Organic taste and labour on Indian tea plantations*

Abstract

This paper takes a multispecies perspective on taste to explore how organic agriculture affects both nonhuman relations and human labour on Indian tea plantations. Organic tea planters use taste to assess soil conditions and climatic changes and to apply organic practices accordingly. The paper argues that, on the one hand, planters strategically cultivate forms of collaboration between tea plants, fungi, cows and soil microorganisms to enhance the taste of monoculture crops. On the other hand, since these collaborative forms require and reproduce the precarious labour of tea workers and supervisors, their resistance against organic practices also affects tastes. The terroir of organic tea features both the multispecies ‘togetherness’ on monocultures and the inequalities of plantation labour.