Ingredients · Tea

Nepalese Black Tea

Camellia sinensis · Theaceae (tea family)

Nepalese Black Tea
The next ridges west of Darjeeling, and a tea that gets mistaken for it — the same mountains, the same bushes' cousins, a different flag. Nepal's orthodox tea grows at 3,000 to 7,000 feet in Ilam, Panchthar, Dhankuta and Terhathum, and a second flush carries real muscatel with more body than a light Darjeeling. Nepal's own everyday cup is something else entirely: chiya, sweet milk tea, and the greeting that goes with it — Chiya khayo? Have you had your tea?

What it’s like, and how to use it

The partLeaf
KindTea
CaffeineContains caffeine
Where it is fromNepal
TasteMuscatel with body — fuller than a light Darjeeling, and it holds up where those fade
How to brew it
  • 195°F / 90°C
  • 3 minutes
  • plain, or boiled with milk and ginger for chiya

How to use it

Around 195°F, 3 minutes — treat it like a Darjeeling and do not use boiling water. Drink it plain. For chiya, which is the Nepali way, it is boiled with milk, sugar and often ginger.

With food

Cucumber sandwiches and light cake. Stone fruit. Almond biscuits. Mild cheese. Momos.

With spices

Ginger, in chiya. Cardamom. Cinnamon. Black pepper.

With tea

Drunk alone as an orthodox tea; blended with milk and spice as chiya.

Its story

Where it comes from

The orthodox districts are Ilam, Panchthar, Dhankuta, Terhathum, Sindhupalchok and Kaski; Jhapa on the hot plains makes CTC from the Assam variety. The government declared a Tea Zone in 1982. Our product is titled Kathmandu, 2nd Flush — but Kathmandu is the capital, not a tea district, so the garden is unconfirmed.

What happened

Nepal's tea began with a colonel who went to look at Darjeeling. Gajraj Singh Thapa, Governor General of eastern Nepal and son-in-law of Prime Minister Jung Bahadur Rana, toured the hills across the border, saw what tea had made of them, and came home to found the Ilam and Soktim estates of 103 acres each in the 1860s. Legend has it the first seeds were a diplomatic gift — Chinese tea seeds from the emperor's court, or, in another telling, seed brought by Tibetan delegates as a peace offering at the Treaty of Thapathali in 1856. It grew slowly: by 1920 Nepal still had only two estates on 233 acres, and only since the 1990s have smallholders become the main producers. There is a debt worth stating: Darjeeling's own gardens were built largely by migrants from Nepal and Sikkim — Darjeeling went from fewer than 100 people in the 1830s to 95,000 people and 100 tea gardens by 1885. The Nepali hand is behind the Himalayan cup on both sides of the border.

On the shelf with it

Every product it goes into.

Every ingredient in the shop

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Other ways in

Ingredients Every plant, seed, bark and salt in the shop on one page — what it is, why it is in the blend, and where it comes from. See them all Collections Every shelf in the shop on one page — teas by leaf and flavour, spices by kind and cuisine. Open any shelf to see what is on it. Browse the shelves The Showroom The whole shop on one floor — every tea, spice and blend, filtered by what you are after, with the basket beside you. Open the Showroom Elsewhere Seventeen short trips — a place, a moment, a feeling — each with the teas and spices that get you there. Take a trip