This office certifies one thing: that the cup is strong enough. The Assam Malt Authority is an independent office of record for a single tea, Assam, the malty black tea grown in the valley of the Brahmaputra. We tell you plainly what it is, where it comes from, how it is graded, and how to brew it strong enough to do its job before the day makes demands you are not ready for.

Why 1839

The Authority dates itself to 1839, the year Assam tea stopped being a colonial experiment and became a trade. An invoice of eight chests was shipped to London in 1838 and auctioned there on 10 January 1839, by the record of the Tea Research Association, and proved that a region nobody had taken seriously for tea could grow the boldest cup on earth. The brass balance in the window and the copper-stamped charter are our own furniture; the auction is real, and so is the work.

What we cover

Everything Assam, and only Assam. The valley and its estates, first flush and the prized second flush, CTC and orthodox processing, the leaf grades, and how to brew the malty result strong. Assam is the single largest tea-growing region in the world, by the Indian Tea Association's reckoning, so there is no shortage of valley to cover. Wider black-tea matters belong to our sister office, the Black Tea Fellowship; we send you up to them and keep to the valley.

How we grade

We say what we find, in plain words, without hype. We do not call a tea delicate to be polite, and we do not write a tasting poem where a clear sentence will serve. Every figure and grading is checked against a real source, and what cannot be stood up against the record, we cut. Strength over subtlety, accuracy over flourish, and never confidence past the source. Tell us where we are wrong, and if the source backs you, we fix it and say so.