The Wild Tea Still Standing in Assam's Forests

Camellia assamica grows wild today in forest tracts along the Assam-Arunachal-Nagaland border, no garden, no planting record. Here is where it stands, who keeps finding it, and why even a genuine wild tree cannot fully settle the question of what "wild" means here.

Assam Grew the Purple Tea Everyone Else Is Selling

Kenya built a global purple tea business on a clone traced back to Assam seed exported early last century. Assam itself still has no commercial purple tea plant, only wild finds in Karbi Anglong and a germplasm bank holding the chemistry that could change that.

Assam Tea Has a Third Parent Most Drinkers Never Hear About

China type and Assam type get all the credit, but a third botanical type, the Cambod line, shipped in from Indochina in 1917, sits behind clones like TV23 and the theaflavin-rich color they put in the cup.