P. Baruah

Tocklai Tea Research Institute, Tea Research Association, Jorhat 785 008, Assam, India
Author    Correspondence author
Journal of Tea Science Research, 2017, Vol. 7, No. 10   doi: 10.5376/jtsr.2017.07.0010
Received: 31 Aug., 2017    Accepted: 17 Oct., 2017    Published: 22 Dec., 2017

This is an open access article published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Baruah P., 2017, Types of Indian tea, production and marketing of traditional and handmade teas of Assam, India, Journal of Tea Science Research, 7(10): 52-57 (doi: 10.5376/jtsr.2017.07.0010)

Teas are classified in various ways depending manufacturing process, convention, technique and market available form. An exhaustive classification based on market available forms classifies Indian teas into eleven broad categories. Assam is a place of origin of tea, wild tea plants were discovered in Assam in 1823 and tea plantations started since 1837. Some of the indigenous tribal people of Assam had the habit of drinking tea prepared in their traditional form and the Singphos call such tea as phalap. Entrepreneurs of small tea growers who are a major force to reckon with in Assam tea at present are producing organic (called natural) handmade and traditional forms of teas which are gaining popularity world over. Organic certification, technical guidance in production and marketing are some of the problems faced by the producers of the handmade and traditional teas who are almost entirely small tea growers. Such teas are of special character with high quality. Demand for these teas is growing both internally and in global market and has huge market potential. Entrepreneurial handmade and traditional tea producers are putting their efforts to popularize and market such forms of tea in India and globally overcoming the challenges.

Types of Indian tea; Marketing; Indigenous small tea growers; Traditional tea; Handmade tea