A silent demeanor

Nirananda Acharya

Nirananda has been working with Kanchanjangha Tea Estate and Research Center for the last 29 years. His presence has witnessed the transformation within the small village of Phidim in Panchthar. He was present when separate households came together and turned into a community of growers and carers. He credits this change to tea.

Tea has given a direction to the farmers and producers alike. The tea they grow and make travels the world as well as brings the world to them.

There is a reverence and deep respect in his voice as he talks about tea. No one who works in the tea industry can actually truly reduce tea to just a beverage, but only a few like Acharya can recognize its potential to impetus to change and reform; especially in the Eastern region of Nepal. As a plant and as a commodity, tea has brought more than money to the locals, tea has brought the world to Phidim. Nirananda Acharya, fondly known by his students as N.N. sir, manages the entire factory and is proud of his quiet work.

N.N. sir doesn’t talk a lot but he sees much. In his strict silent demeanor, he holds the responsibility of not just the workers in his factory but neighboring farmer partners as well. His teas reflect a deep knowledge of the leaves as it should. He’s spent the last three decades of his life examining and understanding the tea gardens grown in literal hills deemed unusable. N.N. Sir's presence in KTERC is a witness to Nepal’s first organic tea garden’s challenges and its overcoming. He uses this experience as a preamble to the brews he creates.