Assam indigenous jat
Not a cultivar: a seed stock. Jat is the word Indian planting practice uses for a category of seed-grown material, and the Assam indigenous jat is the large-leaf population native to the Brahmaputra valley — the plants whose recognition as tea in the 1820s and 1830s made an Indian industry possible. Individual bushes within it differ from one another, which is what a seed population means, and the jat is a description of ancestry rather than a plant anyone can order.
Where it sits in the botany
Assam indigenous jat is recorded under Camellia sinensis var. assamica, the variety group one level above cultivar. It is associated with India, which is where it was selected or is most widely planted rather than the only place it grows.
Also transliterated as: assam jat.
Where it came from
The indigenous large-leaf population of Assam, used as seed stock from the earliest plantations and subsequently crossed extensively with Chinese and Cambod material.
How firm this is: Inferred rather than taken from a primary breeding or registration record. The broad history is well documented in general reference material; the specific claims made about the purity of any surviving indigenous stand were not verified.
What the plant is like
Large, glossy, drooping leaf on plants that become trees if unpruned, with the vigour and the frost-sensitivity of the variety. Genuinely unmixed indigenous stands are now rare, since a century and a half of open pollination alongside imported stock has done what open pollination does.
What it is usually made into
The categories this cultivar is typically processed into. It is a statement about common practice, not a limit — processing decides the category, and a cultivar can be taken down more than one route.
- Black tea — Tea taken deliberately through full enzymatic oxidation, giving the dark leaf, amber-to-red liquor and malty or brisk character most Western drinkers think of as simply 'tea'.
Teas in the catalogue made from Assam indigenous jat
Other cultivars in Camellia sinensis var. assamica
- Benifuji
- Benihikari
- Benihomare
- Benikaori
- Betjan
- Camellia sinensis var. assamica
- East African seedling tea
- Fengqing Da Ye
- GMB 7
- Kiara 8
- Lingyun Baihao
- Manipuri jat
- Menghai Da Ye
- Mengku Da Ye
- Miang landrace
- PH1
- Shan Tuyết
- Sri Lankan seedling tea
- Tai Cha No. 8
- TRFK 301/4
- TRFK 303/577
- TRFK 306/1
- TRFK 31/8
- TRFK 6/8
- TV1
- TV23
- TV25
- Yinghong No. 9
- Yunkang 10
- Yunkang 14
- Yunnan Da Ye Zhong
- Zi Juan
- Zi Ya
Sources
- TeaHQ editorial synthesis — TeaHQ
This page is TeaHQ’s own synthesis throughout. No breeding register or institutional record stands behind the account above, which is why the origin note carries its confidence in the open rather than reading as a citation.