‘I always come here’: The Indian tea shop that runs on trust | Features

Serampore, India – It is a warm morning in March, and 65-year-old Ashish Bandopadhyay has cycled the 10 minutes from his home to a tea shop in the Chatra neighbourhood of Serampore, about 30km (19 miles) from Kolkata.

Dressed in a pastel pink polo shirt, Ashish takes charge of the shop, declaring it’s his “turn” to run it today. “I don’t work here,” he explains with a smile while tearing open a packet of milk as he prepares to brew a fresh pot of cha (the Bengali word for tea)….