Assam Broken Pekoe Souchong

Originally uploaded by The Simple Leaf.

One of my favorite teas from Assam. We call this one Mountain Malt. It’s from the Gingia tea estate. Classic malty breakfast tea – enjoy with milk and sugar. The “Souchong” in the name indicates a bold and round leaf. Souchong is just a grade of leaf size – and doesn’t indicate taste or quality (see my previous post about tea grading terminology). It tastes nothing like Lapsang Souchong, which is an entirely different tea.

Gingia is one of Assam’s smaller tea gardens, with less than 400 hectares (about 988 acres) under cultivation and about 785,000 kilos of tea produced every year. To put this into some perspective, the state of Assam has over 270,000 hectares (almost 670,000 acres) of land under tea cultivation. (Source: Tea Statistics 2005 by J. Thomas & Company Private Limited)

Edit: Tess reviews this tea here.