Assam’s Tea Industry: An Insight into Deroi Tea

Revolutionizing Assam’s Tea Industry: An Insight into Deroi Tea with Surjya Prakash Borthakur

KRISTI FLORA KARKI

Interviewee: Mr Surjya Prakash Borthakur (one of the co-founders of Deroi Tea)

Interviewer: Kristi Flora Karki (intern at Mahabahu)

Introduction: This interview revolves around how Deroi Tea was created, what challenges were faced during the whole process and also, we get an insight on Mr Surjya Borthakur’s professional life.

About the interviewee: Mr Surjya Borthakur is one of the co-founders of Deroi Tea and has graduated as an Electronic Engineer in the year 2017 from IIT Guwahati. Also, he has been engaged with startup activities for the past six years.

The Interview

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Q. May I get to know a bit about yourself and your background.

I am Surjya Prakash Borthakur, an electronics engineer by training but a teamaker by trade. I graduated as an engineer in 2017 and within months I started my entrepreneurial journey with Deroi Tea. When I am not working on Deroi Tea I make sure to spend at least 3 evenings a week playing football or badminton.

Q. Could you please tell a bit about Deroi Tea?

Deroi Tea is homegrown clean tea startup envisioned by Sudarshan Deka (co-founder, Mechanical Engineer) and myself to disrupt the tea manufacturing industry in Assam. Use of carbon-based fuels such as coal and gas dominate the industry as the primary source of fuel. As engineers, we saw an opportunity to ideate around the technology aspect of tea manufacturing, asking ourselves if this direct reliance on coal and gas be eliminated entirely.

After significant R&D we were able to develop a set of patented tea manufacturing technology which has helped Deroi Tea make whole leaf green tea without the use of coal and gas.

The advantages of not using coal and gas are that there are no direct emissions from the factory, the nearby area is kept clean, there is no land contamination, the factory workers have a better and cleaner working environment, not constantly exposed to carbon emissions and most importantly the tea products are not exposed to carbon emissions and residues therefore making the products clean and healthy.

Presently Deroi Tea has set up Assam’s first emissions-free micro tea factory to produce carbon-free dried healthy tea, including green tea, orthodox black tea and oolong tea.

Q. What inspired you to get into this field/industry?

The tea industry is the pride of Assam, a massive industry more than 200 years old which provides livelihood to lakhs of people not just in Assam but throughout India. Growing up in Assam, we saw the tea industry run like clockwork which was inspiring.

From a professional perspective, to create a startup one needs to have an ecosystem built around the solution the startup is proposing. If the supporting ecosystem is not present, it becomes difficult for the startup to operate and grow.

In the tea industry the ecosystem is also matured including the tea gardens, workforce, logistics etc. As a startup we had to identify one area (manufacturing in our case), select a problem and find its solution. All these factors inspired us to get into it.

Q. What challenges have you faced in your journey especially in the initial phase of your startup?

Our lack of experience was a major challenge for us especially in understanding the rules and regulation and operating a legal entity. Moreover, the training we received during our graduation was significantly inadequate to develop anything as per industry standards. We had to teach ourselves many multi-disciplinary topics, we do it even today.

Although we have specialization but, in a Startup, one needs to understand every topic ranging from technology, legal to human resource management. NE India doesn’t have a matured ecosystem for technology R&D. Every major and minor component for our systems had to be procured from other parts of India thus leading to increased cost and time. Raising funds is also a major challenge since during the early stage of R&D, a startup is not making money only losing it.

Q. What prospect do you think it is going to have in the time ahead regarding the sustainability?

Consumers are getting increasingly aware of the contents in their food and the diet they follow. Health awareness is increasing, and people are demanding sustainable products. Moreover, from the manufacturing perspective, the availability, transportation and handling of coal and gas is becoming difficult while the electric power infrastructure in Assam is improving at a quick pace.

Therefore, green tea made in a clean, sustainable way could be the way forward both for the consumers and the manufacturers.

Q. How would you describe your competition in this market? And how are you better than them?

The domestic market is a very tricky maze. There are big players such as TATA, Lipton who have created an indestructible distribution channel across India. Then there are the age-old tea manufactures, factories and gardens who have decades of experience and make very high-quality tea. In between them we are a startup who have developed a new technology, if the conditions are favorable, we are hopeful that the industry may look to adopt our technology in the future.

At present since we are minute compared to our competitors, we can improve our quality rapidly and keep it consistent. However, there are areas where we need to improve such as distribution and marketing of our tea products.

Q. How is Deroi Tea going to set an example for the young entrepreneurs of Assam?

The scenario and platform in Assam for entrepreneurs are improving at an impressive rate. Govt of Assam and GoI have introduced various schemes for upcoming startups to ease their early journey.

From Deroi Tea, young entrepreneurs can learn about the importance and implementation of a lean startup where founders and core team members teach themselves complementary skills to complete tasks outside their core domain. While this increases the workload on the team but it saves on the cost. The importance of executing tasks without spending a lot of money is crucial for startups in the early stages.

Conclusion: Mr Surjya Borthakur was very warm and welcoming throughout the interview. His answers were found to be very informative and professionally useful. Mr Surjya Borthakur also shared his views on how to follow one’s dreams regardless of the problems, how to handle the challenges life throws at you while following your passion

. He also gave us an insight on the current environment for growth of startups in Assam with examples, which is definitely going to be beneficial for the young entrepreneurs.

Kristi Flora Karki is a student of Communication & Journalism, Gauhati University

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