Venkateshawara Tea Industries

Up here in Ooty, on Coonoor Road, you’ll find us at Auckland Bunglow. Venkateshawara Tea Industries has been using this old building for quite some time. It’s a beautiful area, often covered in mist in the mornings, which is quite nice when you’re starting the day. The bunglow itself has a lot of history and definitely looks its age, but it serves us well. Inside, we have our equipment and space for sorting through the tea leaves. It’s a very manual process in many ways, and there’s always a faint scent of tea in every room. We don't have a polished showroom or anything fancy like that. It’s more of a practical workshop where we do the sorting and packing. The wooden floors creak when you walk on them, and the windows sometimes rattle when the wind picks up. We have a small group of people working here, most of whom have lived in the hills all their lives. We don't really bother with big speeches or trying to sound like a huge corporation. We’re just local people working with what the land gives us. Some days are cold and we have to wear heavy sweaters while we work, but that’s just life in Ooty. We take things one day at a time, making sure the tea is handled right before it goes out to the shops.