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The story is about the ideas and emotions that created the CTC blend which has already withstood the test of quality and time.
Our product, Komando is not just a blended CTC tea but also an amalgamation of all those stories that inspired us to find the best cup of tea for you. At TeaOrb, with the promise to deliver the freshest and the best tea leaves in the world, we are sharing with you a part of our legacy that helps us imagine a product. Here is that slice of our imagination for you:
The origins of Komando lie in the early 19th Century. In 1823, a Scottish adventurer and plantation owner, Robert Bruce met an Assamese nobleman, Maniram Dewan in the Far Eastern Indian province of Assam who told him age-old tea brewing traditions of the Singpho tribe. Bruce met his untimely end in Assam but left a memoir for his brother, Charles Bruce who served in the British army. Charles found out about the discovery of tea in his brother’s journal and approached Dewan to fulfill his brother’s wish of announcing the discovery to the world. Dewan took Charles to meet Beesa Gam, a tribal chief belonging to the Singpho community. The friendly chief offered him a cup of tea which was harvested on an elephant’s back from the dense tropical forests where tea trees used to grow wild. Singpho people who originally migrated from Burma (present-day Myanmar) used to drink tea as a brew and harvested them regularly from the dense forests.
Charles procured a large number of tea seeds and plants from the Singpho chief and sent them to Lucknow for further examination. Curiously, the botanists who were studying this plant rejected the sample stating it was not a ‘true tea’. After a few years, a British army lieutenant, Andrew Charlton, found the same tea leaves growing wild in the forests of Eastern Assam. Charlton also planted some of the seeds outside his living quarters at Sadiya in Assam. The army officer then sent some of those leaves to Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) where botanists identified them as a new variant of tea – Camellia sinensis Assamica – different from the Chinese and Japanese tea. It was only after the British viceroy approved the commercial cultivation in Assam in 1834, that the indigenous tea tree growing in Assam was cut to the size for better and quicker harvests.
As tea plantations spread across Assam and parts of Eastern India over the 19th and 20th century, Assam’s malty blends known for their earthy aroma and rich body became popular across the world. Blending slowly became a science that was giving birth to different kinds of tea catering to the global consumer. This exactness brought consistency of taste which was missing in the Chinese teas of that time. Noted tea blenders and tasters would often attribute the creation of a successful blend to an emotion. Blending requires one to be emphatic which combines tea leaves and buds together often evoking a feeling and prompting one to tell a story. Teas like English or Irish Breakfast are all different products of blending various teas to achieve the desired taste.
Komando was created using this very precise science and the emotional labor of blending that gave us some of the finest teas such as English and Irish Breakfast. The blend that we are offering draws its strength from the people who protect our natural heritage, our border, and hundreds of communities thriving in the far eastern part of North East India.
Komando has taken inspiration from unsung war heroes who defended India as well as Assam’s borders a few years after India secured her independence. We are indebted to the brave Indian army jawans who stood their ground in the freezing temperatures of the Himalayas to protect us. Numerous accounts of these soldiers show that when the enemy started advancing, they stayed up at night, alert and awake keeping up with each and every movement of the enemy. Even on days when a lone warrior stood his ground on top of a mountain pass to thwart the enemy’s advance, their sole companion was a blend of Assam CTC tea to survive the cold. Komando tries to recreate those bold flavors, still preferred by the Indian soldiers and their zeal to protect this nation from aggression.
Years later, when the entire tea industry faced the threat of internal disturbances in Assam, a few individuals stood their ground much like the Indian soldiers to keep the industry running. TeaOrb is fortunate to be associated with pioneering leaders who watched the tea industry’s back. Assam was at the center of a turbulent era of unrest propelled by external forces that continue to threaten India’s borders. The tea industry bore the brunt of this unrest with officials, workers, and tea garden managers constantly harassed by a set of political extremists. When the unrest grew violent, businesses in Assam suffered the most. On top of that, militant organizations shut down the state paralyzing the life of a common person. In those bleak times, the tea industry continued to manufacture the finest of teas without giving in to any of these threats bringing back revenue to the state exchequer. The tea industry with its leaders played a key role in bringing back peace into this region of the world. This is but a testimony of that resilience that protected the industry and the people of Assam. Komando is a blend that borrows that resilience from the tea industry leaders who steered the state of Assam towards prosperity.
Komando seeks to bring back a solid Assam CTC tea blend into vogue. We at TeaOrb sampled various teas over the last few years. Each of these varieties was rigorously tasted and tested at various temperatures and at different stages of oxidation. We prepared a glossary of the appearance, taste, and aroma of the sampled tea leaves. We invited suggestions from the industry leaders too to improve the product. It was only after elaborate testing, that we arrived at Komando.
To ensure that our teas including Komando remains fresh, we have been using Japanese technology of oxygen absorption while sealing our paper packets. With this technology, we have ensured that our ‘farm to cup’ concept is applied to all our products including Komando. In order to achieve a sustainable future, we have been working with tea workers in Assam to disrupt human trafficking. Our product Komando is a bold step toward that future.
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