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The Kent Tea and Trading Company is today run buy myself Richard Smith along with my Mother Mrs Janet Smith. The family's story in the Tea Trade started when my Grandparents went to India in the 1920's from Lincolnshire to pursue a life in Assam in North East India. A lovely reminder of the times is the The Tea Planters Poem .
Grandfather Mr Robert Stammers worked on and ultimately was the manager of the famous Behora Tea Estate. The picture shows them upon retirement with all of their staff gathered around. Their daughter Janet married Mr Malcolm Smith in India and the family continued its association with Tea with my father working for Plantation company's in Calcutta and ended up in charge of the Warren Plantation Company.
Upon retiring in the late 1970's to England and back to the village of Pluckley we were asked by locals if we could get hold of any good tea as it was hard to find. We did and Pluckley Tea was born.
Our first packing operation was at the old house in Pluckley. A room was set aside for tea to be packed by hand. Without machines at that stage we used to buy tea chests full of tea bags and count them by hand into piles of 10's and then 8 making up 80 Tea Bags.. Then we acquired our first tea bagging machine which could produce 160 tea bags per minute. Soon Mother suggested we left the house as things were getting a bit much.... so we moved down the road to Pivington Mill and found an old grain store where we are to this day. You can watch the BBC's news teams
film about us when they came to visit .. BBC News . South East Today