Barak Valley
Southern Assam’s other river valley, draining west into the Surma and the Bengal delta rather than into the Brahmaputra, and effectively a separate origin sharing a state boundary. Cachar and Karimganj sit on the same low hillock country as Sylhet immediately across the international border, and their tea behaves accordingly — hot, low, monsoon-driven, made almost entirely as CTC and priced well below Brahmaputra leaf at auction. Selling Barak valley tea as ‘Assam’ is administratively correct and descriptively misleading, which is the reason to give the valley its own record.
Elevation
Recorded at 10–150 metres.
How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.
When it is picked
A long, hot, wet season with a shallow winter rest and no quality window worth naming. The valley is lower, warmer and closer to the Bay of Bengal than the Brahmaputra districts, so the crop behaves more like Sylhet's across the border than like Assam's to the north.
How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.
How production is organised
Estates on the Assam model but smaller and less capitalised, feeding CTC into blends through the auction. The valley's tea is administratively Assamese and agronomically Bengali, and it is sold without either name attached.
How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.
How the name is written
Also transliterated as barak valley, cachar. Romanisations of a district name vary by system and by vendor, and a packet spelling one way is not describing a different place.
Teas this region is known for
- CTC black tea — Strong, quick and blunt. What CTC gives up in nuance it returns in reliability: it is very hard to under-brew and it holds colour and strength through milk and sugar in a way whole leaf rarely does.
Other growing regions in India
The neighbouring districts are the useful comparison: they share a country, a grading convention and often a cultivar, so what differs between them is closer to terroir than anything a cross-border comparison can isolate.
Sources
- TeaHQ editorial synthesis — TeaHQ
This page is TeaHQ’s own synthesis throughout. No external document stands behind the elevation band, the climate note or the character described above, which is why each carries its confidence in the open.