Shah was born in Mumbai, India and grew up in Coimbatore (where he returned for a visit just last week). He had five older sisters and his father was headmaster of a school. When he was seven, he began spending summers with his sister and brother-in-law on a tea plantation in Coonoor, Nilgiri. They processed both CTC and orthodox teas on the plantation and he worked in the fields and the factory. He majored in business at the university in Coimbatore and then tea lured him back and he became an assistant tea broker.
Shah has been a World Tea Expo exhibitor since 2002, a sponsor of the Specialty Tea Institute, an adviser to World Tea Academy and he also helped found the Los Angeles Tea Festival in 2011.
In 2014, World Tea Expo awarded Shah the Cha Jing Lifetime Achievement Award. It was an important opportunity for the tea community to share these stories, the behind-the-scenes support, that he has provided the industry for decades. At that time, James Norwood Pratt professed, “Everyone knows black tea is the most popular tea here and that green tea is second, but few recognize that it is Devan who made chai the third most popular tea in America.”