Anybody purchased tea from this place?

www.assamteacompany.com

Never purchased from it ever but I would certainly give Assam Tea
Company a try. It is by reputation a nicely run company with some
good organic plantings up in North East Assam - in the quaintly named
Doom Dooma area. Not to be confised with the much larger Assam
Company Ltd, founded in 1839 that has dozens of estates including the
well known Hazelbank Garden.

Nigel at Teacraft

On Mar 8, 3:15*am, wrote:
> Anybody purchased tea from this place?
>
> www.assamteacompany.com

On Mar 7, 10:15*pm, wrote:
> Anybody purchased tea from this place?
>
> www.assamteacompany.com

I have purchased from them once. I thought the prices were quite
reasonable, the tea fresh, and I enjoyed several of their higher-end
Assams, especially "Cream of Assam, #510" and "Satrupa Golden Pekoe".
I didn't as much care for "Kama Black 'Extra Large Leaf Black Tea' "
but the large leaves were stunning to look at and the tea was very
acceptable. I didn't try any organics. None of the four were the
"knock your socks off" Assam I would like to find some day, but no one
else seems to have that mythical tea either.

Curious about it as an oddity, a group of us shared some of their
"Koucha," a "Japanese Broken Leaf Black Tea," that was really very
nice. I never imagined that any blacks came out of Japan, especially
not of such high quality. Today I don't find it on their website
(which is irritatingly difficult to navigate), but it may just be
evading me.

Have you bought any tea from Upton?
Like you said about Assam I found their tea acceptable but not
special.
I liked the Nahorhabi bit it was not as strong as I would like and at
$16 for 100 grams I am not going to order it again.
I might give Assam a try.

On Mar 8, 1:03*pm, wrote:
> Have you bought any tea from Upton?
....
> I might give Assam a try.

I am in a minority on this, but I have tried maybe 20 or more Assams
from Upton and have not found any of them really very satisfying, and
some of them enormously over priced. "Not as strong as I would like"
pretty much describes my whole experience with Upton. Someday I may
go back and try some more of their Assam, but for now I've crossed
them off my list. Also, by having so many very similar teas on offer,
they have managed to make variety and choice into a fault! Let me
know what you think of Assam (also called Tfactor, apparently).

On Mar 8, 4:31*pm, Salsero > wrote:
> On Mar 8, 1:03*pm, wrote:
>
> > Have you bought any tea from Upton?
> ....
> > I might give Assam a try.
>
> I am in a minority on this, but I have tried maybe 20 or more Assams
> from Upton and have not found any of them really very satisfying, and
> some of them enormously over priced. *"Not as strong as I would like"
> pretty much describes my whole experience with Upton. *Someday I may
> go back and try some more of their Assam, but for now I've crossed
> them off my list. *Also, by having so many very similar teas on offer,
> they have managed to make variety and choice into a fault! *Let me
> know what you think of Assam (also called Tfactor, apparently).

Upton's has a new Assam Sewper, TA52, that I'm going to try next. I'm
using up their Season's Pick Assam fannings I got in the Fall, but
they're not selling it anymore. Toci

I had some organic Sewpur from another source and thought it was
pretty good.
Then I ordered it from Upton's and it did not seem the same or as
good.
I notice they have several different versions of Sewpur now.
Let us know what you think.

I agree with you on Upton's, too many choices and not enough focus.
They also have customer reviews on some teas, but none at all on many
others.
It seems like maybe they won't post reviews unless enough of them are
positive.
I did get a Ceylon from them that I liked. I intended to mix it with
the Assams but it is also good by itself.
I ordered three teas from TFactor today, hope they are good.

On Mar 8, 12:50*pm, Salsero > wrote:

> Curious about it as an oddity, a group of us shared some of their
> "Koucha," a *"Japanese Broken Leaf Black Tea," that was really very
> nice. *I never imagined that any blacks came out of Japan, especially
> not of such high quality.

"Koucha," (could also be romanized as "kootya," for example) is the
Japanese word for what we call black tea. I have *never* heard of
black tea being produced in Japan (and Japan is my particular
interest). Is it possible that that lot of tea was simply something
produced for the Japanese market? They *do* drink a lot of black tea
there, after all...

On Mar 9, 9:34*am, Thitherflit > wrote:
>*Is it possible that that lot of tea was simply something
> produced for the Japanese market? *They *do* drink a lot of black tea
> there

Interesting, I didn't know that they drank much black tea in Japan.

Just to make sure that my recollection was correct, I contacted
Tfactor regarding the Koucha, which I would certainly recommend
trying, BTW. The following is their prompt reply:

"Thank you for your enquiry. We still carry the Japanese black tea
(Koucha). You can find the same he
http://www.tfactor.us/catalog/limite...oucha-706.html

It is extremely hard to find a Japanese grower who is willing to offer
their black tea production for exports. The grower primarily offers
his black tea to his Japanese customers, and seems like he does brisk
business within Japan.

Any other question, please let me know.

