From packaging mushrooms to berry jams and producing costus or Rurta tea, the Araya Zamlha Organic Packers, a private firm based in Ura in Bumthang, focuses on producing and marketing organic agricultural products and herbs.
The firm also serves as a ready market for the farmers of the community.
It mostly concentrates on producing costus root or Rurta tea. The plant is widely known for its roots, which are known to have medicinal value.
The owner of the firm, 45-year-old Karma Jurmin, grows the medicinal plant in about an acre of land.
It all started after Karma’s late father was given two saplings of the plant by his friend.
The plant flourished and Karma and his family started packaging the plant and marketed it. “One day, I remembered my father saying we could make tea out of this,” recalls Karma Jurmin.
“He called it tea but its actually an infusion and I had to come up with a product name, so I put it as Rurta Tea because it’s more familiar with consumers. From there, we started packaging buckwheat and mushrooms, and then by last year, we started doing jams.”
The firm currently produces more than 10 varieties of products such as buckwheat flour, puffed rice powder or Zapche, local wine infused in matsutake and incense powder among others.
Wild rosehip jam, syrup and tea are the latest additions.
The owner says his firm does it all only to give whatever he knows back to the community.
“Those things, whatever we have done are sort of an example to the community because there are so many wild berries growing and they are just dying like that. If I do jams and if I am making a little bit of money, I am hoping my fellow villagers will try to learn from me and start their own businesses.”
The firm earns about Nu 200,000 every year.
