7 Days in Assam

Thank you to my favorite Tea and Lifestyle brand – Teabox for sponsoring this trip and giving me a chance to understand how much goes into that one cup of tea

I can’t believe it’s been three weeks since I’m back from the most amazing trip to the far and beyond – Assam and I still haven’t shown you pictures. I’ve never been to the north eastern parts of India. My farthest trip that side has been as far as Kolkata and that too recently so imagine my excitement when I was asked by Teabox to go on a trip where my main job was to eat and experience the culture of Assam.

Our trip started at a quaint town called Margherita which is named after an Italian queen. I expected history and mystery at Margherita, but what I didn’t expect is tea growing everywhere. Like everyone, I had imagined only large tea estates with lush gardens and men and women picking tea. But Assam is a different story. Tea grows everywhere and every house in Margherita had it’s own mini tea garden.

Local assamese food is usually steamed or boiled and is full of unexpected flavours. The secret is their use of local herbs and spices that they forage from the forest. I had my fill of pork, fish, chicken, bamboo shoot, banana flowers etc. that were sometimes lemony, sometimes garlicky and other times spicy – nothing like anything I had ever tasted before.

We had a lot of ground to cover, and after spending time with the Singpho tribe, we visited three tea estates – Chota Tingrai, Halmari and Zaloni. Tea estates are a township of their own. Imagine a few hundred acres of land, neatly demarcated into tea plantations, with schools, hospitals, grocery stores and at the helm of everything stunning bungalows occupied by the estate manager.

I can’t even begin to describe the beauty, diversity and charm of the entire experience. So I’ll leave you with a few pictures that I hope capture everything that I experienced.