Assam black tea, explained: malt, flushes and milk

Assam black tea is the malty, full-bodied black tea grown in the Brahmaputra valley of northeast India, and the reason it tastes the way it does is that it comes from a different plant. Most of the world's tea is Camellia sinensis var. sinensis, the small-leafed Chinese bush. Assam is made from Camellia sinensis var. assamica, a broad-leafed, tree-sized variety native to the region. Grown in heat and heavy rain close to sea level, it gives a dark, brisk cup with a sweet malt note that no high-mountain tea produces. In our catalog, Assam brews at 95°C for 4 minutes with 2.5 g of leaf per cup.

Where Assam grows, and why the heat matters

The gardens sit on the flood plain of the Brahmaputra river, most of them at or near sea level, which is unusual for fine tea: it is normally a mountain crop. Summer there is hot and wet, with monsoon rain that keeps the bushes pushing out leaf for months at a time. Fast growth in warm, humid air is what builds the body and the briskness in the cup. The state is no small player either. Assam produces more than half of all the tea made in India, and the state's own industry department calls it the largest tea-growing region in the world. Our India origin page sets it against the country's other two famous names.

The plant the Singpho already knew

The usual story is that the British discovered tea in Assam. What actually happened is narrower than that. The Singpho people of upper Assam had been making a drink from the wild tea trees of the region for generations before anyone wrote it down. In 1823 Robert Bruce, a Scottish trader, was shown the plant and arranged for leaves and seeds; in the early 1830s his brother Charles sent material to the botanical garden in Calcutta, where it was confirmed to be a true tea plant rather than a local curiosity. That identification is what opened India's tea industry, and the variety still carries the region's name.

First flush, second flush, and the golden tips

Assam is plucked over a long season rather than in one burst, and the harvests do not taste alike. The first flush, picked in spring, is lighter and brisker. The second flush, gathered in late May and June, is the one Assam is famous for: fuller, rounder and at its maltiest, with the pale golden buds the trade calls tips scattered through the leaf. If a packet advertises tippy or second flush, that is what it is promising. Darjeeling borrows the same flush vocabulary for a completely different result, and our Darjeeling piece explains the muscatel side of it.

CTC or orthodox: what is actually in the packet

Two processing styles split the Assam you can buy. Orthodox Assam is rolled more or less whole, so you see long dark leaf with the golden tips in it, and it brews with more nuance. CTC, which stands for crush, tear, curl, puts the leaf through toothed rollers that cut it into small hard pellets. Those pellets give up their color and their strength in a minute or two, which is why CTC fills most tea bags and why it is the backbone of Indian masala chai. Neither one is better; they are built for different cups. If you are making masala chai from scratch, CTC Assam is the leaf that survives the milk and the spices.

How to brew Assam at home

Our catalog settings are 95°C, 4 minutes and 2.5 g per cup: near-boiling water and a full four minutes, because this is a fully oxidised leaf that will not open at green tea temperatures. Assam sits on the top rung of our caffeine ladder, level 3 of 3, alongside English Breakfast and Darjeeling, which is why it reads as a morning tea rather than an evening one. Milk suits it: the malt and the body stand up to it in a way a delicate high-grown tea cannot. If you take it plain, pull the leaf at three and a half minutes instead of four, because past four the tannin sharpens quickly.

Where to start

Buy one orthodox second flush and one CTC, and brew them the same morning: the first plain in a mug, the second strong with milk. It is the clearest half hour of tea education you can give yourself, and it explains why the same word on two packets can mean such different drinks. Our own Assam is in the catalog if you want the starting point.