A blend built around two of India's best-known black teas, Assam and Darjeeling, brought together for a cup with enough body to stand up to milk and enough character to stay interesting black. The Darjeeling comes from high-grown gardens in the Himalayan foothills, while the Assam is grown on the Dekorai Tea Estate on the southern side of the Brahmaputra river — the leaf is graded Flowery Orange Pekoe from a mid-season harvest. In the cup it runs dark and golden, with a malty backbone carrying smooth, light notes and a floral, muscatel lift more often associated with Darjeeling on its own. That combination of malt and muscatel is really what sets this apart from a straight Assam breakfast blend: the Darjeeling softens the heavier, thicker Assam character without losing the punch a breakfast tea needs.
Steep it with boiling water for three to five minutes, longer if you want more strength. It holds up well with milk, which is really what it is built for, though it is also worth trying black to catch the floral and orange notes before they get rounded out. As with most robust black blends, keep it in an airtight container away from strong smells, since the leaf will pick up odours over time and lose some of that muscatel brightness. It suits the same slot in the day as other classic breakfast blends: a strong, reliable cup to start with rather than something to sip slowly in the afternoon.
