OUR OFFERINGS - SATRUPA ESTATE ASSAM SUMMER RESERVE

Location: Assam, India
Elevation: 500 - 1000 m
Varietal: Camellia sinensis assamica
Harvest: June 2007

Characteristics

Body:  Full, syrupy
Flavor:  Molasses, sweet malt
Finish:  Brisk, toasty

Tasting Notes

The Satrupa Estate Summer Reserve is the quintessential Assam tea. It’s brisk and malty with a big syrupy body. Hints of rose and molasses give it a nice complexity to counter the sweet malt. The finish is quite brisk and the persistent flavor is pleasantly toasty. This Assam is definitely a tea that has enough character to stand up to milk and sugar.

Doug’s Notes

Mridul Kumar and Reeta Bhattacharjee, Satrupa Estate Owners.

Assam is the oldest tea growing region in India. The British were responsible for first commercially producing tea here in the early 19th century. Their population of tea drinkers was growing rapidly, and they were looking for an alternative to Chinese teas, which they found in Assam. By the end of the 19th century, this region had become the largest tea producing area in the world.

Located in northeastern India, Assam was originally inhabited by several different ethnic groups (some of which learned that chewing the leaves was a way to get a quick burst of energy). Many of these groups were displaced or forced into labor by the British Empire. There are still residual labor issues today and this situation has created rebel armies and separatist groups that want independence from India as a whole. Tea quality has suffered during this time since reliable labor is necessary to harvest the tea and reliable transportation is needed to export it.

This year I was fortunate enough to meet Saunam Bhattacharjee, who is the son of an Assamese tea grower. The Satrupa Estate was founded from scratch in the 1970’s by Saunam’s father Mridul Kumar and mother Reeta. A mechanical engineer by training, MKB’s passion for tea stems from his grandfather, who was a tea grower during the early 20th century. The Bhattacharjees bought a piece of denuded forest land surrounded by the last remaining rainforest in the Himalayas. Assam is very harsh jungle environment that harbors health issues like dysentery and malaria. Clearing the land is difficult and care needs to be taken so as to not upset the fragile ecosystem. From this remote location the Bhattacharjees built a thriving 900 acre plantation with an estimated 2.79 million tea bushes spread over a dozen gardens.

The Satrupa Estate employs nearly 900 people and MKB and his wife still live on and operate the estate. Due to their close relationship with their employees, they haven’t had the labor disputes that have caused hundreds of estates to close. The Bhattacharjees provide free access to full medical facilities as well as housing and free utilities for the employees who don’t live in the surrounding villages. Additionally there is a church, child care facilities and an elementary school on the estate.

Due to the remote location of the estate, they cross-cultivate such crops as rice, seasonal fruits and vegetables, and bamboo. They want their land to be sustainable, which will ultimately lead to its protection.

Processing occurs on site at their state-of-the-art processing facility. The factory was designed by Dennis O’Conner, a well regarded Irish-Assamese tea factory engineer. While the factory is set up to produce both Orthodox and CTC (Cut Tear-Curl) styles of tea, we are purchasing the high-quality hand-picked Orthodox styles of tea.

The Bhattacharjees dedication to their estate and their employees shows. The tea is as good as any Assam that I’ve had in years. The processing is pristine and the result is a classic, rich, malty tea. I hope to work with closely with the Bhattacharjee family in the future since they exemplify all of the attributes that we look for in a tea producer.

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