Soureni Tea Estate is located high up in the hills of Darjeeling district. It is a small estate located at 4200 to 4600 feet in the picturesque Mirik Valley in the Darjeeling Hills of North East India. The Soureni Tea Estate was started by the Tiwari Family in 1902.

The growth of Soureni Tea Estate has a long and very interesting history behind. The tea industry in Darjeeling as a whole was set up by the British, when the country was under the Imperial Rule during the later half of the 19th century. The British had chosen the enchantingly beautiful Darjeeling Hills as one of their sites for setting up an Army Base, owing to its strategic location. A Colonel in the British Army was assigned the responsibility to select the site and undertake the work. He selected the area around very old and famed temple locally called "Mahakaal Baba`s Temple" situated on a hilltop in the heart of Darjeeling town. As the temple attracted lot of devotees from neighboring Nepal and from the nearby villages in India, he predicted the advantage of getting easy labourers for this purpose.

The responsibility of arranging labours and clearing out the forest to set up the Army Base was assigned to a local Nepali contractor. Once the job of land clearing was done, the Colonel was very happy with the work and in return gifted the Nepali contractor a large area of land in the hills across the Mirik valley. Soon afterwards the contractor died and this land was inherited by his son, Mr. Bhawanjeet Rai. Meanwhile, during this time lived a young aspiring man Mr.Ramlal Tiwari, in a remote village in Rajasthan. In the year 1870 Ramlal with his brother Jalooram, set out towards Darjeeling in search of lush green pastures. It took them months to traverse this long distance of over 1000 miles on foot, by steamer boats, shuttle trains and bullock carts. They set up a departmental store in Kurseong by the name of Jalooram and Company. Rai started frequenting this store and used to make all his purchases at credit for various provisions. Over a period of time Rai`s credit piled up to a huge amount which he could not pay. He suddenly fell ill, but before his death he transferred about 1100 acres of land in Mirik Valley to Mr. Ramlal Tiwari in exchange of his massive credit.

To put this huge land to use, Ramlal Tiwari followed the scheme that other British Companies were doing in the area and started a plantation. Thus, Soureni was born in the year 1902. Soureni comes from the word "Soar" which is a type of pine tree that grew in abundance in that area. After the death of Ramlal Tiwari, the property was managed by his brother Jalooram. Bhoujit Rai, son of previous Dakman Rai, the Nepali sardar who was as responsible for the establishment of Darjeeling as Llyod, established Soureni Tea Estate by releasing few of his slave labourers by planting a particular tree called "Saur" and some tea was planted on this personal estate. Thereafter the Soureni Tea Estate was handed down generation after generation for almost 100 years until when the Tiwari Family finally sold it off in 1990.

After Indian Independence, majority of the land was acquired by the Government of India under the Land Ceiling Act. The present area left with the garden encompasses only about 300 acres. Besides, tea cultivation, the work culture in Soureni Tea Estate is worth admiring. Men folk in Tiwari family were addressed as "Maharaj" by the workers and local public unlike "Sir" or "Sahib" as was the British culture in those days. Several acres of tea in Soureni Tea Estate was planted by the Tiwari family themselves, working hand in hand with the workers in the field. The entire tea garden was treated like one big family. The company came to be known for its high quality teas, which are often sold even before production starts. The Soureni Tea Estate has served as an inspiration to many of the family members, who have followed the family tradition into the tea business. Unfortunately, Soureni Tea Estate was sold off in late seventies, however, under the new owners the tradition of quality product has not diminished.