Bangladesh's tea capital — colonial estate bungalows, the seven-layer tea of the Nilkantha Tea Cabin, and the tribal villages of the Moulvibazar hills
Sreemangal is a small town in the Moulvibazar district of northeastern Bangladesh (Sylhet division), at the heart of the largest tea-growing region in Bangladesh — around 150 tea estates covering the rolling hills between the town and the Indian border (Tripura and Assam). The landscape is immediately distinct from the lowland Bengal delta: gently undulating hills covered in tea bush (Camellia sinensis), the characteristic 'sea of green' of organized tea cultivation, with shade trees (albizzia, silver oak) at intervals and the bungalows of the colonial-era estate managers scattered on the hil…
Tea cultivation in the Sreemangal area began in the 1850s when British planters from Assam extended their estates into the adjacent Sylhet hills, then part of the Bengal Presidency. The estates were originally worked by indentured labour from tribal communities in Madhya Pradesh (the 'garden coolies' — Oraon, Santal, and Munda peoples brought from central India by the planters). Their descendants remain the workforce of the tea estates today, living in estate worker communities (known as 'lines') within the tea garden boundaries, maintaining their distinct tribal identity (Oraon, Santal, and…