Assam Tea Trading Corporation

Assam Tea Trading Corporation is right on Guru Govind Road. We are at Gurudwara Chowk, which stays loud all day long with the traffic and the people walking by. If you’re looking for us, we are right in front of Laxmi Cycle. Everyone knows where the cycle shop is, so it makes it easy for the drivers to find us when they bring the tea from Assam. The shop is filled with the smell of dry tea leaves. It’s a strong smell that gets into your clothes. We’ve got stacks of wooden chests and burlap sacks everywhere. Sometimes it's hard to walk through the aisles without bumping into something. We don't use any fancy machinery. We just use scales and scoops. The floor is concrete and we’ve had to patch it a few times. Being at the Chowk means we see everything that happens in the street. We’ve seen the same people walk past for ten years. We don't do any big advertising. People just see the sign or smell the tea and come in. It’s a lot of physical work, lifting the heavy bags and moving them around. My back usually aches by the time we close up. We just keep doing what we’ve always done. The tea comes in, we sort it, and it goes back out to the local shops.