Grade FTGFOP1 stands for Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe, and this Assam earns it with a cup that's malty at the core, threaded with spice, and thick enough to coat the tongue. Tasting notes run toward lemon, orange, honey, malt and spice, with a good showing of milk if you take it that way. It's the kind of tea that turns up on the favourite lists of casual drinkers and connoisseurs alike.
The leaf comes from Mangalam Tea Estate in the Sibsagar district of Assam, northern India. The estate is young by Assam standards, planted in 1973 on 118 hectares, but it makes up for its age with dense planting of selected Camellia sinensis var. assamica hybrids, a combination that produces good CTC as well as orthodox tea.
Assam itself sits between the Himalayas, the Brahmaputra plains and the Deccan plateau, one of the more biodiverse tea-growing regions anywhere. Heavy rainfall, 2,500 to 3,000mm a year, and fertile soil support around 312,210 hectares of tea gardens across the state. Together they account for roughly 13% of global tea production and some 570 million kilos exported each year, a meaningful share of which is Mangalam's own output.
An 8-oz cup carries about 45mg of caffeine, enough to wake you up without the jolt of a strong coffee. Tea & Coffee packs this one fresh to order at its factory in Kent, which keeps the leaf consistent from batch to batch. To brew, steep the loose leaf in a filter or infuser for about four minutes in freshly boiled water; take it with milk, sugar, honey or lemon, or drink it black. Black tea of this kind has long been drunk for its supposed effect on heart health, credited to antioxidants that counter oxidative stress in the body, and it carries a similar traditional reputation for helping keep blood sugar, and by extension diabetes risk, in check.
