Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Tea
444
The Tea Heartland
Tea Capital of the World
Assam, India
India can't claim to be the birthplace of tea,
but thanks to an aggressive crew of 19th-
century British planters, India eventually
became the world's greatest tea-growing
nation, supplying a seemingly endless
stream of fragrant brew to teapots all over
the globe. India's tea industry faltered in
the 1990s—when the Soviet Union (their
biggest export market) collapsed and both
Sri Lanka and Kenya stepped up tea pro-
duction. But as India's tea-growers work to
reclaim lost ground, they're focusing on
marketing top-of-the-line teas and opening
their historic estates to tourists—all of
which is good news for tea connoisseurs.
Assam is where it all started, in the
1820s, when British military officers
noticed local Singhos drinking restorative
beverages brewed from the local
Camellia
sinensis
shrub; Assam is still India's most
productive tea region today. At its golden-
tipped best, Assam tea is favored for its
full-bodied flavor and rich brown color,
which makes for a bracing breakfast tea.
Much Assam tea is processed for the
domestic market, using the CTC—mean-
ing “crush, tear, and curl”—process, which
produces a redder brew.
Most plantations are around Jorhat,
which markets itself as Tea Capital of the
World. There's a tea festival here every
November, and even a special tea research
institute, the Teklai Experimental Centre (in
Chinnamara, 5km/3 miles from Jorhat). Driv-
ing around Jorhat, you'll notice densely
planted emerald-green tea bushes on either
side of the road, interspersed with shade
trees (tea is a shade-loving evergreen).
Workers continually harvest leaves, pluck-
ing bushes every 7 days during harvest
season, late June through early October
(which also happens to be monsoon sea-
son). Both the
Gatoonga
and
Sangsua
tea estates outside Jorhat have sprawling
vintage “bungalows” where you can stay
overnight. Teak-framed, with high ceilings,
wood floors, whirring ceiling fans, and wide
verandas, these bungalows seem lifted
right out of a Somerset Maugham story.
About halfway between Jorhat and
Guwahati, on the north bank of the Brah-
maputra River near Tezpur, the Adabari
Tea Estate's Victorian-era white bunga-
low, where the estate's manager once
lived, is now open to visitors as the upscale
Wild Mahseer Lodge.
Farther up the
river, the
Mancotta Chang Bungalow
near Dibrugarh is over 140 years old. A
traditional “chang,” or platform bungalow,
it was originally built by Scottish planters
but is now owned by the Jalans, one of the
pioneer tea families of Assam. Raised on
stilts for protection from jungle predators,
including tigers and one-horned rhinos,
Mancotta almost seems to float above the
scrubby bright green tea bushes of the
surrounding plantations.
(
Jorhat/Dibrugarh.
L
$$$
Mancotta Chang Bungalow,
12km (7
1
⁄
2
miles) from Dibrugarh (
&
91/373/
2301120;
www.purviweb.com). $$$
Wild
Mahseer Lodge,
Balipura (
&
91/3714/
234354
). $$
Mistry Sahbi's Bungalow,
Gatoonga Tea Estate, Jorhat (
&
91/11/
46035500
for reservations; www.welcom
heritagehotels.com). $$
Burra Sahib's
Bungalow,
Sangsua Tea Estate, (
&
91/11/
46035500
for reservations; www.welcom
heritagehotels.com).
Tour Operator: Travel Plus,
New Delhi
(
&
91/011/43436666;
www.plustours.
com).
Namaste Tours
(
&
91/124/4040636;
www.namastetoursindia.com).
Flamingo
Travels
(
&
91/361/2454669;
www.
flamingotravels.com).