Kind Regards,

Saunam"

On Mar 10, 11:59*am, Salsero > wrote:
> On Mar 9, 9:34*am, Thitherflit > wrote:
>
> >*Is it possible that that lot of tea was simply something
> > produced for the Japanese market? *They *do* drink a lot of black tea
> > there
>
> Interesting, I didn't know that they drank much black tea in Japan.
>
> Just to make sure that my recollection was correct, I contacted
> Tfactor regarding the Koucha, which I would certainly recommend
> trying, BTW. The following is their prompt reply:
>
I looked at the website, and indeed! Someone is producing black tea
in Japan, in Shizuoka Prefecture (one of the famous green tea
districts)! Zounds!

james-henry holland

> "Thank you for your enquiry. We still carry the Japanese black tea
> (Koucha). You can find the same hehttp://www.tfactor.us/catalog/limite...oucha-706.html
>
> It is extremely hard to find a Japanese grower who is willing to offer
> their black tea production for exports. The grower primarily offers
> his black tea to his Japanese customers, and seems like he does brisk
> business within Japan.
>
> Any other question, please let me know.
>
> Kind Regards,
>
> Saunam"

On Mar 10, 3:59*pm, Salsero > wrote:
> Interesting, I didn't know that they drank much black tea in Japan.
>

We should not judge from stereotypes:

Tea import statistics for Japan for year 2007 (Jan to Dec) show -
Green tea 9,624 tonnes total (from China 9,015 tonnes), Black tea
37,718 tonnes total (from China 21,172 tonnes, from Sri Lanka 10,354
tonnes, from India 2,741 tonnes), Tea extracts 2,165 tonnes total.
Black tea importing is stable - in 2006 it was 36,842 tonnes, for 2005
was 36,175 tonnes. (data from F.O. Lichts)

With total tea imports at 49,507 tonnes, green and black, plus mainly
green local production of 99,500 tonnes (2006 data ex ITC) this would
indicate that one in four cups of tea consumed in Japan is black. Bow
low to the marketing power of Lipton Yellow Label !

Nigel at Teacraft

> Interesting, I didn't know that they drank much black tea in Japan.

Actually, there are many teahouses in Japan that don't even carry
Japanese green tea. They wouldn't serve much of it, since it is
regarded as the tea "people have at home". Many Japanese like to go out
and they like to try something less ordinary.
Darjeeling teas seem to be popular because the name is familiar and
famous, but many people actually don't like it when they try it. It is
usually too week and most prefer the stronger blacks from Ceylon or
Assam...
Nigel is right: Time to overthrow our stereotypes...

--
Jo

On Mar 8, 2:22*pm, Nigel > wrote:
> Never purchased from it ever but I would certainly give Assam Tea
> Company a try. *It is by reputation a nicely run company with some
> good organic plantings up in North East Assam - in the quaintly named
> Doom Dooma area. *Not to be confised with the much larger Assam
> Company Ltd, founded in 1839 that has dozens of estates including the
> well known Hazelbank Garden.
>
> Nigel at Teacraft
>
> On Mar 8, 3:15*am, wrote:
>
>
>
> > Anybody purchased tea from this place?
>
> >www.assamteacompany.com- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

Hi friends,
The topic is rather old, but I would like to share what I know about
the company.
"The Assam Company" was the first Tea Company set up in India by the
Britishers. The first garden planted by it was "Chabua", which was
untill recently owned by Tata Tea, and has now been disinvested by
them to a newly formed Cooperative, much in the lines of "Kanan Devan
Hill Plantations Ltd" down south. Assam Company was incorporated in
England. The second company to follow was "The Jorehaut Tea Company
Ltd."
Both these companies consisted of the real pioneers, who braved all
odds and opened up beautiful estates in such inaccecible places, that
even today people find it tough to negotiate the roads. Yet, the
plantations are plain SUPERB. No where else would one find so much of
compact and flawless greenery.
The Assam Company is now totally indian, owns few of the best gardens
in the quality belt of Assam and owns quite a few oil fields and other
interests in oil exploration. The best quality now comes from Doomul
Dullung, Rungagora-A and Hazelbank, as Nigel rightly says.
As for The Jorehaut Tea Company, most of its gardens, including the
once famous Cinnamara, where the British royalty had stayed during
their visit to Assam, were sold to the Assam Govt. run "Assam Tea
Corpn. Ltd". It promptly set about turning each one of the estate
economically "sick". The Government, Executives, Labour, Unions et
all, sucked the estates like Negheriting, Murmuria, Cinnamara .....
untill they became massive grazing grounds and some of the factories
sold in scrap. Four of the estates owned previously by The jorehaut
Tea Company were fortunately taken over by a private company, which
nurtured them so they are unarguably amongst the top ten estates in
Assam. These gardens are Rungagora-J, Numalighur, Borsapori and
Langharjan. The company is now known as The Jorehaut Tea Ltd., and the
famous Namring TE in Darjeeling too belongs to the same group.
Regards,
Jayesh S Pandya
http://teaunlimited.blogspot.com/