STORY: This abandoned building in western Georgia used to be the Soviet Union’s Institute of Tea and Subtropical Crops.
Here, scientists worked on perfecting cultivation methods for sprawling tea plantations that supplied the bulk of the vast communist state’s brews.
That industry crumbled after Georgian independence – but some are now trying to bring it back.
“This is the tea from my garden, from this season, from this May.”
That’s Lika Megreladze, whose mother was a scientist at the tea institute.
She owns a guesthouse in a village not far from the institute, where she cultivates her own small tea plantation for visitors.
“It was the only one, in the whole Soviet Union, research institute for tea and other subtropical cultures. With huge laboratories, different laboratories. There were experimental fields for tea, for different plants, there were experimental tea factories, and lots and lots of things.”
Megreladze recalls the tea industry’s collapse after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.
“Georgia, a young country, could not save this huge industry,” she said.
By 2016, official figures show, Georgian tea production had declined 99% from its 1985 peak…
With this toppled statue of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin outside the institute one of the few signs left of that era.
Tea plants were introduced to Georgia in the early 20th century by a Chinese expert invited by the Imperial Russian authorities.
They flourished in Guria’s hot, humid climate, stretching down from the Caucasus Mountains to the Black Sea coast.
And now, the industry is seeing a revival.
“For 40 years, nothing was happening here. Here was a jungle.”
Nika Sioridze and Baaka Babunashvili began rehabilitating derelict tea plantations about a decade ago.
They process tea leaves in an abandoned Soviet silk factory.
With an aim to reintroduce Georgian tea to local and European buyers.
Financed partly by a government grant, their GreenGold Tea is one of several new companies that has brought tea fields in the area back to life.
The Soviet Union had also put quantity over quality.
So now, they say, their task is to reinvent Georgian tea as a high quality, distinctive product for a new era.
“We must be different from Chinese tea makers, Taiwanese tea makers. Because Georgia is Georgia, and we need some niche to make our own tea.”
