In Akumen Village on the Assam-Nagaland border, nestled in the picturesque foothills of the Himalayan Mountain range in the northeast corner of India, is the realization of a dream of an Englishman from Brighton, a dream he had planted during his childhood.
Simon Twiss, the son of a British tea planter, returned to India where he was born in the summer of '69 to start his own tea plantation and realize his dream. Twiss is probably the first son of a British tea planter who came back from England to make a living out of tea in India, the beverage which was “so dear to his late father.”
Assam tea, known globally for its strong bodied and golden-colored liquor, was first discovered in this region by Englishman Robert Bruce in 1823. Until then, tea—the plant which grew wild in the upper reaches of the vast plains of the Brahmaputra river—was drunk as a magic potion by the Singpho tribe.
"My father spent the best part of his life on tea plantations in this part of the world...and he was very passionate about tea. Probably, this was the reason I felt such a pull towards tea," Twiss told World Tea News.
Twiss Tea Garden
Twiss, with the help of the local community, has already planted 70,000 odd tea bushes in these low-lying hills criss-crossed by mountain streams. He has named his garden Khusi Mon (happy mind), named after a tea garden opened by his late father somewhere in eastern Assam. The Englishman has also installed a Taiwan-made tea manufacturing machine and has been producing both green and black organic tea, which is available in the market under the brand Chaihouse, Naga Hills organic tea.
“Although our tea is available in the market in a few northeast Indian states, we are yet to go all out in marketing. It will take time and we have plans to export our tea as well,” he said.
Twiss said that he also has plans to transform his garden into an ecotourism destination. “There is scope for trekking in these virgin lands occupied by very welcoming Naga villagers,” he said.
He said that the tea business is not only a dream come true for him and helping to keep him going financially, but the larger goal is to develop the local community. “For me, it is peace in tea, but my larger goal is to develop the local community. The tea estate will become a source of earning for the locals,” he said.
With chemical-free forest soil and the advantage of a higher altitude to neighboring Assam, Khusi Mon is a perfect location to produce some of the finest teas, observes Pradip Baruah, a renowned tea scientist in India.
The scientist said that he had already visited Twiss' garden and tasted his teas. ”I can vouch that these are real good teas Twiss is making. His garden is also located hardly a few miles away from tea gardens in Assam, which are making some of the best black teas in the world,” said Baruah, who retired only recently as the chief advisory officer of Tocklai Tea Research Institute.
The tea scientist also said that there was immense scope for development of ecotourism in Khusi Mon. “The location of the estate is picture perfect to attract tourists,” said Baruah, who has been providing technical support to Twiss.
The Tea Journey
Twiss' father, John Edwin Twiss, arrived in Assam at the young age of 22 in 1952, a few years after India achieved Independence from the British, to work as a trainee tea planter in gardens owned by Williamson Magor. John was very passionate about his job and had earned many accolades from the company for his work.
During John’s tenure as the Manager at Phillobari tea estate in eastern Assam, he met his soulmate, Alamla Ao, a nurse engaged at Charaipani tea estate hospital nearby. Alamla hailed from Lirmen village in Nagaland state bordering Assam, adjacent to Akumen. They got married soon after and raised three children. While Twiss, the eldest of the three and his sister, Jennifer, were born at Phillobari tea estate, Joseph, the youngest, was born at Bordubi tea estate, the last garden where John served as a manager.
John and his family went back to England in 1976 and settled at Twiss’ hometown in Brighton when Twiss was just seven years old.
Though Jennifer and Joseph got settled in England, Twiss was never happy with life in England. After his engineering degree, he got into construction work but had to quit due to lack of interest. “I always had the dream to return back to the tea gardens in India where I had spent my childhood,” he said.
Twiss recalled how he used to go on long rides on his bicycle among tea bushes during his childhood. “There was no fear, and the fragrance of the tea leaves was so refreshing,” he said.
After his tenure in the construction business, Twiss got into fashion designing and launched his brand Peter Twiss, which was displayed at fashion shows in Paris many a time. “Though I was doing well in fashion, my real pull was always towards tea,” he said.
Finally, Twiss returned to India in 2001, seven months after his mother visited India for a few weeks for the first time after the Twiss’ had left India in 1976. “I got so attached to this place when I first visited it after childhood that I couldn’t stop myself and decided to settle here.”
Twiss shuttled between England and Assam many times thereafter and also married a woman, Caroline, from the Naga community.
It was in 2018 that Twiss started a tea plantation near the ancestral home of his mother by involving the local community.
By then, Twiss had also purchased a property at Dimapur, the commercial capital of Nagaland state near the airport, about 150 km away from his tea garden.
“I insisted that my parents return to India and stay with me. They both agreed and finally they came and stayed with me,” he said
Twiss built a house at Dimapur, which resembles a British era bungalow that dot the tea gardens in India so that his parents get the feel of tea during their last days. Both Twiss' parents died in India, in the house built by Twiss, within a gap of two years.
The cemetery constructed by Twiss for his parents at his palatial house in Dimapur resembles many of those spread across tea plantations in India built during the British era, but these two are unique as the Twiss couple returned from England for their eternal rest at a place that is close to where the couple had their tryst with tea.
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