Tea Time with Indian Agriculture

Abi Bothwell (Senior, Agricultural Economics; Denver, CO) celebrated the New Year in India as part of the Food & Agriculture in South India Study Abroad Program through Purdue’s College of Agriculture. Students earned two credits in the program led by ABE Professor, Dr. Kingsly Ambrose, and were abroad from December 27, 2025, to January 7, 2026.

The trip included the cities of Bangalore, Mysore, Ooty, Coimbatore, Cochin and Alleppey. These destinations allowed students to see a breadth of Indian culture, from the tech hub to the royal heritage to the scenic hills to the historic port to the Kerala backwaters.

Bothwell shared, “My winter break trip was honestly super incredible, and I keep telling people how gorgeous it was. India is a very different country from the majority of the world, so with it comes different challenges and experiences that I haven’t encountered prior to this trip. I was able to learn about agriculture by visiting a local sugarcane grower who refined Jaggery (a sugar used in many Indian sweets made from pressed sugarcane juice) on-site. We were also able to visit and talk with a lot of university students, all of whom were so welcoming and curious. Learning about their undergrad experience was super interesting as well. One of my personal highlights of the trip was visiting one of the largest tea estates in India that grows tea for companies like Walmart back in the U.S. Seeing how tea goes from plant through the process of drying and crushing was really cool, and I got to bring home a lot of tea!”