Tea Review 154 - The Republic of Tea Organic Assam Breakfast

Organic Assam Breakfast Black Full-Leaf Tea
The Republic of Tea

Here's the description Republic of Tea gives for their Organic Assam:

The robust, malty character of this tea comes from pure, unblended Assam leaves grown in Northern India. Plentiful golden tips on leaves & hearty body qualify this tea at the top of its class. This tea was also a winner in the North American Tea Championship Assam Tea category.

It's a champion and it tastes like one and I could pretty much tell that from the moment I opened the canister and was hit by the aroma. The dry leaves had a kind of faintly spicy smell - spicy in the manner of cinnamon or nutmeg - and I actually doublechecked to make sure that this wasn't a flavored tea. It's not but it did have a the great full flavor one hopes for in a topnotch Assam.

It might not be the best of all the Assam teas I've tasted over the years but this one definitely ranks near the top of the heap. Recommended.

Image: The Republic of Tea
Sample provided by The Republic of Tea
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Book Review - The Empire of Tea

Here's a book review from the archives.

The Empire of Tea: The Remarkable History of the Plant That Took Over the World
by Alan MacFarlane & Iris MacFarlane

You know you've read too many books on tea history when you find yourself getting weary of that quaint little myth about tea's origin. You know the one - the Chinese emperor who just happened to be boiling water...outside. A few tea leaves just happen to blow off of a conveniently located tree and land in the water. The emperor drinks it and voila, thousands of years later everyone's got their drawers in a pinch about how good this stuff is for you.

For a work of tea history that treads relatively little of this oh so familiar ground you might want to turn to Iris and Alan MacFarlane's, The Empire of Tea.

Iris MacFarlane opens the book with Memoirs of a Mesahib, a chapter in which she relates her time spent on a British tea plantation in the Assam region of India, one of the world's most productive tea growing areas. MacFarlane offers up a fascinating reminiscence from someone who gradually woke up to the sobering truth of what British colonial policies had wrought, in this case, specifically with regard to tea production.

Son Alan MacFarlane, a Cambridge professor, takes over for the rest of the book, presenting an unvarnished and often highly critical look at how the British essentially took over the tea industry from the Chinese by cultivating the plant on an enormous scale in Assam, as well as other regions of India and a few select other countries.

Highly recommended.

The Empire of Tea

Tea Review 150 - Whittard Assam Hazelbank

Assam Hazelbank
Whittard of Chelsea

To paraphrase that old slogan for the Marines, I'm looking for a few good Assams - always. I've had the pleasure of trying a few good ones lately and Whittard of Chelsea's Assam Hazelbank was yet another. Not all Assam tea is created equal, as I've said many, many times, with the lesser ones tending toward bitterness and a distinct lack of flavor. Not so with this one, which was quite flavorful and with a "classic" Assam tea (whatever that means).

Here's what the merchant had to say about this one:

This small and picturesque garden produces one of the world’s best teas. This tea was named after Hazel, the daughter of state official, Dr Mead. The richness, size and colour of its tips make Hazelbank an all-time favourite.

Image: Whittard of Chelsea
Sample provided by Whittard of Chelsea
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Tea Review 148 - Luhse Tea Assam

Assam
Luhse Tea

Over the years I've made no secret of my fondness for black tea and specifically Assam, although lately I've been developing a marked fondness for Yunnan black tea as well. Lushe Tea doesn't really elaborate on the origins of their Assam or whether it's a single-estate variety, but I suspect that it's probably not. I wouldn't rank this one at the top of the Assam heap, but by the same token it wasn't so shabby either. I wouldn't have any objection to drinking it on a regular basis.

Luhse doesn't have a lot to say about this one, but here it is:

No explanation needed for this founding father, revolutionizer of the 19th century. Bold, brisk, malty, strong and bright.

Image: Luhse Tea
Sample provided by Luhse Tea
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Tea in Assam, by Samuel Baildon

In addition to publishing Tea Guy Speaks, I'm a regular contributor to The English Tea Store blog. Here's an article I recently wrote for them. Click the link to read the full article.

Tea in Assam, by Samuel Baildon
By William I. Lengeman III

If pressed to choose a favorite type of tea, I wouldn’t have a problem. I’d go with any one of a number of single-estate black varieties from Assam, a state in northeastern India. Though it’s important to note that much of the tea grown in Assam, the world’s single largest growing region, is not necessarily of exceptional quality.

A relative newcomer to the business of tea production, Assam had only been growing the stuff for about a half century when Samuel Baildon published...

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Assam Month Review: Rishi Golden Assam

Golden Assam
Rishi Tea

I'd rank this one as somewhere near the mid-range of Assam teas but not quite up there with the best that I've sampled thus far. It had a good flavor, was very smooth and had little to no astringency. I'd have no problem drinking a tea like this on a regular basis.

