Tagged: theaflavin
Acid, Aluminum, and Rain: The Soil and Monsoon Behind an Assam Cup
The valley's soil runs strongly acidic and aluminum-heavy, and the monsoon delivers nearly three-quarters of the year's rain in five months. The compound most articles credit for the malty taste has never actually been tested for it. Here is what the record can, and cannot, certify.
The Cloud in the Cup: Tea Cream as a Strength Test
A strong Assam left to cool turns cloudy, sometimes almost jelly thick. It is not spoiled tea. It is caffeine and the leaf's own strongest compounds falling out of solution, and the trade has used it as a strength test since long before anyone could explain it.
Assam Tea Has a Third Parent Most Drinkers Never Hear About
Cambod tea, a third botanical type shipped in from Indochina in 1917, sits behind clones like TV23 and the theaflavin-rich color in the cup, work usually credited to the China and Assam types alone.
Briskness
Briskness is a live, bright character in the liquor. What the word means, the formula behind it, and what raises or dulls it.