Tea Garden Icon · Orthodox Leaf Tea
Ilam Orthodox Tea
📷 Closely related photo — Photo: Kankai Desk / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0
This district's hand-processed orthodox leaf tea is graded fine enough to be exported to Europe, Australia and the US, from a region that only started growing tea in the 20th century.
Grown on steep, terraced gardens across Ilam district in Nepal's far-eastern hills, orthodox tea is hand-plucked and slow-processed rather than machine-crushed, producing green, silver and golden-tip leaves prized for their delicate flavor. It's brewed and poured at tea-house counters throughout the district and sold loose from roadside stalls.
Why it's made this way: Ilam's cool, misty hillsides turned out to suit tea remarkably well, and the district built its identity and export economy around orthodox-method gardens like Kanyam, now one of Nepal's most photographed tea landscapes.
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