NPR

Tea Farmer In India Leads Charge For Organic, Evades The Charge Of Elephants

In the biggest tea-producing region of India, hazards range from red spider mites to wild elephants. One brave grower faces them head on, all while spurring a movement to grow tea organically.
Tea pickers stand in the scorching sun, hand-plucking the tea leaves for about eight hours a day.

As you clutch a cuppa for a bit of winter warmth, spare a moment to consider the elaborate process that goes into producing that seemingly simple sip of tea.

In the biggest tea-growing region in India, the hazards alone range from red spider mites to herds of wild elephants.

Grower Tenzing Bodosa, a native of Assam, fights the former and unusually invites the latter.

From the large Bodo tribe and widely known by his first name, Tenzing stands beside the vermilion flames of a brick oven that provides the heat for a

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