Five Decades of Tea. Countless Stories. One Steeped Life.
Five decades across the tea estates of Kerala, Assam, and the Nilgiris — candid anecdotes of planters who worked hard, played harder, and never forgot the first flush.
Tea Planter • Author • Industry Veteran
With five decades in the industry, Gurrinder Singh 'Indi' Khanna drifted into tea through a series of fortunate coincidences that became a lifelong passion. His planting career began in 1975 as an Estate Assistant Superintendent in Kerala's High Ranges, before relocating to Assam four years later.
After sixteen years as a tea planter, he moved to Dubai in 1990 to found Tea 'n' Teas, travelling the world to promote tea. Stints in Sri Lanka and the Nilgiris followed, and today he runs Tea Studio — a unique speciality tea facility managed by his daughter, producing bespoke limited-edition teas.
Honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award by the UK Tea Academy, his roots now run deep in the Nilgiris hills, where he lives with his wife and four dogs — still sharing the stories that made a demanding life unforgettable.
Tête-à-Tea is a curated collection of anecdotes drawn from personal experiences as a tea planter in South India and Assam during the 1970s and 80s — an intimate, behind-the-scenes glimpse into the humour, challenges, and camaraderie of estate life.
In those early years, tea planting was not for the lily-livered. Stationed on remote estates far from city comforts, with superiors expecting unwavering round-the-clock commitment, it was a demanding twenty-four-seven existence.
What threads these tales together is the pioneering planters' ethos: work hard and play harder. From 'A Hump on the Road' to more than seventy blog-born stories, thirty-eight unforgettable accounts find their home in this anthology.
Rich with photographs from personal albums and spanning the mist, the estates, the people, and the stories, Tête-à-Tea invites readers into a life well steeped in tea.
Some days were hard like the rains.
Some days sweet like first flush.
All of them, unforgettable.
Follow Gurrinder Singh 'Indi' Khanna on social media or get your copy of Tête-à-Tea today.
