Mysteaque By Balaji Agro International

Company Description

Mysteaque By Balaji Agro Internationallcome to Balaji Agro International your effective one stop shop for Premium and Specialty Indian Tea.

Our worldwide network of partners give us the buying power to source large volumes of tea from virtually all Darjeeling estates and many Assam estates. The benefits of this accrue to our buying partners. While sourcing teas, we concentrate our attention on quality and value rather than estate reputation.

A brief summary of our advantages:

1) The deep knowledge of the trade and our commitment to conduct business in an ethical, transparent and fair manner.

2) A committed team backed up by modern infrastructure.

3) Our ability to supply even small quantities from a large range of estates and qualities make us a one stop shop for all tea needs of Indian tea. Our range, value, flexibility and quick response is your advantage.

4) Our priority access to renowned estates in Assam within our Kanoria family.

5) Our Darjeeling estate of Tindharia, which is growing in stature and quality. The estate is 100% organic and HACCP, FLO and ISO certified.

6) Our strategic marketing tie-ups with reputed producing groups in Assam, Dooars and Darjeeling.

The cornerstones of Balaji since our foundation in 1971 have been: TRUST, SERVICE and VALUE FOR MONEY. It is this sincerity of objective coupled with an in-depth knowledge of tea and its marketing, as well as our high personalized levels of service that has made BALAJI AGRO INTERNATIONAL a respected name in the international tea world today. KANORIA INTERNATIONAL was formed in 1994 to expand into tea plantation and organic tea exports.
 

Quality Assurance

Tea is a food product, and we attach the highest importance to food safety, hygiene and quality.

Emphasis is being given on machines for cleaning and packing tea, and on maintaining the highest standards of hygiene. We have installed a state-of-the-art tea cleaning machine (Picture above) incorporating magnets, sorter, pneumatic de-stoner, dust collector and visual cleaning platform to present our clients with a superior and hygienic tea. We are committed to constantly develop our warehousing and processing facilities. The facility is fully HACCP certified.

Regular product analysis is conducted in international laboratories to keep ourselves informed of pesticide residues and ensure that products comply to international pesticide norms.

Traceability:All our teas are traceable from bush to cup! Agrochemicals and MRLs Agrochemical MRL compliance is our prime consideration in selecting teas. Most tea produced in India is in hot humid climate and for the domestic market. Thus pest problems do exist, especially in Assam. Indian pesticide laws are rather liberal for domestic market compared to EU We routinely hold discussions with estates visit gardens to remain informed on the pesticide usage. We conduct random checks of various estates at renowned labs to ensure that MRL is within international laws. Balaji bulk tea shipments are effected only after our buyer approve shipment sample at their lab Evaluating teas at our Quality Lab First we evaluate dry leaf. This is judged for appearance (long, mixed, choppy, stylish, wiry etc), volume and bloom. We check for size, evenness, bloom, tips and stalk. The feel also gives an idea of the crispiness of the leaf and absence of moisture. Next we evaluate the infusion, which could vary from bright to dull and be green, coppery or mixed. The infusion is also evaluated for nose to get an idea of aroma. This is followed by evaluation of the cup colour, which can be lemon, orange, bright, coloury or dark . The next evaluation is of the cup. Special attention is paid to astringency, character, body, aroma and flavour. This is judged in relation to the flush period or the blend standard against which the tea is to be evaluated. Most of the blend standards are stored in a tasters memory and he would be able to earmark different teas for the different standards while tasting. The Truth Behind Grading and Quality Fancy grades are being used by many gardens and are in no way representative of tea quality. Thus many FTGFOP1 teas will be better than a tea marked even as FTGFOP1(muscatel). Marked grades are not important to us as there is no law governing their usage. Often teas marked clonals or china may have no clone or china character. Some garden obtain high prices at times just due to their brand equity and not quality. For us at Balaji, price is always determined by quality ! Elevation or bush type does not always determine quality. Even low elevation gardens can make good teas, and high elevation some poor teas. Thus we taste teas blindwithout being influenced by garden name. The Art of Tea Blending

Most of the teas sold worldwide today are in the form of standardized blends even for good quality. This is an art, which makes a merchant stand out from a producer .

Our order of priority for selecting teas for blending is: Taste, liquor, colour, appearance.

We can standardize blends comprising of different seasons and growing areas. We make individual standards for each season / growing area and then mix these together to make standard. This helps to taste each origin separately and maintain quality. Balaji is proud to have efficiently maintained standardised blend quality for over 30 years for our clients inspite of seasonal variation and quality challenges. You can count on our knowledge and commitment.
 

TINDHARIA The boutique Bio-organic tea estate of Darjeeling

The name Tindharia means the place of 3 mountain ridges and it is located at the confluence of the 3 mountain streams. The estate is blessed by Mother Nature with flowing streams, waterfalls and greenery.
 

Tindharia is a small Bio- organic tea estate, which pays detailed attention to the production of every individual invoice. It produces an annual crop of 70 - 75 MT. The estate starts at an elevation of 400 meters extending to 1000 meters. 40% of the plantation is China bushes, 30% hybrids and 30% Assam bushes. Extensive new plantation and rejuvenation is being carried out using high quality AV-2 clonal bushes for maximum flavor. We believe this will contribute to the estates sustainability in the long term. The factory and the machinery are constantly upgraded, after a complete overhaul in 2005.

Tindharia is certified organic by Control Union for USDA, EU and JAS. It is certified FLO Fairtrade, HACCP, ISO 9001:2008 and ISO 22000:2005. The Ethical Tea Partnership also audits Tindharia. All our teas are fully traceable from bush to cup.

Regular product analysis is conducted in international laboratories to keep ourselves informed of pesticide residues and ensure that products comply to international pesticide norms.
 

The estates white tea PEARL is a treasured tea and was the Gold Medal winner for the best Indian tea at the US Tea Conference 2012 (Picture below) . This tea is completely hand made from the first tender leaves plucked at the very start of 1st Flush in Spring. Leaves exclusively plucked from young clonal bushes in their first five years of harvest are used to produce this treasure. Trained pluckers pluck fresh leaves at the crack of dawn, and manage to bring back only a few grams of leaves each to be hand-rolled tenderly and sun dried. Tindharia Pearl is a rare gift of Nature!