Heritage Tea Assam
Dibrugarh in Assam, India
Heritage Tea Assam
Grower: Heritage Tea Assam
Teamaker: Ishan Baruah of Heritage Tea Assam
Origin: Dibrugarh in Assam, India
Elevation: 100m (350ft)
Cultivation: Natural (Organic, but no certification)
Tea: Heritage Classic Assam CTC
Camellia Sinensis Assamica.
Heritage Tea is located Digbrugarh in Assam, a large tea-producing region in Northern India. It is a low-lying area with a tropical, humid climate and rich clay soils. The land is fed by the Brahmaputra River and heavy monsoon rains. Camellia sinensis assamica, with large leaves, is most prevalent here.
CTC - Crush, Tear, Curl Tea.
In the region, tea workers struggle to profit from their labors, as most don’t have the knowledge or ability to craft quality teas. Tea pluckers are paid USD$1.50 a day at most for very difficult work with no opportunities for personal growth or advancement. Small family growers are also paid very little for selling their raw leaf to the factories. The region mostly produces CTC (Crush Tear Curl) tea, which is generally regarded as a low-grade style of tea, predominantly used in tea bags. It is the tea type typically used in traditional Indian Masala Chai. Unfortunately, CTC tea production is limiting to the growth of small tea farming families, because its production is focused on quantity, it’s highly-mechanized and requires very little processing skill.
Georgia probably isn’t on your short list of countries that produce world-class teas. You’ve probably never had Georgian tea—or even knew it was grown there. And we’re not talking the U.S. state of Georgia, but rather the Republic of Georgia that sits on the far-eastern boarder of Europe. nestled between Russia, Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
But tea from Georgia? Here’s how it happened.
Agent of Change - Rajen Baruah.
However, premium quality tea is starting to develop thanks to community leaders like Rajen Baruah. Rajen is the founder of Heritage Tea Assam, a network of small tea growers whose leaf is processed at Rajen’s Heritage Tea factory. He spent 30 years working with large CTC tea corporations in Assam, both in the fields and in the factories. After retiring from commodity tea, he realized he wanted to leave a different legacy in the Assam tea industry, and founded Heritage Tea to empower local farmers by helping them grow specialty, high-quality teas.
So, in 2010, Rajen re-settled his family in Dibrugarh, Assam, and built a tea factory right next to their home. He faced numerous challenges starting a tea factory in India, which included the seemingly endless number of licenses he needed to obtain. Since the Indian Tea Board is very supportive of CTC production, Heritage was required to install a CTC factory to secure a gas line for their facility. Requirements such as these, make CTC production necessary to keep the business viable. Despite that, Rajen is leading revolutionary efforts to bring innovation to this region by designing his own small scale processing equipment to produce specialty teas like green tea and orthodox tea.
Sustainable, Organic Production.
Heritage currently works with 15 small family tea farms, each holding approximately 4 acres of land, helping them cultivate their teas with all-natural methods. All Heritage growers have transitioned from outdated, conventional agriculture to chemical-free and pesticide-free methods. They use organic vermicompost made by local producers, who Rajen helped develop their methods of natural composting
Vermicompost creates a natural humus from organic material that has been broken down by earthworms, producing higher quality teas and making tea production in this area environmentally-friendly.
