Darjeeling Tea Covid 19 Affect

Namaste and Greetings from Darjeeling! This is a quick update on placing Darjeeling Tea orders and shipment information. We have already procured 2020 Darjeeling First Flush and Second Flush teas. It’s up on the site. Many of our tea friends have already bought the teas and we feel very honored to have found your support in these difficult times. A family owned business like ours would have affected greatly and toppled within a very short span due to the present Covid 19 pandemic, but we are still here as a result of your continued love and support.

After more than 7 months, I am here running my fingers on the keyboard, pondering about the past and present situation since the pandemic broke out. There was a point when we thought that Thunderbolt Tea would just fade away like many did in our own locality, but our strong family belief and the love showered upon by our tea friends (YOU) kept us going strong. Thank you very much!

Everyone is aware as to how the pandemic started and we thought that it would never reach us, but ultimately, India was brought down to it’s knees and a complete lockdown was forced, starting March 24 and extended for about 3 months. The lockdown was all of a sudden and all things came to a standstill. No one was prepared. There was immense panic and we had to shut down our operations. We were informed not to keep any staff and ultimately the staff had to take a leave. It was very risky for us as well as the staff and their own individual families. After 3 months, the lockdown was lifted, but wasn’t done completely. Containment and Red zone areas are still under lockdown till this date.

Though the lockdown was lifted, no international trade was allowed. We were in a complete dilemma and had lost all hope of shipping the teas ordered by our tea friends. But slowly, trade became operational. Courier services, India Post Airmail started to function, but not efficiently as it used to due to “minimum staff attendance” government policy. All our sent shipments were at a snail’s pace, but recently it has improved a bit. There is ray of hope for our business, though the virus is still there. We are now living with the virus, but taking proper precautions for ourselves! Luckily, Darjeeling has seen very little spread and we pray that it remains the same. I once read that altitude could minimize the spread of the virus. Could this be the reason? Well, I am not sure of it, but the spread in proper Darjeeling hilly area is very less.

With all the staff gone, the only remaining people working were my wife and I. Glad that, its a family business where every member can extend a helping hand. It was just both of us, packing teas, shipping, doing everything we could possibly do, but soon found out that there are some things which we just couldn’t handle ourselves like the technical aspect of our website, email support, etc. We were just able to reply to whatsapp queries. We at Thunderbolt Tea know that some tea parcels were extremely delayed and we apologize for the same. It was out of our hands and even if we tried hard, and we sincerely did, we couldn’t possibly send it as everything was at a standstill. But please know that we have clients who started buying from us since the time we launched our online site in 2004 and they are still with us. Your tea orders are safe with us!

Today we are feeling a little positive as 50% of our staff will be returning to us within 3 days time and we, husband and wife, now have some extra hands to get the job done. EMS service is still tentative as it is only shipping to some countries while remaining are restricted. We are only working via Airmail and DTDC. Darjeeling is a small town and we don’t have corporate offices of international courier companies. We now have to send your tea parcels via DTDC, a national courier which in turn gets connected to international courier services such as UPS, Fedex etc.

One client wrote to us saying that “I hope I will get my tea before Christmas” and we were really moved by this. Thank you so much for your patience! Yes, if it was the initial India lockdown phase, we wouldn’t have known, but now its more free and working. Yes, delays are still there because of partial lockdowns implemented in Red Zone areas, but not as before. You don’t have to wait a month to get your delivery now. But if you have ordered via India Post Airmail, it will take about 20-30 days working days as it’s their standard delivery time.

Lastly, we would like to apologize for the inconveniences caused. Some may have written to us and expected a swift response – we simply couldn’t because there wasn’t any at the receiving end at that time. Now, our people will be returning soon and hopefully, the virus and the inconveniences vaporizes into thin air.