Assam Organic Tea

Assam tea is a black organic tea named after the Assam region of India, which is one of the (if not the) largest of all tea growing regions in the world. Coming from the Camellia sinensis var. assamica, Assam tea has a brisk and malt flavor while retaining a good bright color. Because of their strong, distinct flavor, Assam and other tea types with blends in Assam, are sold most usually as teas for breakfast, and the Assam tea is a different kind of tea altogether from a more Chinese counterpart Camellia sinsesis var. sinesis, with the assamica producing wider, darker leaves than the sinesis, making it a distinct tea type. It is widely considered as the most quintessential of the Indian teas.

This type of tea is usually harvested twice a year, called flushes. While the tea would have its more usual characteristic taste and qualities in the first of the flushes, it is the second flush tea which would them be considered the "tippy tea" in recognition of the golden tips that the tea plant develops on its leaves. This second flush tea is usually sweeter as well as more full-bodied than the first flush, and is generally considered as the more excellent type of tea between the two. The Assam is generally more robust and more flavored, with a richer aroma than most black teas, and more suited for the morning which allows it to be the most prominent breakfast tea. Because of the innovation of British commercial tea planting that directly affected the Assam tea plant (which, in its wild state, produces not quite so palatable tea), the English breakfast teas of today are also Assam blends, or full bodied Assam altogether. They could be English, Scottish or Irish breakfast teas, generic in name, but they will all have Assam in one form or another. The tea itself is generally a red, burgundy type of color, and has such a distinctive malty taste (mostly due to the tropical type of weather in the region it is harvested, and the fact that it is grown at sea-level) that some Assam connoisseurs would be quite selective about the taste of their Assam tea, of which there are many kinds. The region, after all, also produces green and white teas aside from its most well-known black tea. It is found that this tea is also suited with milk and sugar.

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