Assam tea, renowned for its bold flavour and rich history, thrives in India’s Assam region. Its unique production methods enhance both taste and health benefits, making it a favourite among tea enthusiasts and researchers alike.
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What is Indian tea?
India is the world’s second largest producer of tea, second only to China.
Part of the reason for this development is that India’s mountainous regions are home to the famous Assam and Darjeeling teas.
The country is home to more than 100,000 tea plantations, employing millions of workers across geographical and ethnic lines.
Tea is so ingrained in India’s culture that 70 percent of the millions of tons of tea it produces is consumed domestically.
India’s terrain defines its tea growing regions by the subcontinent’s significant differences in climate and geography.
The three main Indian tea regions are Assam, Darjeeling and Nilgiri.
Northeast India is home to two famous regions; the Assam region and Darjeeling.
Assam is located in the lush, dense jungles at the foot of the eastern Himalayas.
The Darjeeling region itself is adjacent to the Tibetan Himalayas and stretches between high mountain slopes and deep mountain valleys.
Nilgiri, on the other hand, is located in the mountains of the southernmost region of India.
The Nilgiri (Blue Hill) mountains have high altitudes that boast lush forests and jungles where tea plantations thrive.
The tea grown and produced in India varies as much as its population and geography.
Each tea-producing region in India gives its own, yet perfect, climate and distinctive character to the tea that grows there.
Indian tea culture is taking over the world
To understand the Indian tea culture, you need to look at when the commercial production of tea began.
This started after the conquest of large areas by the British East India Company and demand from the rest of the world.
It was in this context that large areas of land were converted to mass production of tea.
The widespread popularity of tea as a beverage began in earnest in the 1920s, following a successful advertising campaign and popular movement driven by the Indian government.
One of the tools that drove the success of this campaign was the use of train stations as a base for distribution.
Today, India is one of the largest tea producers and exporters in the world, although over 70 percent of tea is consumed in India itself.
As mentioned, a number of famous teas only grow in India itself, such as.
Assam and Darjeeling.
The Indian tea industry has since grown to own many global tea brands and has developed into one of the most technologically equipped tea industries in the world.
Tea production, certification, export, and all other facets of tea trade in India are controlled by what is called ‘the Board of India’.
India used to be the largest producer of tea and held this position for almost a century, but recently China has overtaken them as the leading tea producer, especially due to the increased availability of land.
The major tea producing states in India are: Assam, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Sikkim, Nagaland, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Bihar and Orissa.
A universe of tea
Assam the largest tea producing region
Assam is the largest tea-producing region in India and some even claim in the world.
It is home to India’s native wild tea plant, Camillia sinensis assamica.
The discovery of the native tea plant in the area in 1815 was a great boon to English trade with British-colonized India.
The British colonists were quite literally addicted to tea at the time and relied on China as an export partner to meet the growing demand.
A simmering conflict between China and India, as well as shipping and trade competition from the Netherlands, made it increasingly difficult for the English to maintain a successful tea trade.
English explorer and botanist Robert Bruce is said to have confirmed the discovery of India’s native tea plant in 1823.
Charles Bruce, Robert’s brother, took over the study when his brother died.
Bruce explored the wild Assam tea plants that grew across the region and learned that local tribes had used tea for centuries as both food and drink.
By the 1830s, Bruce figured out how these plants could be bred and cultivated to create what eventually became a British-dominated tea industry in India.
Darjeeling tea’s answer to champagne
While the discovery and exploration of the native Assam tea plant was taking place, the British were also trying to smuggle the highly prized tea plants and seeds from China to India.
Many doubted that the native Indian tea plant could ever compete with the high quality of tea that came from China’s tea bushes.
The British eventually succeeded in smuggling seeds from and cultivating the Chinese tea bush, Camellia sinensis sinensis, in the high, cool, rainy and rugged mountains of Darjeeling.
This part of India mirrored the environment where Chinese tea bushes had been seen growing successfully in the past.
Darjeeling is often called the “Champagne” of tea.
Like French grapes, Darjeeling’s tea crop can vary from year to year depending on the weather, soil and accessibility to the unique and varied mountain terrain where the bushes grow.
Like Champagne labeling in France, a tea must be grown, developed, produced, manufactured and processed in a tea garden in the Darjeeling region of India to be called a Darjeeling tea.
The underrated teas of the Nilgiri region
The same seeds from the Chinese tea bush that thrived in Darjeeling were sent down to the southern Nilgiri (Blue Hill) mountains in Tamil state for trial planting.
Similar to this region and the two above was the fact that the altitudes are similar, so it was found to be a fertile tea growing region.
While the size of the growing region and the number of tea plantations were similar to Darjeeling, Nilgiri tea never gained the prestige or price that tea from Assam and Darjeeling has. Much of Nilgiri’s tea was destined for Eastern Europe and Russia, which were smaller tea-drinking countries than England and America.
These countries also didn’t demand the same quality of tea as other worldwide consumers did, so the production quality of Nilgiris tea suffered.
Fast forward 150+ years, Nilgir’s distribution level and quality has undergone major improvements.
Nilgiri now accounts for around 25 percent of India’s total tea production, of which about 50 percent is exported to the UK and Europe.
In 2006, Nilgiri tea growers held their first tea auction in the US and it was met with great success and high praise for the quality of tea grown in the Nilgiri region.