Known for blending traditional craftsmanship with modern innovation, Indi (Gurrinder) Khanna, managing director at Tea ‘N’ Teas, co-founded The Tea Studio. This specialty manufacturing facility produces artisanal, small-batch teas, including India’s first compressed teas modeled on Chinese Pu’er. The Tea Studio’s commercial success and award-winning teas over the past seven years reflect both his and his daughter Muskan’s passion for quality and dedication to growing India’s presence in the global specialty market. With nearly fifty years in tea, Indi’s journey is as rich and nuanced as the leaves he works with—a perfect metaphor for the conversation that follows.
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Indi Khanna is proud to have started his career in tea at the very bottom—planting, pruning, tending the bushes. “That early exposure gave me a deep respect for the craft,” he says. He was the assistant estate superintendent at Malayalam Plantations in the Kerala high ranges from 1975 and worked as an estate manager in Assam for 11 years. He founded Tea ‘n’ Teas in 1993 and has offered retailers gourmet quality organic and conventional teas for the past 45 years. His advice as a consultant is widely sought. “Over time, I realized that tea is much more than being just an agricultural product; it’s a living, breathing culture. The people, the landscapes, and the constant learning kept me engaged, and even today I feel there’s still so much more to discover,” says Khanna.
Dan Bolton: One of the more promising consumer trends is the value consumers place on value addition. In your view, what practical “value additions” produce the highest returns for producers?
Indi Khanna: At The Tea Studio, which operates on a B2B model, our interpretation of “value addition” is innovation in tea manufacture—and by “tea” I mean exclusively Camellia sinensis. For us, value is created by crafting distinctive, high-quality teas that stand apart in character, processing, and story. True value addition is not about adding decorative extras or elaborate packaging—it’s about producing something unique enough to command a premium because of its character which emanates from the making process.
Dan: The Tea Studio is now in its seventh year. Will you reflect on the journey and share insights on the worker relationships you’ve pioneered?
Indi: From the start, our focus has been on quality, not quantity. Even Muskan, who co-founded The Studio, had no prior tea-making experience. Today, we have a dedicated team of 10 women from neighboring villages who have developed remarkable artisanal skills. Our model is also unusual—our investors and partners are established quality tea purveyors in their home markets. This ensures that the specialty teas we produce go directly to consumers who appreciate and value them.
Dan: How do you define sustainable production? What are the key aspects tea growers must embrace globally?
Indi: For us, sustainability begins with uncompromising quality. We use only the finest leaf and generate zero tea waste. Our heat requirements are met entirely with clean LPG—eliminating emissions, ash, and ground contamination—and our electricity comes from our own solar plant. We are aware of the glut of low-value, poor-quality tea in world markets, but that’s not our space. We produce only to order, ensuring buyers receive tea as fresh as if it were just plucked.
Dan: You began your career in tea nearly half a century ago. What drew you to the industry, and what kept you engaged all these years?
Indi: I started at the very bottom—planting, pruning, tending the bushes—and that early exposure gave me a deep respect for the craft. Over time, I realized that tea isn’t just an agricultural product; it’s a living, breathing culture. The people, the landscapes, and the constant learning kept me engaged, and even today I feel there’s still more to discover.
Dan: You’ve traveled extensively in tea-growing and tea-drinking regions. How has that shaped your approach at The Tea Studio?
Indi: Every journey has reinforced that tea is as much about stories as it is about taste. At The Tea Studio, we take inspiration from global techniques while staying true to the Nilgiris’ terroir. That’s why our teas are both rooted in tradition and open to experimentation—because innovation, in my view, thrives when you respect where you come from.
Dan: Tell us about your inspiration for, and the development of, compressed tea cakes.
Indi: This product had never been made in India before—India is traditionally known for large-scale, industrial production aimed at the mass market. We asked ourselves, “Why not try something entirely different?” and took the concept beyond traditional Pu’er-style cakes. While we are strictly B2B and don’t control how buyers package their teas, the cakes must leave our facility properly wrapped. For this, we commissioned a school for children with special needs—whom the Studio supports—to design our labels. The results have been delightful, adding a personal, human touch to a product that is already unique in the Indian context.
Retailer Kevin Gascoyne writes that his colleague “Jasmin [Desharnais] visited Tea Studio with a clear goal: to support the team in crafting their first-ever Pu Er style tea cake. This initiative followed the acquisition of compression machines imported from China in 2024. These modern machines presented a unique opportunity to blend traditional Chinese expertise with Tea Studio’s artisanal methods. Until then, Jasmin had attempted to remotely share precise compression parameters, but the process proved challenging without being on-site.”
MSRP: Between $10/$15 for a 200 gram cake | BUY direct from Tea Studio
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