Here's what Rishi has to say about it:

The Assam region of Northeast India is famous for its black tea production. The sub-tropical valleys of Assam in which tea is cultivated yield gutsy, bold infusions with full body and flavor. Our single estate Golden Assam is from orthodox manufacture and has an abundance of even grade leaves and golden buds. Its rich liquor is sweet, robust and malty with notes of fruity raisin and date sugar.

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Assam Month Review: Culinary Teas

Assam Gingia - TGFOP Tea
Assam Borengajuli Tea
Assam Bukhial - TGFOP Tea
Assam Tarajulie - FBOP Tea
Culinary Teas

If I was more methodical about the process of sampling and reviewing teas I'd do side by side comparisons when I have multiple items under consideration. Okay, I'll make a note of that for future reference. Since I neglected to do that this time around I'll just go on record of saying that all of these Assam varieties provided by Culinary Teas are ones that I would be happy to drink on a regular basis.

There's virtually no astringency or bitterness - the downfall of so many lesser Assam teas - to be found in this bunch. If I absolutely had to rank them I'd go with Gingia in first place, followed by Borengajuli, Bukhial, and last, but not really least, the Tarajulie. Which is not to say that the Tarajulie was significantly "worse" than the Gingia or any of the others, because there was a very small difference in quality between these four.

Recommended all around.

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Assam Month Review: Greenwood Estate

Greenwood Estate STGFOP
Upton Tea Imports

Hello. What went wrong here? I had very high expectations for this one. They were even higher after I opened the package and caught a glimpse of all those golden tips and the great aroma of the dry leaves. And while you can’t always count on a direct correlation between price and quality, at about fifteen dollars per ounce (for the 50g size) you do expect something decent.

So I was rather dismayed to find that this one didn't turn out so well. Not that it was terrible, but it just came across as kind of flavorless. I'm almost inclined to wonder if I might have done something wrong, as far as preparation goes, but the sample size wasn't sufficient to do much additional testing.

With all this in mind I'll refrain from drawing any firm conclusions about this one. I'll chalk it up to a possible case of operator error and will probably try it again the next time I order from Upton.

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Assam Tea Commercial

An Assam tea commercial in a language I don't speak. Russian?



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Assam Month Review: Marangi Estate

Marangi Estate FTGFOP1
Upton Tea Imports

Here's another winner. I'd rank it about one notch above the Nahorhabi Estate that I recently ordered from Upton and perhaps a notch or two below the Malibru Estate, that I reviewed here not long ago. It's going to take a truly fine Assam tea to beat the latter but this one comes close.

Upton describes it thusly and I can find nothing to argue with in their description:

When we cupped this selection we knew we were sampling one of the finest Assam teas of the season. The rich liquor is thick, with pleasing malty notes, the hallmark of a fine Assam. The carefully crafted leaves have an abundance of golden tips. A selection perfectly suited for a bracing morning cup or a rich afternoon treat.

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Assam Month Review: Malibru Estate

Malibru Estate FTGFOP1 Cl
Upton Tea Imports

We have a winner - so far. This is the sixth Assam tea I tried for our Assam month observation and while some of the others were very good, none of them hold a candle to this one. There are a few others I haven't gotten to yet, but they'll have a tough time topping this one. Not that I would mind.

I can't quite put a finger on what it is that makes one Assam tea a little bit better than another (which could apply to any tea, I guess). The best Assams, like this one, are very smooth to the taste, with none of the bitterness and astringency that plague some of the lesser varieties. This one, like most of the other high end ones, has a very full, rich flavor with very faint spice notes, reminiscent perhaps of clove or cinnamon.

Upton describes this as coming "from the peak of the second flush season, this fine tea has an abundance of golden tips, with a fresh and rich Assam aroma." They also note that it "can take milk well." Which makes me cringe but I guess everyone likes what they like.

Highly recommended.

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Assam Month Review: Joy's Teaspoon

Tea Review 118
Mangalam Estate
Joy's Teaspoon

Mangalam Estate seems to be one of the more popular Assam suppliers out there, so it's surprising to me that in all these years of tea drinking I haven’t tried any. It's an oversight that's now been resolved, thanks to this sample from Joy's Teaspoon.

This is a good Assam tea, bordering on a great Assam tea. I don't normally bother with numerical ratings and whatnot, but if I were to do so, then I'd go with something like an eight on a 1-10 scale. There's very little of the bitterness or astringency that makes some of the lesser Assams so hard to take.

I wouldn't quite rank this one up there with the best Assams I've ever tasted, but I wouldn't have any problems drinking it on a regular basis. For some additional thoughts on this one, take a look at what Lainie at LainieSips.com had to say.


