Once the domain of uppity, horseback riding British sahibs, tea cultivation is now being taken up by those who had worked on plantations as labour. In the process, women are brewing a fresh story by cashing in on their experience and traditional knowledge, and becoming entrepreneurs.

Unlike the rest of the subcontinent, Assam retained many elements of its tribal economy well into the 19th century. With the British invasion the picture began to change gradually. Opening up of the Brahmaputra Valley in 1826 brought about two major changes in the mode of surplus extraction. One, colonial capital flowed into tea plantations, along with indentured labourers from mainland India. Though immensely profitable for the planters, this had a limited impact on the larger peasant economy of Assam.

Dynamics of nitrous oxide (N2O) emission and the relationship of soil properties with N2O emission were studied from the tea ecosystem of North East India situated at north bank plain agroclimatic zone at Tezpur, Assam. The gas samples were collected from the tea bush at weekly intervals from 30 August 2008. Our results shows that N2O fluxes from the tea garden planted with varieties Hilika and TV-23 ranged from 7.51 to 63.30 μg N2O-N m–2 h–1. Seasonal N2O emission from Hilika and TV-23 was 46.13 and 55.17 mg N2O-N m–2 respectively.