned by many to be, perhaps, one of the best tea gardens in the world.

HH Risley, of The Indian Civil Service, observed in 1879 that there were no towns or even villages in Sikkim; he noted that a collection of houses was established near the Raja&’s palaces at Tumlong and Gangtok. The larger monasteries, such as Pemiongchi and Tashiding, had houses nearby and other abodes were located near bazaars at Rhenock, Pakhyong or Rungeet. But to term those groups of houses a village would be incorrect. Risley stated that there were some 36 monasteries in Sikkim and these apparently signified what could be broadly termed as settlements, because of several houses next to each of these sacred places. It is, therefore, important to delve into the relevance of these isolated settlements in Sikkim that involve Temi&’s origins because the area where the tea garden is located was, in the past, an interesting if small remote colony.

The natural vegetation in the higher Alpine zone consists of shrubby and herbaceous plants with bright flowers. Bees and butterflies proliferate in harmony with plants in these areas, the insects helping to sustain much of the vegetation by virtue of pollination. Temi, being located in the temperate zone, is not subjected to extremes in temperatures.  Risley&’s observations of the absence of villages have, in a surreal manner, applied to what Temi was in the early 1900s compared to its vibrant existence today. 

In the past, it was a Sherpa settlement that was developed primarily because of a unit under the forest department; in addition, a house owned by missionaries was also at the site. The area was ideal for cultivating millet, corn and even rice on terraced slopes. The slopes that originate from the Tendong hill range have a gentle north-south gradient of 30-50 per cent, and the climate may be described as salubrious for humanity, flora and fauna. 

Sikkim has five seasons — winter, spring, summer and autumn, with a monsoon period between June and September. Temperatures seldom exceed 28 degrees Celsius. Risley describes “the ever-blowing gales” that undoubtedly attribute a regulating  factor to the temperatures of Sikkim. These gales carry pollen from the higher Alpine reaches and continue to the lower temperate zone to which the pollen-laden gales descend on Temi&’s tea bushes; this is a form of “largesse” provided by nature and there is no denying that the pollen remains on the young tea shoots, which, when manufactured, impart an exquisite and unique flavour to Temi&’s tea. It is perfectly credible to learn of the tea estate&’s significant accolades when the Tea Board of India awarded it the “All India Quality Award” for an astonishing period of two consecutive years, in 1994 and 1995.

Temi&’s tea plants constitute more than 4,000 species thrive in Sikkim. The many species of flora in this location was described as “infinite” by botanist JD Hooker.  He went on to add that “Sikkim has types of flora similar to the tropics all the way to the poles, and probably no other country of equal or larger extent on the globe can present so many features of interest in the botanical world”. This is indicative of tea being welcomed into Sikkim with the assurance that tea plants will thrive with equally good health as all the other thousands of species of plants that have been living in the state&’s conducive environment for thousands of years. This location, of some 1,800 square miles, has an incredible variety of almost 600 species of butterflies, as catalogued by Henry John Elwes and Otto Moller, in 1888.

Recent studies by Mondol and Gupta have also confirmed many species of butterflies in the region. Their presence is a signal that the area is unpolluted. Butterflies will be free in Temi as well, because the estate maintains a rigid policy of organic farming. Himalayan cypress and cherry blossom trees surrounding Temi emphasise the omnipresent features of nature living in harmony. All these factors from the air to the ground have, indeed, combined to describe Temi and Sikkim as E Pluribus, Unum, or “out of many, one”.