Tea Garden Icon · Orthodox Leaf Tea
Ilam Orthodox Tea
📷 Closely related photo — Photo: Kankai Desk / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 4.0
Tea has been grown in Ilam since the 1860s, when Nepal's first tea estate was planted here, and today its orthodox leaf is exported to Europe, Australia and the US.
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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