About Us

A Century of Chai. A Family That Never Let Go.

It started in 1870 when Giridharilal Jamuna Das Modi left Rajasthan and made his way to Assam. One of the first Marwari families to settle there. They came with nothing but ambition and built everything from scratch.

Cloth trading. Grain trading. Rice mills. Hardware. Each generation pushed further than the last.

Then came Badridasji.

At just eight years old he was already trading. By the time he was a young man he had set his eyes on something bigger. The British were leaving. Their tea estates were up for sale. And Badridasji saw what most people missed.

In 1922 he acquired his first two tea estates from their British owners. Then another in 1929. Another in 1935. He kept going even when the estates ran at a loss, pouring money from his trading business to keep them alive. People thought he was stubborn. He was just certain.

By the time he was done he had built one of the largest tea estate empires in Assam. Estates that required travelling through unpaved roads, river crossings, and bullock cart rides to reach. None of that stopped him.

That vision, that certainty, passed down through the family. Today those same estates are still producing. Same soil. Same craft. Same commitment to quality that Badridasji refused to compromise on a century ago.

Modi Tea is that legacy in a pack. Direct from our estates. Fresh to your door. Nothing in between.

Rajasthan se shuru hua safar. Assam mein jadi pakdi. Aapke ghar tak pahuncha.
Read Our Founders Letter

90 Years of Legacy

A STORY OF HERITAGE, PASSION & COMMITMENT

Today

Rishav Modi, fifth generation of the family that Giridharilal started in 1870, is now leading Modi Tea. The same estates. The same raw CTC process that Badridasji refused to compromise on. Packed fresh at source and delivered directly to your door with nothing in between.

1990's

Then the big brands arrived. Processed. Blended. Cheap filler mixed in to cut costs. Artificial colour to fake the richness. Artificial flavour to fake the strength. And slowly, without anyone announcing it, the formula changed. We all got used to the new version. We added more powder hoping it would get better. We blamed chai for acidity and bloating. Nobody told us the chai was never the problem.

1947

India became free. The estates that the British had built for themselves now belonged to Indians. And chai, which was never planted for us, became completely ours. It became our mornings. Our culture. The one thing every Indian from every background, every language, every state had in common.

1929 to 1968

He did not stop. Hingrajan in 1929. Khagrijan in 1935. Behubor in 1949. Sree Sibbari and Kaliapani in 1950. Gosaibari in 1951. Lalachera, Amchong, South Cachar in 1964. Ligripookrie in 1967. Gelakey, renamed Modinagar, in 1968. Estate after estate, even when they ran at a loss. People called it stubbornness. He called it vision.

1922

Three generations later, his grandson Badridasji was already a known name in Assam. Cloth. Grain. Rice imported from Rangoon and Burma. The largest hardware shop in northeast India. In 1922 he bought his first two estates, Nuarband and Balacherra, straight from their British owners. The family thought he was taking a risk. He thought he was being patient.

1870

A young man named Giridharilal Jamuna Das Modi packed his bags in Rajasthan and headed east. No guarantee. No safety net. He crossed Madhya Pradesh and landed in Assam, one of the very first Marwaris to make that journey. He had nothing except the belief that something was waiting here.

1836

The British planted tea in Assam for one reason only. To stop depending on China for their supply. It was never planted for India. It was never meant for us. Just one of the many things they took from this land while pretending to give.