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The Quiet Pour No. 11: A conversation on tea, global energy, and fragility.
There are some seasons where you worry about rain.
Some where you worry about labor.
I didn’t expect to worry about fuel.
I was on the phone with our farmer friend, Boris Linnebank from Lakyrsiew Tea Estate in Meghalaya, talking through first flush and what teas we wanted him to make for us.
Silver Needle, for sure, we are almost out of. As for White Peony, one of our Fine Tea Club members has been waiting for Boris’s White Peony all year. And, of course, a beautiful whole leaf first flush black tea.
He paused before saying, almost casually, “Poorvi, white tea is not going to be a problem. But first flush black tea is.”
It took me a moment to understand what he meant. And then he said something simple that immediately reframed the entire conversation.
“Our dryers run on LPG.”
Over the past decade, many tea estates, especially in Darjeeling, have gradually shifted from wood or coal to LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas). The move was thoughtful and intentional. LPG is a cleaner fuel, allows for more consistent heat, and makes it easier to standardize processing, especially during delicate harvests like first flush.
Electric dryers have not fully taken hold in many tea growing regions. Power outages remain common in remote regions, and importing machinery from China or Taiwan brings its own set of constraints. LPG, in many ways, became the most practical middle path.
That balance is now being tested.
With ongoing geopolitical tensions and disruptions to global energy supply chains, particularly through the Strait of Hormuz, LPG availability in India has tightened. The government has understandably prioritized domestic consumption, leaving industrial users, including tea estates, navigating an increasingly uncertain supply.
What once felt like a stable modernization choice is now revealing itself as a point of vulnerability.
Not all teas rely on energy in the same way.
Black tea, in particular, depends on a sequence of carefully controlled, energy intensive steps. Withering requires sustained air flow and temperature control. Rolling depends on the precision of that initial phase. Most critically, drying or firing is essential to halt oxidation and stabilize the tea.
Without sufficient heat at this stage, the tea simply cannot be finished in a way that preserves its structure, aroma, complexity and longevity.
Green teas face similar constraints, as heat is required early in processing for pan firing or steaming.
White tea, by contrast, is far less interventionist. It relies primarily on withering and gentle drying, often with significantly lower energy demands.
So when Boris said white tea would likely be fine, but black tea might not be, he was not speculating. He was describing a constraint built directly into the way tea is made.
After that conversation, I reached out to several of our tea farmers across India. I received a spectrum of answers from them.
Some producers continue to depend primarily on coal or wood based systems. Some are using imported electric dryers while others are primarily using LPG. Some, interestingly, are using a couple of fuel sources, so not relying on a single fuel source, like coal and electricity or LPG. There are even a few experimenting with solar dryers, although in our experience these often do not achieve the higher firing temperatures needed for more complex teas.
Each farm has adapted to what is locally available, what is reliable, and what they could invest in at the time.
And now, that variability is quietly defining resilience.
Smaller growers who never fully transitioned away from traditional fuels may find themselves more buffered. Larger estates that invested heavily in LPG based systems, often in an effort to modernize and improve consistency, are the ones feeling this constraint most acutely.
There is still uncertainty, but the contours of this season are beginning to take shape.
Some tea farmers may lean more heavily into white teas, which are less dependent on high heat processing. Others may temporarily return to coal, despite the environmental tradeoffs, to maintain production. In some cases, estates are experimenting with adapting existing equipment, though these solutions are often partial and not easily scalable.
Electric drying remains an option in theory, but in practice is limited by infrastructure reliability.
And in some instances, there may simply be less first flush black tea available this year. Not because the leaves were not plucked, but because the energy required to finish them consistently was not available.
It makes me wonder how many cups this season will carry a story that is not immediately visible.
This challenge does not exist in isolation.
Darjeeling, has already been navigating ongoing pressures of labor shortages and old bushes. Lack of labor continues to affect plucking cycles. Many larger estates have not undergone sufficient replanting, leaving aging Chinese varietal bushes that yield less and often lack the vibrancy they once had. Production has already declined significantly over the years.
Energy now adds another layer to an already complex system.
We often talk about terroir, elevation, season, mist, soil, and cultivar. These are the elements that shape flavor and mouthfeel, and they deserve that attention.
But we rarely talk about fuel. And yet, fuel is now part of the story.
A season like this makes it clear that something as distant as a disruption in the Strait of Hormuz can shape what is produced, how it’s processed, and ultimately what reaches your cup.
As a buyer, this has shifted how I think about what I ask for and how I plan for the season.
For us, it has meant adjusting in real time. Some of the farms we work with in Darjeeling continue to operate on coal or a mix of coal and electricity, which offers a degree of stability. With Boris in Meghalaya, we are already shifting toward more white teas and considering only a very limited quantity of black tea for the Fine Tea Club, if at all. In regions like Nilgiri, where we source winter harvests, we are fortunate that those teas have already been made.
Having spent time in these regions, walking the tea farms and sitting in the factories, this moment feels like more than a temporary disruption. It’s a reminder that tea is not only shaped by nature. It’s shaped by systems. By infrastructure, energy and by decisions made far beyond the boundaries of a tea farm.
And sometimes, it’s as fragile as a dwindling fuel supply. 🫖
