Tagged: ahom kingdom

The Jaapi: The Hat Under Every Picking of Your Assam

Almost every leaf in your cup was plucked by a hand working under one object, a bamboo hat that once graded a man's rank at the Ahom court. Here is what it is, why the garden never had to supply its own, and which version actually gets photographed for the national certificate the two now share.

Before the Committee, a Kingdom Tore Itself Apart

The 1834 Tea Committee took British Assam for granted. It was earned by a 57-year Assamese civil war that killed roughly half the kingdom's own people, then a jealous governor who let a foreign army in to settle a private grudge. Here is the precondition the founding story leaves out.