Kishanganj
India’s newest tea district, in the narrow neck of Bihar between Nepal, Bengal and Bangladesh, planted only from the 1990s on the same sandy Terai alluvium that carries the Darjeeling foothills. Its structure is what makes it interesting: there are essentially no estates, only smallholders with a few acres selling green leaf to bought-leaf factories, in a country whose tea industry was built on plantations and still assumes them. Kishanganj has no auction identity and no name recognition, and its leaf leaves the district anonymously into blends.
History on this page: TeaHQ synthesis
TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.
This district’s description dates something — a founding, a first planting, a period of expansion. The label above says on what basis, and it applies to the historical statements rather than to the elevation, climate or soil claims below, which carry their own confidence separately.
Elevation
Recorded at 30–120 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 Terai plains calendar: continuous growth from spring through the monsoon with a shallow cool-season slowdown, and no quality pick. The district's leaf is bought by weight and made into CTC, so nothing in the calendar is managed for character.
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
No estates at all — the district's defining fact, and the reason it has no name recognition despite the volume. Production is smallholders with a few acres each selling green leaf to bought-leaf factories, in a country whose tea industry was built on plantations and whose auction system, grading conventions and buying habits all still assume them. The leaf leaves the district anonymously into blends because there is no garden for it to be named after.
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 kishanganj. Romanisations of a district name vary by system and by vendor, and a packet spelling one way is not describing a different place.
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.