Tea Board, which is the chief sponsor of the event, plans to leave no stone unturned to transform tea drinking into a smart, stylish affair.
"Chai Ho!" will have gen-next feel with music, celebrity adda, story sessions and a hoard of interesting events.
"The idea is to present tea as a fashionable and healthy drink and introduce youth to the finer nuances of the beverage. We want to bring back the romance of tea drinking and will create a fun-filled ambience around tea to attract youths," said Tea Board chairman Basudeb Banerjee.
According to Subhash Mohanti from brand building company Adcorp, the young have coffee at shops that give them something beyond just
the beverage. "It is the ambience that draws them to caf?s because these joints project a youthful lifestyle and thought process. The tea industry is keen to capture the peripheral market those who do not drink tea regularly including youths by infusing the glamour quotient into tea drinking."
Private tea companies will join the "Chai Ho!" initiative. Stalls will be set up to retail a wide range of teas in different flavours, including pouches of rare teas that are exported to Harrods and other premium stores in the UK. Also on the programme list are tea auctions, seminars, tea quiz, tea tourism. "People who have been part of the industry for a long time will actually talk about tea plantations and the romance of tea," said one of the organizers.
Though per capita tea consumption in India has improved in the past year, it is still way below Pakistan. But now, gardens that were shut are reopening and infusing optimism in the industry. Since 2007, of the 33 tea gardens that were shut in West Bengal, Assam and Kerala, 20 have reopened.
India accounts for 27% of global tea production, with Assam contributing 50% and West Bengal 25%. "Even as India is the largest producer of black tea and also its largest consumer, the per capita consumption is still low. In states like West Bengal and Orissa, people drink a lot less tea than Gujarat, Maharashtra, Haryana and Punjab. So we need to increase per capita consumption in the east," Banerjee said.
In the 90s, when colas took the market by storm, tea drinking had taken a hit, especially among the youth. But that trend is now reversing. "For the past couple of years, we have targeted youngsters with campaigns on ice tea. "Chai Ho!" is another step in that direction," Banerjee added.