Drinking tea isn't just a leisurely activity for us, although we could spend hours in a day just savouring all our 80+ tea leaves and ingredients sourced and blended from across India and around the world. Tea for us is a way of life, which includes sourcing it responsibly, processing it optimally, blending it aesthetically, packaging it smartly, and ensuring the whole process from the garden to your tea cup is sustainable and environment-positive. This entire process starts with responsible sourcing. Let's take a look at why it's important to support small, local, organic farmers and tea estates and how that impacts the tea ecology.    Tea cultivation is a complex art form that is very exacting in its requirements. Ideally, tea is cultivated in lands where high temperatures, long growing season, and heavy rainfall occurs like tropical and sub-tropical conditions. The best quality yield is achieved in areas with temperatures ranging from sixteen to thirty-two degrees Celsius. Temperatures colder or warmer than that can negatively impact the tea bushes. Warm summers and frequent rains, 125-150 cm of annual rainfall distributed evenly between 8-9 months, promote rapid tea-leaf production. Another crucial climactic factor is atmospheric humidity which is generally required to be around 80%. When it comes to its soil requirements, tea can be grown in a variety of soils such as lateritic, alluvial, and peaty. The soil must contain low amounts of calcium along with high quantities of potassium and silicon. The best suited kind of soil is one which is a light, friable loam with porous sub-soil which allows free passage of water, because tea is highly intolerant to water that is stagnant. Additionally, the presence of iron in the sub-soil aids tea production. One thing to note when it comes to the soil used for tea cultivation is that on sloping land, which is best suited for this process, soil erosion is a major problem. To counter this, tea bushes are planted in lines alo