Northeast tea body to confer Lifetime Achievement Award on Piyush Desai

The North Eastern Tea Association (NETA) will confer its Lifetime Achievement Award on Piyush Desai, the 86-year-old chairman of the Wagh Bakri Tea Group, which has been in the beverage business since 1892.

The group owns and operates one of India’s leading packaged tea companies, with a turnover of over ₹2,000 crore and an estimated market share of 9%. It is the third largest tea brand in the country, behind Hindustan Unilever and Tata Consumer Products.

“Piyush Desai is a tea maestro with six decades of experience in the tea industry. He is a tea tasting and evaluation expert and has been instrumental in setting high standards of quality in the company with his deep knowledge and insights of the industry,” former NETA chairman Ajay Dhandharia said on Friday (January 9, 2026).

NETA adviser Bidyananda Barkakoty said Mr. Desai was the chairman of the Federation of All India Tea Traders Association, an apex body of tea packers and traders in the country, and the founder chairman of the Western India Tea Dealers’ Association.

“There is a special bond between Assam and Gujarat because Assam is the largest producer of tea and Gujarat is the largest consumer of tea in India,” he said.

NETA, established in 1981, has 183 member tea companies across Assam, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh. These members represent approximately 165 million kilograms of processed tea annually, accounting for about 23% of Assam’s total tea production.

The association has earlier conferred the Lifetime Achievement Award on Apurba Kumar Barooah and Sagar Metha.