About Mayfair Tea Resort

A Brief On Mayfair Hotels & Resorts

MAYFAIR Group, promoted since1982 by Sri DilipRay started its operation with the first property at Rourkela & including this beautiful Resort at Siliguri, this progressive group now operates twelve properties at ten destinations at Bhubaneswar (MAYFAIR Lagoon & MAYFAIR Convention), Darjeeling, Gangtok, Goa, Gopalpur-on-Sea, Puri (MAYFAIR Heritage &MAYFAIR Waves), Raipur, Rourkela & Kalimpong. The group has made its mark in the market for boutique properties with their architectural ambience, beauty, eco-friendly practices & personalized services to all valued guests. The Group'smaxim, 'Stay with Us, Stay with Nature' aptly echoes its philosophy & practices.

A Brief On Mayfair Tea Resort

MAYFAIR Tea Resort at Siliguri, offers 154 luxuriously & spacious accommodations in eight categories comprising of Jungle View Rooms on 1st floor, Mountain View Rooms on Attic floor (2nd) & Heritage Rooms on ground floor with the Sukna Suites, Manager's Suites, Planter's Suites, Director's Suites & Colonial Suites as high end accommodation options.

The Story of Chumta Tea Garden and by extension, MAYFAIR Tea Resort dates back to the 1860's. It was the phase when tea plantation on a commercial scale had just commenced in Darjeeling. The successful cultivation of tea in 1841 by Dr. Archibald Campbell, the then Superintendent of Darjeeling in his Beechwood Estate located below the Clock Tower had made Darjeeling tea a reality and a commercially viable option. It was enthused by this fruitful experimentation that full-fledged tea gardens started developing in the region by 1852-1853. The physiography and climate of the region ideally favored tea cultivation and the Chinese tea variety turned out to be a huge success here

The Success of Darjeeling tea spread like a wildfire as it was the phase when the global trade was largely overwhelmed, inter alia, by tea, which hitherto remained a monopoly of China. British East India Company, in face of back to back success, first in Assam and then in Darjeeling, undertook extensive measured to promote private enterprise in tea plantation. Land leasing rules were relaxed to facilitate lease of land for 99 years on easy terms while the land used for tea gardens were exempted from payment of any revenues.

The conducive tea cultivation settings coupled with the generous administrative support made tea plantation a very alluring venture. The Europeans tempted by the incentives and huge profitability prospects evinced deep desires to undertake tea plantation, in particularly, in the Terai (hills and plains) region.

It was in this period i.e. during 1866 that Major C.M. Fitzgerald, a British army official turned entrepreneur received the grant of a large parcel of 14350 acres' land in Terai. Inhabited by primitive tribes and home to wild beasts, the area sanctioned to him was covered under dense forest infamous for Malaria and Blackwater fever. Early planters like Major Fitzgerald struggled arduously to clear the large tract of forests to give way to the tea plantation but sans the availability of modern tools and labour, clearing the whole tract of solitarily seemed a task unachievable. It was probably in realization of this practical unfeasibility that he started transferring his holdings to Europeans planters.