The Journey of Our Assam Tea...

On the flat lands of the beautiful Assam tea estates in India, large-leafed flushes grow best in misty rainy regions, hence the tropical climate and low altitude of the Assam region which contributes to the malty, caramel and tippy profile - which can be found as an important base to our very special Spiced Bombay Chai!

The fruitful Assam tea bush and it's leaves are pruned at about one meter in height, however it isn’t an easy task for the farmers to pluck as there's huge diligence placed in only picking the tender tea buds by hand. The tea picker must know exactly which leaf and bud, to pick. Anything other than the best tea bud will not do, as big leaves are too tough and don't contain the rich flavours we are looking for!

Our fruitful tea gardens have their own separate time known as “Bagantime”, “Tea Garden Time” is an hour ahead of Indian standard time allowing the hard working tea pickers an hour extra of sunlight. Picking tea leaves between 8am and 3pm and they attentively place the tenders buds into baskets strapped to their heads and backs.

The Jeeves & Jericho Teasmiths have used their many years of experience to find only the finest Assam tea, sourcing the best leaves from the highest quality estates! We've established direct relationships with the tea gardens, cutting out the middlemen and since our chai is brewed using a single estate tea, we know exactly where it comes from and we have high traceability of our tea so that we are able to guarantee the harvesting is done without the use of any harmful pesticides.

Once picked, the leaves are processed then dried straight away, locking in the freshness by vacuum packing the leaves for their onward journey to our blending rooms in Oxfordshire, where the next stage of it's journey takes place creating the all important base to our authentic handcrafted chai.