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November 1, 2006 Archive
Talking About
Assam
with
Assam tea has a few problems. Legends of 1,000-year-old tea plants and of Buddhist priests who ripped their eyes from their sockets and cast them to the ground so that tea plants might spring to life are the sorts of legends Chinese tea is…… well…steeped in. Assam tea, on the other hand, has no such legends since it’s recorded history dates only from the early 1800’s. While the lack of an ancient lineage shouldn’t be a deterrent in our modern world, the fact that the Chinese always marketed their own tea and provided the needed conceptual ideas gave them a distinct advantage in the market place. The British exclusively marketed Assam teas as a commodity and so from its introduction in the European market, it was almost exclusively used in secret blends; following a different path than Chinese tea. Then there is the fact that most of us have yet to taste a really good cup of Assam as it’s usually blended down with other teas and into breakfast blends by the time it reaches our boiling water. As if all of that wasn't enough to contend with, it’s not as easy as you might think to grow Assam tea. Although we never hear of it in our media outlets, Assam has been plunged into a complex civil conflict for the last fifty years. Three hundred different tribes, fifty different rebel groups, and a lack of infrastructure originating from when the British left in 1947 make everyday living in Assam difficult, let alone the growing of tea. Hundreds of established tea gardens have been abandoned and claimed by the jungle during the last half century. Indian corporations, who for the safety of their executives, remotely run most of the remaining tea gardens from Calcutta and New Delhi have had to sacrifice quality. Living in the gardens so the tea plants can be properly cared for, and the harvested teas immaculately crafted into made-teas is too dangerous, and so it is only during the most prized second flush that tea executives actually tend to the plants at all. The lack of security and stability has also made it almost impossible for Indian tea companies to make any tangible infrastructural investment in their tea plantations in decades. And so just when we’re thinking it’s a wonder there’s any Assamese tea at all, in steps the Bhattacharjee family. Lead by Mridul Kumar Bhattacharjee, this family is committed to growing, creating, and marketing high quality Assamese teas from their two tea plantations, despite the very real dangers involved. Their first plantation, Satrupa, is located in Upper Assam about a day’s journey from the Burmese border and was planted from scratch by the family. Containing twenty tea gardens of ten to fifteen acres each, Satrupa produces 1.5 million pounds each year of classically smooth and malty Assam. Their second plantation, Rani, sits at a much lower elevation about ten minutes from Assam’s only international airport. This much older garden - now organic - was planted in 1860. The Bhattacharjee family had to reclaim most of it from the jungle in order to bring it back to life when they purchased it in the early 1990’s. Compared to Satrupa’s teas, Rani’s are spicier and more astringent, requiring a more educated palette for the best appreciation. Taste the teas from either of these estates and you’ll find you’ve just discovered the best of Assam. Since a large portion of the Bhattacharjee’s teas go to Germany, where they meet the high European Union standards for quality and strict chemical residue levels, we’re lucky Saunam Bhattacharjee now lives in the U.S. Intending to expand the market for Assamese tea both here and abroad, he and his wife, Namgay, opened the rapidly growing Assam Tea Company in St. Petersburg in 2003. Of further interest - and yet another tribute to the quality of their tea - is the fact they’ve coined the term single malt, meaning a tea batch harvested in one season. This batch is completely unmixed, each a unique production using the same manufacturing (either orthodox or crush-tear-curl) process.
The Assam Tea Company sells both wholesale and retail and
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