Ilam
The main tea district of eastern Nepal, sharing a ridge system and a growing season with Darjeeling immediately across the border, and producing teas that are frequently mistaken for it.
Elevation
Recorded at 900–2000 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
The Darjeeling four-flush calendar on the same ridge system a short distance east: dormancy through the Himalayan winter, a first flush as growth restarts, a muscatel-leaning second flush, monsoon growth, and an autumnal pick. The agronomy is not meaningfully different from Darjeeling's, which is the district's commercial problem rather than its achievement.
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
Smallholder-dominated, with growers selling green leaf to independent and co-operatively owned processing units rather than to estates. That is the structural reason Nepali orthodox tea has struggled to build a name: without garden identities to sell under, a great deal of it has historically crossed the border and been sold as something else.
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 ilam. 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
- Nepal black tea — Aromatic and brisk, frequently carrying a muscatel note close to a Darjeeling second flush. Quality varies more between producers here than it does across the border, because the sector is younger and more fragmented.
Other teas recorded from here
Other growing regions in Nepal
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.
Written comparisons
Where TeaHQ has set this region against something it is routinely confused with, and argued the differences out in full.
- Dhankuta vs Ilam — Nepal’s two principal eastern tea districts, both sitting on the same Himalayan ridge system as Darjeeling. Dhankuta sits higher and grows largely Darjeeling-derived cultivars; Ilam is the older and better-known name.
- 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.