Assam tea in Nobel brew

From Sonari to Stockholm

Nobel Museum Tea blend. Picture courtesy: Nobel Museum
Guwahati, Dec. 12: An orange pekoe tea variety from a garden in Upper Assam's Sivasagar district was blended with a Chinese tea for the special guests at the Nobel Prize ceremony on Wednesday.
"One of the components for the Nobel Museum Tea blend is a lovely rich Assam orange pekoe (OP) 1 from the estate of Mangalam in Sonari. Assam contributes to a traditional rich bouquet that does not fade when flavoured with the bergamot from Southern Sicily and the Swedish raspberries. It leaves a slight malty aroma after the first sip," said Gihan V. Mauris, managing director of The Tea Centre of Stockholm, said in an email to The Telegraph today.
The Nobel Museum Tea blend was prepared by The Tea Centre of Stockholm, a small Sweden-based company, in collaboration with Nobel Museum.
The tea blend was created for the first time in honour of Alfred Nobel celebrating his work and what it stands for.
The Chinese Keemun tea is produced in Qimen county in Anhui province.
Orange pekoe is characterised by whole leaf. "While composing a blend, one must imagine the base tea. This base tea blend should be able to withstand future fluctuations in taste, aroma and also quality and price. So we, as blenders, hardly ever use only one origin in our base. Instead, we try to capture the unique and delicate bouquets of different origins and bring them together to create a blend like no other," he added.
Mangalam tea estate, a 150-hectare garden, lies 52km from National Highway 37.
It produces very high quality Assam Orthodox and CTC teas, fetching premium prices due its quality and demand.
Its Orthodox tea is totally absorbed by the German market and the CTC teas are also in good demand.
The company has 10 gardens in Assam.
"This is a very good news for us; it proves that our teas are of high quality. We pluck fine and produce some of the best golden tippy teas," said D.P. Maheswari, managing director of Jay Shree Tea and Industries Limited.
Last year, the broken pekoe clonal grade of tea of CTC variety produced at Mangalam tea garden in Sivasagar district, belonging to Jayashree Tea and Industries, fetched a price of Rs 401 and Rs 405 per kg at Calcutta Tea Auction Centre.

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