Tagged: genetics

The "Assam Type" Tea Growing in China Is Not Your Assam Tea

China grows its own wild population of big-leafed "Assam type" tea in Yunnan, and for years it was assumed to be the same plant as India's. The genetics say otherwise. Three independent domestications, not two, and Assam's own line stands apart from both.

The Assamica Plant

The complete reference on Camellia sinensis var. assamica, the large-leaf tea plant every cup certified by this office is made from. What it is, where it grows wild, the naming dispute that took taxonomists a century to settle, and how its chemistry builds the strong cup.