The Best Tea for Karak Chai: Why Assam CTC Works, and How to Choose It

Our writer Meeta Sharma’s advice to a reader asking which tea suits chai was blunt: “To make chai you need a strong, kick-you-in-the-face kinda strong black tea.” Lowland teas, grown in tropical conditions nearer to sea level, are ideal because they have “a very dark, brisk and robust flavor profile.” Her pick was “a full-bodied Assam black tea – loose-leaf or CTC grain.”

Peter Keen, writing for our blog, called Assams “English Breakfasts with attitude,” best summed up as strong: assertive, brisk, bold, bracing and hearty. He also noted that assertive can shade into harsh, and brisk into bitter. In a karak, the milk and sugar are there to catch that edge and turn it into body.

That is why plain strength matters more here than subtlety. Strong black teas take milk easily, while greens and whites are best drunk plain. If you want more aroma, you can blend in a whole-leaf Assam, as the last section explains.

CTC stands for crush, tear and curl (some say cut, tear and curl). The leaf is passed through cylindrical rollers with serrated blades that turn it into small, even pellets, a process that takes about two hours. “Assam is all about CTC!” as we once put it.

The machine at the heart of the line is the rotorvane, a set of fast drum cylinders turning in opposite directions, whose teeth macerate the withered leaf; the crushers and tearers run at up to 600 to 1,200 revolutions per minute. Orthodox making moves the whole leaf slowly through each step; CTC, in Keen’s words, “speeds it up by breaking it up.”

What that does to the cup

Compared with orthodox whole leaf, CTC tea gives a stronger, darker cup with a distinctly astringent edge, and it takes milk far better. As Keen put it, “the smaller the leaf, the quicker the tea releases its flavor and the harsher it will be,” and “there is no whole-leaf CTC.” For a cup of plain tea that is a fault; for a karak, boiled with milk, it is exactly what you want.

That is why it became India’s everyday tea after CTC machines spread in the 1960s. CTC chai caught on because it was economical and brought aroma, taste and color within seconds of boiling. Worldwide, CTC now makes about 80% of all black tea. The full comparison is in Orthodox vs CTC tea.

Why Assam? The region is mostly at or near sea level and its teas are known for body, briskness, malty flavor and strong color. “If you are a strong tea, milk-and-sugar habitué, the bigger the Assam the better,” as our Assam explainer says. The line comes from Peter Keen’s guide to Assam teas on our blog. More on the region in Assam tea.

A day at Halmari

Some gardens are as famous for their CTC as others are for whole leaf. On our 2016 Assam trip we spent a day at Halmari, which “has one of the best CTC teas in the country.” That year its tea was the most expensive CTC and was breaking its own price records every year.

Our team saw why. The estate manager then, DK Arora, began each morning with the plucking charts. Halmari keeps a six-day round, so each section is plucked once every six days, and the leaf is taken early, while it is still small, so that the tea keeps the most flavor and juice. “One third of your job is done if the plucking is done correctly,” he told us. At the end of the day our colleague Ravi sat with him to taste that day’s batch. Read the visit in Assam Diaries: A tour of Halmari, and taste the garden’s whole-leaf tea in Assam Halmari Summer Black.

Halmari Tea Estate, AssamFrom The Source · 2:40

Karak’s other home is the Dooars: Teabox Kadak Chai comes from gardens in both Assam and the Dooars.

A few tips when choosing:

• Freshness matters more than grade. CTC is made to give its strength quickly, and stale CTC gives a flat, dull cup however long you boil it. Tea 101 adds that the dry granules should have no moisture or off-notes, and that a good chai shows strength and brightness in the infusion.
• Look for even granules, black-brown and uniform, with little dust. CTC dust is the lowest grade. The chai we sell is the first grade of the lot, not dust. Grades are explained in Tea grades explained.
• Match the grade: for a karak with small additions like cardamom, Tea 101 suggests a smaller CTC grade such as BP (broken pekoe); for big, chunky spices like star anise, a larger grade such as BOPSM.
• Know the strongest grades: our 2023 training deck lists CTC grades from largest to smallest as BPS, BOP, BOPSM, BP, PF, OF, PD and D, with the small PF and PD grades giving stronger, more astringent cups than BP or BOPSM.
• Whole leaf adds depth. A malty Assam black such as Classic Assam Black can be boiled the same way, or blended with CTC for more aroma. For brewing Assam with milk the gentler, steeped way, see Assam tea for milk tea.

Whole leaf brings something CTC cannot. Keen describes the best whole-leaf Assams as more varied, “mellow, malty or ‘tippy,’” where broken and CTC grades are strong but plain. Half and half is a good starting point, and one of our longtime customers swears by it.

“My all time favorite that is my first cup in the morning, is a blend of Assam Mangalam Gold Summer Black and Teabox Kadak Chai (1:1 ratio).”

That customer’s tip is worth borrowing. Mixing Kadak Chai half and half with a golden-tipped summer Assam such as Mangalam Gold Summer Black or Coombergram Summer Black keeps the strength of Kadak Chai and brings in the malt and aroma of a golden-tipped summer tea. He takes his with very little milk; try the same blend in a boiled karak, too. More on golden tips in Second flush tea.