Tea culture Assam tea is known for its robust taste and dark colour, and Nilgiri tea is dark, intensely aromatic and flavoured. Assam produces the largest quantity of Tea in India, mostly of the CTC variety, and is one of the biggest suppliers of major international brands such as Lipton and Tetley. The Tetley Brand, formerly British owned and one of the largest, is now owned by the Indian Tata Tea Limited company. On April 21, 2012 the Deputy Chairman of Planning Commission (India), Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said that tea would be declared as national drink by April 2013. Speaking on the
Nilgiri tea After processing (which converts the green leaf into 'made tea'), most is sold through regularly scheduled auctions in Coonoor, Coimbatore and Kochi. More than 50% of Nilgiri tea is exported, and usually finds its way into blends used for tea bags. Data is unreliable on the precise proportion of Nilgiri tea that is actually exported. However, Neilson and Pritchard ("op cit") suggest that at least 70% of South Indian tea is exported, and the Nilgiris constitutes more than half of all South Indian production. The expensive hand-sorted, full-leaf versions of the tea like the Orange Pekoe (O.P.) are highly sought