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Assam Month Review: Tiesta Royal Breakfast

Tea Review 117
Tiesta Tea
Royal Breakfast

In the process of doing research for an article on breakfast tea a while back I found that there's not a whole lot of consistency in what goes into the various breakfast tea blends. About the only thread that connects all them is that they are mostly (if not always) made up of black tea. Assam is often one of the black teas used, but not necessarily always

I hadn't heard of Royal Breakfast tea before but apparently there are a few other tea merchants besides Tiesta who make such a creature. Tiesta's site didn't list the teas that were used in this blend but when I contacted them they confirmed my suspicion that it was a mix of Assam and Ceylon. I'm not normally a great fan of the latter - with a few notable exceptions - but this was a very good blend. I wouldn't put it at the top of the list for Assam and breakfast teas but I wouldn't have any problem drinking it on a regular basis. Worth a look.

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Assam Month Starts Today

Update: Our observation of Assam Month gets underway today. Stay tuned for the first review, coming soon. If you have any Assam samples you'd like reviewed, there's still time. Just let us know.

March of 2006 was Assam Month here at Tea Guy Speaks. We devoted much of that month to Assam tea. You can read those articles and reviews here.

Assam is one of my favorite types of tea and it doesn't seem to get the respect it deserves. Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that a lot of the tea coming out of Assam is of so-so quality. But if you're a fan of high-quality black tea, Assam also has plenty of single-estate teas that actually are quite exceptional.

With that in mind we're going to try another Assam Month here at TGS. That will be September. If you know of any great Assam tea we can feature or if you're a merchant who'd like to send samples for review, feel free to leave a comment or contact us on Twitter.

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Tea Review 94 - Organic Assam Banaspaty

Organic Assam Banaspaty
David's Tea

If there's anyone who's followed this site for a while, you might recall that I'm a huge fan of quality Assam varieties. So when Montreal-based David's Tea passed along a quartet of samples for me to weigh in on I pounced on the Assam Banaspaty like a coyote on a roadrunner.

A lousy or even a mediocre Assam is one of the more considerable disappointments in a tea drinker's day, but a great Assam is a thing of wonder. David's Assam Banaspaty falls firmly into the latter category. It has a smooth mouth feel, with no hint of astringency or bitterness. If I recall correctly, the packaging (which I discarded prematurely) mentioned that the flavor profile had some notes of honey. Which sounded odd to me and not all that appealing, but its true and it was actually quite a nice touch.

One thing I do take exception to is an excerpt from the Web page copy, which says "If you like milk in your tea, then this is the Assam for you." We all like what we like and I won't trash anyone for adding milk to their tea, but I'd strongly urge you to taste high-end Assam tea without milk. You may be surprised.

Highly recommended.

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Top Teas Of 2006

So many teas...so little time. I've had the chance to taste a few teas this year and, of course, there were more than a few winners in the bunch. Here's the list of those that truly stood out.


Black:
Hattialli Estate GFBOP SPL (Assam) - Upton Tea Imports

Black, Honorable Mention:
Nahorhabi Estate FTGFOP1 SPL CL (Assam) - Upton Tea Imports

Green:
First-Flush Shizuoka Sencha "Hatsumi" - O-Cha.com

Green, Honorable Mention:
Matcha-iri Teabags - O-Cha.com

Other:
Snow Buds (Xue Ya) Organic White Tea - Rishi Tea

Herbal:
Blueberry Rooibos - Rishi Tea

RTD (Ready To Drink):
Anteadote Pure White Tea - Adagio Teas

RTD, Honorable Mention:
Honeysuckle White Tea - Inko's

Image: Rishi Tea

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September's Favorite Teas

Here are some of the better teas I've tried this month. They're all from Upton Tea Imports. I've tended to gravitate toward them lately because they have a wide selection ("420 varieties of loose tea") and offer much of what they sell in a sample size.

After all, it's kind of disappointing to spring for a large quantity of tea, only to find out, right from the first cup, that you don't like it. Yuk, I say.

If you've spent much time at this site, you're probably aware that I'm a tireless cheerleader for high-quality single-estate Assam varieties (no milk or sugar, please). I even dedicated the entire month of March 2006 to Assam teas. One variety that stood out among the many I sampled back then was Hattialli Estate GFBOP SPL, which I reviewed here. I recently finished off a 125-gram package and find myself longing for more.

With all my focus on Assam, I tend to sometimes forget that are other black teas in the world - like in China, for instance. I decided to try out a sample of Organic China Yunnan Shui Jiu a few weeks ago and I liked it so much that I ordered a larger quantity. I'm not generally a fan of smoky teas, but this one has just a faint hint of that and it comes across quite well.

I tend to favor black teas, but I'm certainly not averse to a good green now and then. Long-Jing (Lung-Ching) Green (Superfine) is what I would call a good green and one that's definitely worth looking into.

