Why you could soon be missing your cup of Darjeeling tea

If you are a tea connoisseur, here's some bad news: your morning cuppa of steaming Darjeeling tea may soon be difficult to get.

Famously called the "champagne of teas", it is grown in 87 gardens in the foothills of the Himalayas in Darjeeling in West Bengal state. Some of the bushes are as old as 150 years and were introduced to the region by a Scottish surgeon.

Half of the more than 8 million kg - 60% of it is certified organic - of this sought-after tea produced every year is exported, mainly to the UK, Europe and Japan. The tea tots up nearly $80m (£60m) in annual sales.

Darjeeling tea is also one of the world's most expensive - some of it has fetched prices of up to $850 (£647) per kg. The tea is also India's first Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) product.

Since June, Darjeeling has been hit by violent protests and prolonged strikes in support of a campaign by a local party demanding a separate state for the area's majority Nepali-speaking Gorkha community.

The upshot: some 100,000 workers - permanent and temporary - working in the gardens have halted work. Production has been severely hit. Only a third of last year's crop of 8.32 million kg had been harvested when work stopped in June. If the trouble continues, garden owners say they are staring at losses amounting to nearly $40m.

"This is the worst crisis we have ever faced. Future orders are being cancelled, and there is no fresh supply. Connoisseurs of Darjeeling may have to soon switch to other teas until the situation improves," Darjeeling Tea Association's principal advisor Sandeep Mukherjee told me.

Thisfile photo taken on July 7, 2017 shows people walking along a path at the high altitude Happy Valley Tea garden during an indefinite strike called by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) in Darjeeling