Nepali tea

Nepali tea is a beverage made from the leaves of tea plants (Camellia sinensis) grown in Nepal. They are distinctive in appearance, aroma and taste, but are similar in many ways to Darjeeling tea, which is produced over the border in India. Its relatively smaller production quantities mean that teas from Nepal are less well known than those from Darjeeling.

Nepal's teas fall into two types of tea: Orthodox tea and Crush, tear, curl tea.

Orthodox tea is – as Darjeeling Tea – made from the Chinese Variety of the tea plant (C. sinensis var. sinensis). The tea is hand- or machine-rolled. Most speciality teas like green tea, oolong tea, white tea and hand rolled tea fall under the category of orthodox tea. In Nepal, orthodox tea is produced and processed in the mountainous regions of Nepal at an altitude ranging from 3,000 to 7,000 feet above the sea level. There are six major districts, primarily in the eastern regions of Nepal that are known for producing quality orthodox tea, which are Ilam, Panchthar, Dhankuta, Terhathum, Sindhulpalchok and Kaski.

Orthodox tea in Nepal is characterized by four flushes:

Crush, tear, curl (CTC) tea is a method of processing Assam variety (Camellia sinensis var. assamica), which grows in the lower-altitude, hot and humid plains of Nepal, primarily in Jhapa district. It accounts for almost 95% of the domestic consumption, owing to its lower cost of production compared with orthodox tea.

The Nepal CTC tea is also characterized by four pronounced flushes, the First, Second, Monsoon and Autumn flushes, but unlike the orthodox tea, the CTC tea is more or less uniform throughout, often exhibiting a strong color and subtle aroma after infusion. However, the flushes do not begin and end in accordance with that of the orthodox tea, mainly because of differences in local conditions.

During the 1800s and the early 1900s, Nepal was under the reign of a highly centralized autocracy, the Rana Dynasty, which acted as a monarchy; their policies resulted in the isolation of Nepal from the external world. Nepal's borders and governance were constantly under turmoil, both internally and externally. Unlike India, the policies helped Nepal retain its national independence from the British colonial rule, but isolated it from modernization and economic development. Thus the nascent Nepali tea industry was adversely affected compared with the nearby Darjeeling tea industry, which thrived under the British colonial rule.

It is believed that the first tea bushes in Nepal were grown from seeds which were given as a gift by the Chinese Emperor to the then Prime Minister of Nepal, Jung Bahadur Rana. Nevertheless, Nepal's tea industry owes its roots to the colonization of India, by the world's first multinational company, the “East India Company”, under the British Empire. Around 1863, within 10 years of the first tea plantation being set up in Darjeeling, hybrids of tea bushes were brought, and the Nepal's first tea plantation, Ilam Tea Estate was set up in Ilam district, at an altitude of 4,500-5,000 feet above the sea level. Visioning better future prospects of the tea industry in Nepal, two years later a second tea plantation, Soktim Tea Estate was set up in Ilam district. Later into the 1900s the Nepalese tea producers acted as suppliers to Darjeeling factories when tea bushes became old and yields decreased.