B157
One of the Darjeeling clones, and among the most widely planted in the district alongside AV2 and P312. The letter in a Darjeeling clone code is the estate the selection was made on and the number is its serial within that estate’s selections — a naming system that records where a plant was found rather than what it is, which is characteristic of clonal selection made by planters rather than by a breeding station.
Where it sits in the botany
B157 is recorded under Hybrid, 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.
Registration code: B157. A breeding or registration code identifies the selection in an institutional register and is often the name a grower uses when the trade name is not.
Also transliterated as: b157, b-157, b 157.
Where it came from
Selected on a Darjeeling estate from the district’s existing China-hybrid seedling population and multiplied clonally for replanting.
How firm this is: Inferred rather than taken from a primary breeding or registration record. The estate-selection naming convention is well established. The selection date and the identity of the parent bush were not verified against a primary source.
What the plant is like
Planted widely across Darjeeling and valued for a fuller, rounder cup than the sharply aromatic AV2. Since almost all Darjeeling replanting is clonal, the district’s famous character is increasingly a property of a handful of selections rather than of the old seedling stands.
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 B157
Other cultivars in Hybrid
Guides covering this cultivar
- Reading a cultivar code: TV1, TRI 2043, TRFK 31/8, Taicha No. 18 — Half the world’s tea plants are known by codes rather than names, and the codes are not arbitrary. Each one records which institution made the selection and, often, where in its programme the plant sits.
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.