Norben Tea & Exports is a tea company that grows leaves on its own land, processes them in its own factory, and sells the finished tea - mostly through auction houses. Incorporated in 1990 and run from Kolkata by Managing Director Manoj Kumar Daga, it has spent three decades as a single-line business: a 126-acre estate in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district that feeds a factory, with every other activity revolving around that core. The recurring approach is a plantation-to-market model that relies on natural resources for growing and uses energy only at the final processing stage, while building its reputation on meeting food-safety standards that many buyers now demand. # Business segments A single engine - tea from bush to buyer - with all revenue flowing from the cultivation, manufacture and sale of tea, supplemented by small ancillary streams that are natural by-products of running a tea estate. ## 1. Tea: the plantation-to-market engine **The company grows tea on its own 126-acre estate, processes it in-house, and sells the finished leaf through auction centres - a single integrated chain with no middlemen.** - **Own land, own bushes** - the estate sits on freehold land in Berubari, District Jalpaiguri, West Bengal, and the tea bushes (called bearer plants) are depreciated over a useful life of 70 years, reflecting a long-term asset meant to produce for decades. - **Grown with nature, processed with energy** - cultivation relies more on natural resources than on fossil fuels; energy enters the picture only at the final manufacturing stage, where the factory’s machinery, electric installations and buildings turn plucked leaf into made tea. - **Sold at auction, not on contract** - the company sells its manufactured tea primarily through auction centres, and as a matter of policy it does not enter into forward or futures contracts for its produce, so it lives with the spot price. - **Compliance as the differentiator** - the company’s stated edge is having among the highest levels of compliance with Food Safety requirements and Maximum Residual Level (MRL) limits, which matters because buyers are increasingly demanding teas that meet these standards and regulators are monitoring more closely. - **Ancillary streams from the same land** - beyond made tea, the estate also sells green leaf (unprocessed leaf), tea cuttings that serve as planting material, and scrap, and earns commission income - all natural by-products of running a tea plantation. # Group structure and partners **Norben Tea & Exports stands alone - no subsidiaries, no joint ventures - but it leans on two promoter-group companies for capital and operational kinship.** - **A standalone company with no corporate layers** - as of March 2026, the company has no subsidiaries, joint ventures or associate companies, and no holding company sits above it. - **A sister tea estate in the promoter group** - Tongani Tea Company Ltd, a promoter-group entity, also grows and manufactures tea, with its Tongani Tea Estate located in the Mangaldoi Tea District of Assam; the company has proposed borrowing up to Rs. 5 Crore from it to meet business needs and reduce debt-financing costs. - **A real-estate arm in the family** - Mangalam Products Pvt. Ltd., another promoter-group company, is in the real estate business, and the company has proposed borrowing up to Rs. 2 Crore from it for the same purpose.