Brewing a century of heritage: Rudra Chatterjee on Luxmi Tea, Obeetee and the Indian entrepreneurial spirit

For over a hundred years, the Luxmi Tea Group has been intertwined with the fabric of Indian history, from the days of the freedom struggle to the dynamic economy of today. Today, at the helm of affairs is Rudra Chatterjee, its Managing Director.

In the latest episode of Mint's series Let’s Mint Money, presented in association with Waterfield Advisors, Chatterjee spoke to Neil Borate, Editor-in-Chief, thefynprint, about the evolution of India’s tea culture, why he would rather be in tea than in coffee, the resilience required to weather global volatilities, and his philosophy on wealth creation.

Watch the full episode below

Roots in the freedom struggle

Luxmi Tea Group was started by his grandfather, who got together with a group of young Bengali and Assamese students associated with the freedom movement, and escaped British dominance to Tripura to start the business. Chatterjee spent his early years in Kolkata listening to stories of the company’s genesis from his grandfather. “I grew up in Kolkata... and heard the stories of the founding of the business during the freedom struggle,” he said.

Starting a tea plantation was an act of defiance, as the infrastructure and market were heavily monopolised by the British. Chatterjee explains how the nascent company navigated this challenging landscape. “The infrastructure was British... if you weren’t a part of the British system, then your teas weren’t auctioned,” he explained.

The solution was a distinctly Indian one: growing green tea and selling it in Amritsar, which circumvented the British-controlled Kolkata auctions. They even relied on a “parallel ecosystem” of revolutionary banks, like the one that eventually became United Bank, for financial support. This spirit of resilience and innovation remains a core value. Chatterjee summarised the early challenge, and said, “While the British had a system, they didn’t ban production of tea, but they had a system that only worked for them, and companies like ours had to evolve a new system that worked for us.”

The Indian tea experience

Chatterjee built on his family legacy and brought a unique perspective to the business, shaped by his own diverse academic background – he studied business at Columbia and, later, the history of design at Oxford. This historical lens changed his view of India’s relationship with tea.

Speaking about the Indian connection with tea, he felt that even though tea, like coffee, came from outside India, “The way Indians engage with tea is far more authentic and Indians have made tea their own.” The way Indians prepare chai is an authentically Indian ritual and a crucial part of daily life, and Chatterjee is keen to see this honoured and elevated.

It is perhaps for this reason that the connection that Indians have with tea is far more authentic, even as we now see the coffee culture booming in the country. “I would rather be in tea than in coffee because it is something which Indians really feel as their own,” he further said.

He believes tea is more than capable of competing with the café culture, especially given the thousands of tea varieties that are complex to make at home. Crucially, the social aspect of tea is centuries old in India. He said: “Many people in India have been going to tea stalls for hundreds of years... that has been the social network before Facebook... we should not cut ourselves off from our history.” The acquisition of Brew Tea, a high-quality subscription-based tea company in the UK, demonstrates his belief in modernising tea consumption while preserving this deep cultural connection.

Weaving a way into home furnishings with Obeetee

Apart from the tea market, Luxmi Group has also ventured into the home furnishing space with Oakley, Bowden and Taylor (Obeetee), a century-old brand that has evolved from carpet making into a holistic home furnishings company. Obeetee collaborates with top Indian designers, creating unique pieces like chikankari rugs or Jamawar shawl-inspired carpets, celebrating Indian textile heritage.

“Our view is that your home especially for an Indian person especially is a place where you have your own individuality,” said Chatterjee, and that’s as home architecture becomes more and more standardised, the owner’s individuality is reflected in the use of textiles, furniture and carpets, which truly turn a house into a home.

Unlike corporate furniture makers who aim for a globally uniform design, Obeetee strives for diversity. “I think India is a country with multi-layered cultures and there is not one size, one design, one colour that fits all of us and we celebrate that as Obeetee,” he said. The brand sees itself as filling a significant gap in the market for a large-scale, high-quality homegrown “home furnishing company.”

Navigating market volatility and tariffs

As global uncertainties like wars, energy crises and climate change define the way business is done, Chatterjee holds a view of resilience. He believes Indian businesses, especially family-run enterprises, are inherently adaptive due to a history of dealing with internal policy and environmental volatility.

This long-term, adaptive mindset contrasts sharply with the “quarterly mindset” and “just-in-time inventory” models often favoured in the West, which prove fragile in volatile environments. He believes Indian business people are ‘extremely adaptive’. “Tariff I think is a very blunt instrument. It hopefully is hopefully a temporary measure. What is going to be the source

of volatility is unknown. But our businesses have to be resilient and in some ways build off those volatilities,” he said.

The mindset of wealth creation

Chatterjee’s philosophy on investment, both within and outside his core businesses, is characterised by a decades-long commitment and a focus on quality management.

For his personal investments, he has onboarded an expert to manage them as he lacks the time and interest to manage them himself. “I belive in finding the best investment manager and then having the same decades long mindset of seeing those investments being preserved and grown,” he said.

He also invests in start-ups, but views it not just for financial return but as a mechanism for learning and ecosystem building. “There’s nothing more exciting than meeting founders of companies who are trying something new,” he said. His interest often lies in D2C companies related to textiles or tea, allowing him to gain new insights. Importantly, for him, start-up investing is high-risk, a “long-term play” where he invests “an amount of money that I should be comfortable never seeing again.”

A legacy of leading by example

Chatterjee spoke about legacy as the ultimate measure of success. For him, money is not about consumption, but about impact and creating an environment for the next generation to be ambitious.

He highlighted the significant non-financial ROI of their work in tea and home furnishings, which employ thousands of people. Even a small fraction of the company’s profits can be life-changing for workers and pluckers. “The impact that money can have on them is certainly a very high ROI. It may not be exactly financial but it’s life-changing with a relatively small amount of your profits on teas and pluckers is significant in terms of legacy,” he said.

His grandfather led by example, not by money, and he wants to pass on a similar legacy to his children. He felt that a successful business family must not pressure the next generation to replicate what has been done. The goal is to provide a secure foundation from which the next generation can launch new, ambitious ventures, learning from their parents’ example.

Note to Readers: Lets Mint Money is a Mint editorial IP, in association with Waterfield Advisors. The series will see Neil Borate explore the personal finance perspectives of India's accomplished corporate professionals, entrepreneurs, and family business owners.

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To know more about Waterfield, visit www.waterfieldadvisors.com