Image: Upton Tea Imports

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Tea Review 72 - Assam, Nahorhabi Estate

Nahorhabi Estate FTGFOP1 SPL CL
Upton Tea Imports

If you weren't hanging around these parts during March, 2006 then you missed Assam Month. This, as you might have guessed, was a month's worth of posts largely devoted to the unique joys of higher end Assam varieties, for which I've become something of a cheerleader.

I tasted some great teas during that month, as noted at the end of this piece. I also tasted some mediocre ones and even a few lousy ones - no need to name names. Oh, and I tasted a decaf Assam that was downright appalling, but that's generally been the case with any decafs I've sampled.

A while back I got the hankering for some more Assam, so I ordered a few sample packs from Upton, as I'm sometimes wont to do. One of the varieties that really impressed me was Nahorhabi Estate FTGFOP1 SPL CL. In fact, it impressed me so much that I did something I haven't really done before - I ordered a larger package (100 grams).

This was a switch. As I've said, on many occasions, I'm very much in favor of sampling as many varieties of tea as I can. With about 60 varieties of Assam in stock at any given time Upton makes that easy to do.

Nahorhabi Estate may not be the perfect Assam tea, but it's close. It's a very robust variety that brews up very dark in the cup but seems to resist going bitter no matter what. Then again, I didn't really experiment with longer brewing times since I didn't want to waste even one cup of this fine stuff.

Nahorhabi Estate has a surprisingly sweet taste, with perhaps the faintest hint of cinnamon or clove. It's a very smooth taste - with no tannins or bitterness apparent to my coarse tongue.

All in all, a great experience. Very highly recommended.

tea, green tea, food, food and drink, tea review, Assam

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In Praise Of Assam

Perhaps it would be overstating the case to suggest that Assam is the Rodney Dangerfield of teas. But, the truth is, it doesn't seem to get much respect.

Assam, if I've got my story straight, is most often used as a component of the various breakfast teas - Irish, English and Scottish. It doesn't really have a reputation for being a high-quality tea - whether deserved or not - and the truth is that I've tasted my fair share of lousy varieties. But there's also plenty of Assam out there that's quite good.

Tea connoisseurs seem to gravitate to just about anything but Assam. Darjeeling, of course, is one of the best known and highly visible of the premium (for lack of a better word) teas. But there's also Pu-erh, which appears to be the favorite of the true tea snobs (you know who you are).

If your tastes lean toward green tea, maybe you'll go with a high quality sencha or even a gyokuro. Or maybe you'll even seek out a rare, delicate (and pricey) white tea. But an Assam?

Sure, why not? The truth is that there are some great single-estate Assam teas out there that, for my money, are the equal of any Darjeeling, Pu-erh, or sencha. Of course, that's assuming you like the eye-opening and very robust flavor that's typically the hallmark of Assam tea. These are black tea lover's teas, friends. No doubt about that. But maybe it's time you tried one.

Assam was our featured tea during the month of March, 2006. Here are reviews of some noteworthy varieties sampled during that month.

Tea Review 53 - Singlijan Estate TGFOP1

Tea Review 57 - Sessa & Sessa (Assam)

Tea Review 60 - Khagorijan & Bukhial

Tea Review 62 - Hattialli & Tippy Orthodox


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Tea Review 62 - Hattialli & Tippy Orthodox

Hattialli Estate GFBOP SPL
Tippy Orthodox GFOP
Upton Tea Imports

Yerba Mate Month is almost upon us, Assam Month is fading and the tea cupboard is almost bare of the latter. Oh, woe. But we'll usher out the month with a bang - specifically with one of the better of the dozen or so Assams I've tasted lately.

Hattialli Estate gets the best in show award, as far as Assam Month goes. It's not cheap. As a matter of fact, at $4.50 for a 15 gram sample, it's the most expensive of the sixty or so Assam varieties that Upton sells. But it's worth it.

This is one of several varieties that Upton offers from this estate. It's overflowing with nice tips, not to mention an outstanding aroma and flavor and a mouth feel that's smooth as silk.

Here's the full description from Upton's site, to which I say a resounding "amen":

"This renowned estate has produced many top-notch teas in recent years. This example has a beautiful, broken leaf, with a high percentage of golden-copper tips. The fresh, invigorating aroma and thick liquor are backed by the full, complex Assam flavor."

If you'd rather not spend so much but you'd still like a nice tasting Assam you could do a lot worse than the Tippy Orthodox. One hundred grams of this one sells for just a little more than the sample of the Hattialli and yet it ranks right up there with some of the other top Assams I've had the pleasure to taste this month.

Recommended in both cases, but if you really want a thrill cough up a little extra cash and go with the Hattialli.

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