Story travels back to the plot of land where the first tea bushes of the Terai region grew some 150 years ago. New Chumta, then was not what it is today. From the record available today and the stories that are being versed by the people who have been associated with the Tea Estate since long, titles to these lands started with the grant of a large block in the Terai to  Major C.M. Fittzerland on March 1866. The area set down was extended to 14330 acres - 2 roods - 35 poles which is a vast area in terms of tea cultivation. Fitzerland, now was the original Leese and Richard Southby was one of the first whom he transferred the part of this holdings. Southby was the first to plant tea on these lands.

 

Southby Writes:
 

“I applied for the lands now held by the Darjeeling Terai Tea Company in January 1866. I got the lands, the pottahs were granted and signed by Major Blair Reid dated July, 1866. I entered in possession. I asked the Deputy Commissioner for an Amin. I immediately commenced cutting the jungle and prepared to plant seed at stake. I put in stakes and branches of simul trees and planted out before January, 1867. This tea was bearing in 1868 in which year we got about a maund an acre. We began to pluck about August 1868 and continued to the end of the season about the 15th November. In the second year I might have got 2Mds, an acre from these lands; it might have been 1 and half Mds. I got 4 to 5 5Mds, an acre in 1869”

 

The companies who undertook this pioneering effort (1866) in the time combined to form the Chumta Tea Estate Association, then The Chumta Tea Company, which in 1889 finally became the present day The New Chumta Tea Co. Ltd.

      The year 1909 marked the Fruitful year for the New Chumta Tea Company. Additional 200 acres belonging to an outgarden Subtiguri were acquired. Introduction to the modern technology of the time and electricity was nowhere in the card of this region for the leaves to be processed. Even as late as 1940, leaves were carried by Bullock Cart from Subtiguri to the Factory at Chumta. Illuminations were carried by Kerosene Lanterns. In 1953, the old Factory was burnt down and a new one was set. Artificial irrigation was laid down at Subtiguri in 1958, The water flowing through small streams were drawn towards the garden. With all these struggling effort of so many years, the manufacture of CTC was started at 1964. In 1983, the crops of the Chumta Tea Association were about 760 Maunds. Today, our annual output is more than 10,500 maunds.