Over on the WorldWatch Institute blog, Dan Kane’s got an interesting post on working conditions in Darjeeling, India, one of the globe’s most celebrated tea-growing regions.

According to classical economic dogma, demand for
hot-weather-requiring products like fancy tea in wealthy, northern areas
like the United States should benefit everyone. U.S. consumers get a
rarefied product they’d otherwise not have access to; warm regions get
infusions of hard currency, which finance development and reduce
poverty.

As Kane shows in his post, the second part of the deal too often goes
sour. Proceeds from products like prestige tea are at least as likely
to finance ecological devastation as they are, say, schools:

Plantations also clear hillsides of trees to maximize the acreage of
tea bushes, causing erosion and a more rapid degradation of the rich
soil that gives the tea its unique flavor. Deforestation for tea is
destroying the habitat of iconic Indian species, like the jaguar, and
compromising important ecosystem services.

Moreover, large monocrops require heavy doses of chemical poisons. Kane points to the recent documentary
The Bitter Taste of Tea, which shows tea-plantation workers routinely not getting ample access to protective gear while applying pesticides.