Assam Orthodox Tea

Details

Second flush leaf from one estate on the Brahmaputra plain near Jorhat, plucked in late May when the shoot carries the most malt, withered long and rolled orthodox so the leaf comes off the machine whole instead of being cut into granules. Orthodox is a manufacturing grade, not a flourish. It names how the leaf was rolled, and it is the reason there is a leaf in this pack you can actually see. The cheat in tea is exhausted leaf. Tea that has already been brewed commercially, for instant tea or by a bulk caterer, is dried, re-coloured and sold back into the market as fresh leaf, and it is documented adulteration in India because the spent leaf has almost nothing left to give a cup. It is caught by water-soluble extractives, the share of the tea that hot water can pull out: real leaf gives up better than a third of its weight, exhausted leaf gives up far less. The other three are added colour, to make a dull or tired leaf look rich; dust and fannings blended into a pack sold as a leaf grade, because they cost a fraction of it; and iron filings, which are nothing but weight.

• No exhausted or re-dried leaf, water-soluble extractives tested per lot
• No added colour of any kind, and no coal-tar dye
• No dust or fannings blended into the leaf grade
• No iron filings, every lot passes a magnet
• No added flavour, no malt or vanilla note poured on afterwards
• One estate, one flush, one season, never a blend of bought lots
• The leaf is large and uneven and looks like less tea than a granule pack of the same weight, because whole leaf takes up more room in the tin
• It wants four to five minutes rather than thirty seconds, so it is a slower tea than the CTC beside it