‘Mahual tha paan ka…paan khilate the aur khate the (‘Paan’ was an evergreen delicacy).’ Rakesh Sharma recalls his early days back home longingly as he chews on the topic of ‘paan’, India’s beloved mouth freshener with spices wrapped in a betel leaf.
The retired accountant’s yearning for that taste of India is growing, quite literally, in the backyard of his house in the southern Auckland suburb of Mangere. He has cleared off a patch to harvest betel plants from a cutting he managed to track down in Christchurch.
“I did a lot of research and found this paan leaf closest to the one we get in Kolkata [dark green],” says the 67-year-old behind ‘Sharma Paan’, a budding brand whose products are now available at stores across Auckland.
Born in Hoshiarpur in the northern Indian state of Punjab, Sharma spent most of his life in Mumbai before settling in New Zealand in 2000.
"I used to eat paan a lot throughout my life in India…but when I came to New Zealand, I didn’t get paan. The New Zealand government does not allow betel leaves or betel nuts (‘supari’) to be imported from India,” he says.
Sharma has nearly quit full time work as a chartered accountant to focus on his passion that took shape of a product in March this year.
“I decided to convert my love for paan into my retirement business venture. About a year back, I went to Melbourne. We saw a great demand for paan and thought, why don't we get it here in New Zealand? Then I started researching and zeroed in on a few paans we wanted to introduce here.”
Paans available in New Zealand are mostly made from betel leaves imported from Fiji, which Sharma says are quite unique in their own right, but taste quite different from the Indian varieties.
The first lot of betel plants growing in his backyard from the cutting he brought from Christchurch will start to blossom this summer, when he hopes to start using them on a large scale.
Besides the Auckland Council-approved workshop at his home, Sharma has harvested the betel variety from Christchurch also in Hamilton and Papatoetoe to achieve scale.
"It is imperative for us to give our customers unique and traditional taste in our products. We used to use Fiji betel leaves, but we hope to start using this new variety soon.”
Sharma Paan offers Sweet Paan, Herbal Paan, Waffle Paan and mouth fresheners, available in packages of 4gm and 12gm. They also do Saada Paan for bulk orders.
The products retail at about 15 restaurants and grocery stores across Auckland, and the company also offers courier service for customers from other cities. Its products are also available on food delivery services like Uber Eats and DoorDash.
Along with his wife Neelam and volunteers, Sharma assembles the products at a shed in his backyard. “We import all our ingredients, be it spices, gulkand, saffron, fennel seeds and dry fruits, by air from India.
“All the products have a shelf life of six months, which we aim to increase to a year. We have paid an Indian paan company for the recipe for waffle paan. We have taken help from ‘Pandey Paan’, an 80-year-old paan business at Connaught Place in New Delhi.”
Sharma says he is happy with the market response so far. "We only started our business in March this year, but the response has been great. We are the first to introduce paan in an organised and professional way in New Zealand.
“At present, we sell about 400 paans a week. We are working on increasing it. We need more awareness about our products as we are very confident about the quality of our products.”
Talking about his future plans, he shares, “We are a team of Senior Citizens on our project and as my business keeps growing, I would want to involve more senior citizens in the business. The idea is to keep seniors occupied. Also, we plan to add more products in the coming time.”