Tea Deva.

We had our first encounter with a garden spirit at the Makaibari estate’s tea tasting room. While sipping our prized first flush silver tip tea, we noticed something peculiar about a potted tea plant in the corner of the room. One of the tealeaves was walking down the branch. “No wonder this tea sells for 18,000 rupees per kilogram,” I thought. As we looked closely at the plant, we were astonished to see that the tealeaf had little leafy legs and what appeared to be a head. Our host informed us we were beholding a Tea Deva.
“A what?”
“Tea Deva, Tea Deva. A tea god!”
“Oh, a Tea Deva.” I suddenly realized we were in the presence of a Divine manifestation in the form of a bug.

We were told that this preying mantis-like insect first revealed itself in the garden in 1992. “It is very difficult to locate,” estate manager, Dev, told us, “because it is very similar to the tea leaves.” In fact, the Tea Deva apparently shares an empathic relationship with the tea bushes. In the early summer, the auspicious insect displays the same luster of a fresh new leaf and in the winter appears blistered and worn. As the story has it, in 1995 a hailstorm damaged many tea bushes in one part of the estate. A Tea Deva found in another unaffected location exhibited the same abrasions on its leaf-like body.
“If somebody locates a Tea Deva, lucky things happen for that person,” Dev told us. In addition to luck, there is a monetary incentive offered by the estate to any employee who finds one. The Tea Deva is then brought to the office for visitors to admire for a couple of days until it is set free.
Dev believes the appearance of this garden spirit is a direct result of applying farming practices that are attuned with Nature, “Rudolf Steiner [the father of Biodynamic gardening] says if your farm cultivation is holistically biodynamic and nature is protected, then the new life forms that emerge are a reflection of your main crop. Our main crop is tea, so the Tea Deva is the reflection of our tea. So, it is the natural certificate that we are holistically following biodynamic practices.”
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Our meeting with the tea deva inspired Jenny to create this image, while Indian packaging (tea, rice, matchboxes, etc.) inspired her graphic approach. She is offering archival prints of this ‘garden spirit’ on her site. Click here.
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10.1.08 **Scientifically speaking: The Tea Deva belongs to the Phylliidae family of leafy insects and is quite known for its talent to mimic its surroundings.

















In Benares, we followed every man carrying a basket of clay cups on his head in search of “the potter behind the wheel”. Eventually, we found him. We met Mata Prasad, a clay pot wallah, in the courtyard of his family’s compound near Assi Ghat. It was the morning of 
We share a mutual friend, Hement Ji, who translated for us. “This is my small factory,” he told us. “Making these pots has been a tradition in my family for many generations.” We asked when he first learned his craft, and he exhaled a heavy chuckle. His eyes opened wide as he looked back in time. One of his first memories was playing with the water buffalo and cows when he was 13 or 14 years old—back when the British were still here. “Maybe, I was 15 or 16 when I started working,” he said. “This time I am not remembering, but I am guessing I am 60 or 70 years old.” If you do the math, he’s been spinning pots for a long time.
Mata Prasad spins about 500 pots in a day. The three shapes and sizes are used for yogurt, milk sweets and chai. When Patrick asks if he drinks chai, he laughs. “Huh, Huh,” (yes, yes) as he moves his head from side to side in the affirmative ‘Indian head waggle.’ “Two times in house, and wherever I will go, my customers, who purchase my pots, they offer me chai, chai, chai.” These half-baked, biodegradable cups, called puruas in Benares, are used once and then returned to the earth.
Nothing quite compares to drinking chai from one of these clay cups. Its primitive shape cradled in your hand and its warm dry rim on your lips accompanied by an earthy smell and taste strikes a tribal cord deep in your bones. When I tell Mata Prasad I prefer drinking chai in puruas, he quickly agrees, “Huh, Huh, because this is holy Ganga Ma’s clay. ” He uses clay that forms on the holy river’s banks after the monsoons, so like his name, Mata Prasad’s clay pots are also gifts of the Divine Mother.









