One of the highlights whilst I was working at Twinings was a trip to Assam in North East India to film promotional videos. Assam is my go-to comfort tea. A very familiar taste as it’s often used as a base for English Breakfast, the tea blend that I grew up on.
Brewing up some Twinings Signature Blends Assam Adventure
Assam is a black tea known for its strong, sweet and malty character. It’s named after the region in which it’s grown - Assam in North East India, which stretches across the southeast Himalayas, and borders Bhutan and Bangladesh.
The discovery of Assam tea is accredited to a Scottish adventurer called Robert Bruce in 1823. He was intrigued by the locals who were chewing, drinking and cooking with this tea. His discovery had a huge influence on Britain’s tea tastes, as British people started to switch from Chinese green tea to Indian black tea. Of course this was all wrapped up in the British colonisation of India, hence Indian tea was cheaper to import than Chinese tea.
In contrast to most Chinese teas which like to grow at a high elevation in cool temperatures, Assam tea thrives in the region’s very hot and humid climate, around 35 to 38 degrees Celsius. Assam is also at sea level. The mighty Brahmaputra River runs right through the middle of the region creating a rich and fertile soil. It’s one of the most prolific tea growing areas, producing around 600 million kgs per year - about 30% of the world’s black tea.
the mighty Brahmaputra river stretching as far as the eye can see
A seasonal tea, Assam has three flushes. A flush being the number of times per year or per season that the tea plant yields leaves for plucking. The first flush is from around March to May but can be a little too pungent for some people. It’s the second flush, from May/June through til October, that’s generally known as the best quality, having a beautiful well-rounded malty flavour. There’s also a winter flush starting from October to around December time. A sign of a really nice Assam is the proportion of golden tips in the tea leaves. These are the young buds from the tip of the tea bush that contain the most flavour and nutrients.
plenty of beautiful golden tips
As well as being famous for tea, Assam also has a rich cultural heritage of music and dance. One afternoon, before our daily Afternoon Tea time, the tea plantation workers treated us to a performance of two traditional dances accompanied by drums. The first was the Bihu dance, an Assamese folk dance, and the second was the Jhumur dance, a traditional tea tribe dance.
Bihu dance and Jhumur dance
Many thanks to our hosts at Goodricke’s for their very generous hospitality – delicious curries, afternoon teas, and of course plenty of beautiful Assam tea.
our amazing hosts