Jhapa vs Ilam
Nepal’s two tea worlds. Jhapa on the southern plains produces most of the country’s tea by volume, almost all of it CTC sold into India for blending; Ilam in the eastern hills shares a ridge system and a season with Darjeeling and makes orthodox tea that is frequently mistaken for it.
growing region
What is being compared
Point by point
| Aspect | Jhapa | Ilam |
|---|---|---|
| Terrain | Flat plains adjoining the Indian Terai. | Hills, 900 to 2,000 metres, on the Darjeeling ridge system. |
| Manufacture | Almost entirely CTC. | Orthodox. |
| Share of national output | Most of it, by volume. | A minority by volume and the majority of the country’s reputation. |
| Where it goes | Into India, into blends, largely unbranded. | Export as speciality tea under Nepali or garden names. |
| Price | Commodity. | Speciality, though consistently below Darjeeling for comparable quality. |
| What a drinker should know | That ‘Nepali tea’ by volume means this, and it is not what speciality sellers mean by it. | That the resemblance to Darjeeling is a matter of shared geology, season and cultivar rather than imitation. |
The short answer
Nepal is two industries under one country name, and conflating them produces the odd impression that Nepali tea is both a bargain speciality product and an anonymous commodity. It is both, from two different parts of the country, and the district on the packet resolves it immediately.
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