Winter in Assam is an occasion to showcase its beauty and bounty to the outsiders. Festivals are lined up in the nook and corner of the tea and oil rich state much to the delight of the foreign and domestic tourists. Mention may be made of the tea festival, a state tourism department sponsored event that give new hope to the entire tea industry. The week long event takes place in between November and January drawing no less foreign delegates in Jorhat city, the tea town in the state. Exhibition, conferences and cultural functions are organized to make the event a grand success.
The foreign tea delegates make it an occasion to catch a glimpse of the huge industry apart from visiting many places of interest. The experts, mostly, concentrate on the tea research centre, first of its kind in Asia, during the festival. Scope to rev up the major industry, the current problems take the centrestage of discussion in the conferences participated by the domestic and foreign experts. The foreign experts are taken to visit a few tea gardens for on the spot research. Not only that. These delegates are served with indigenous ethic food of Assam apart from providing them the opportunity for rafting and angling. Then the spotlight falls on the Jorhat Gymkhana’, Asia’s third oldest golf-club which is still in use.
Then they were taken to Guwahati to visit the tea auction centre at a stone’s throw distance from the administrative hub. The foreign experts, mostly, enjoy the sights and sounds of Kaziranga, the abode of one horn rhino en route to Guwahati. Thus, the entire festival is an amazing mixture of fun and excitement. The salient feature of the festival is a friendly football match of the tea tribes.