Giant ferns whipped the car as we bumped through the undergrowth in Guria. Like many overgrown fields in Western Georgia, thousands of tea bushes lay beneath the jungle, strangled by weeds; remnants of an industry that has mostly been forgotten since the collapse of the Soviet Union…
…I was travelling through Georgia’s tea regions with my business partners to meet some of these tea makers and source teas to sell in the UK. Our trip took us to the forested slopes and minarets of Upper Adjara, across the Gurian hills backdropped by snowy mountains, and to the mining town of Chiatura. Georgia’s tea is as diverse as its landscapes.
Back on the dirt track in Guria, we arrived in a fertile, green valley with tall trees and patchwork farmland reminiscent of Tuscany. In the centre of the village, an abandoned theater and rusting memorial statue, common sights in this region; relics of more affluent times gone by.
Here, we met two sisters, Inga and Lana, who have revived their father’s tea plantations that lay unused for two decades when their family moved to France…