Kangra Tea: The Himalayan Valley Tea That Fell and Rose Again

The gardens sit on the lower slopes of the Dhauladhar range, whose snow-capped peaks rise straight up behind them. That is why you will also hear it called Kangra valley tea, Palampur tea or simply Himachal tea.

It is the smallest of India’s classic tea regions. As our founder, Kausshal Dugarr, has put it: “Apart from Darjeeling, Assam, & the Nilgiris, not many are aware of India’s 4th tea-growing region. Even fewer people have tried teas from Kangra valley which were once considered the most superior.” For where it sits among the others, see our guide to Indian tea regions.

Climate, soil and height

Two things make the valley good for tea.

• The right temperatures: through the main cropping season, March to October, the valley stays within roughly 13–35°C (55–95°F), the range in which tea bushes grow well.
• Rain and soil: rainfall is generous and well spread through the year, and the loamy soil holds it well.

Altitude matters too. The first estate, at Holta, was planted at about 1,260 meters. The Dharmsala Tea Company’s three estates, Mann, Hoodle and Towa, lie between 4,000 and 6,500 feet (about 1,200 to 2,000 meters), a range that overlaps with many of the gardens in Darjeeling.

Frank Miller, who spent 30 years in tea, lived among these gardens in the 1960s. He first rented a house near the Holta Tea Estate, “one of the region’s original gardens,” then moved to a cottage on Bundla, “a big, beautiful tea property” that ran from just north of the old Palampur bus stand to the edge of Neugal Khad, a deep, broad canyon full of boulders.

The Kangra gardens we have bought from

Most of the valley’s gardens are small, but a few are proper estates with their own factories. Our 2018 training manual counted four Kangra plantations among the gardens we bought from, beside 29 in Darjeeling, 35 in Assam, 21 in the Nilgiris and 11 in the rest of the North East.

Our 2019 supplier records give the size of two of them. Wah, founded in 1857, covers 104 hectares and makes about 0.3 million kg of tea a year with 300 permanent workers. The Dharmsala Tea Company’s garden, founded in 1882, covers 60 hectares and makes about 0.1 million kg with 180 workers. Even the bigger of the two is a modest garden by Assam standards.

Few tea regions anywhere have had a stranger path. The full story, from Dr William Jameson’s survey to the medals, the earthquake, the Mann family’s 135 years and the 1960s revival, is on its own page.

It is the same kind of protection that Darjeeling tea received in 2004, when it became India’s first GI.

For a region this small, the tag matters. It protects the name from tea made elsewhere and gives buyers abroad a reason to look for it. Frank Miller, who lived in Palampur in the 1960s and spent 30 years in tea, called it a “coveted” certification that “will help it gain recognition in the global marketplace.”

He saw the GI as one part of a wider turn. “Developments in the Kangra valley during the last 15 years have moved Kangra tea ahead exponentially,” he wrote in 2015, pointing also to new research centers and private owners. The planters agree it has been hard work: Anirudh Suri of the Dharmsala Tea Company told us that Kangra’s planters “have lacked sufficient global exposure and marketing assistance” and have had to build relationships with buyers one by one.

A GI is a name, not a logo you can print freely. Teabox holds Tea Board licenses to use the Darjeeling and Nilgiri Orthodox certification marks, but none for Kangra, because we do not sell Kangra tea at present. What a GI is, and how it differs from organic or fair trade labels, is explained in Tea certifications explained.

It is softer and less astringent than most Darjeeling, with none of Darjeeling’s summer “muscatel” grape note.

Kausshal Dugarr, Teabox’s founder, described Kangra’s teas in 2014 as “notably grassy, mellow and subtly sweet.” Frank Miller found them “subtle, light in body, but pronouncedly floral, like a Darjeeling,” and borrowed a Thai phrase for the comparison: “same-same, yet different.”

Why it tastes this way

The character comes from the bushes. Kangra’s gardens are planted with China and China-hybrid bushes, most of them more than 100 years old, rather than the big-leafed Assam type behind most Indian tea. (More in Chinary, Assam and clonal tea plants.) Small-leafed China bushes give a lighter, more aromatic cup than Assam bushes, which is why Kangra sits nearer Darjeeling than Assam in the cup.

Miller went further: “Even Darjeeling cannot guarantee all its tea is old-style China, as much else has been introduced recently in that place.” He also noted that in Kangra “a lot of the skilled labor is done by hand and by feel, the way it was one hundred plus years ago.” The planters credit care as well as age: the hybrid bushes are “organically regenerative,” the Dharmsala Tea Company says, and regular pruning keeps them healthy.

Through the seasons

Spring gives Kangra its lightest blacks. Assam, Kangra and the Nilgiris all make a first flush in spring, but it is Darjeeling’s that commands the highest prices. In summer, we have counted the “earthy and smooth green teas from Kangra” among the rarer teas of the season.

Kangra tea is also rare. Frank Miller put it at only 0.01 to 0.03 percent of India’s annual tea sales in 2015.

Our procurement team has cupped Kangra’s hand-rolled oolong, and the business that became Teabox was already selling one in 2012. Their notes, and what each of the four types is like, are on their own page.

Kangra is also far smaller and far less known.

The two are most alike in spring. As Anirudh Suri of the Dharmsala Tea Company put it: “Like the Darjeeling teas, Kangra first flush blacks tend to be greenish in appearance, and offer a light and bright cup to the tea lover. At the same time, Kangra teas do not have the typical muscatel touch that you find in Darjeeling teas.”

The calendars run side by side. Our 2023 training deck puts Kangra’s spring flush in the same window as Darjeeling’s, from mid February to mid April, its summer flush in June, when Darjeeling, Kangra and Nepal give “full-bodied, sweet, fruity” cups, and its monsoon flush from mid July to the end of September. Unlike Darjeeling, Kangra has no autumn flush in that calendar. In both places winter is harsh and the bushes rest: “No harvest takes place until spring.”

The planters themselves see one difference in the field. “Between Darjeeling and Kangra,” says the Dharmsala Tea Company, “we’d say the Chinese bushes fare well and yield better in Kangra.” Kangra also resembles Nepal tea: another Himalayan region long in Darjeeling’s shadow, now making a name of its own. For the whole Darjeeling picture, read our Darjeeling tea guide.

Use about 2 to 2.5 g of leaf (a heaped teaspoon) for a 250 ml (8 oz) cup, and drink it plain: milk hides its delicate flavor.

1. Black tea: water at 85–90°C, 3 to 4 minutes. If it tastes thin, add more leaf next time rather than steeping longer.
2. Green tea: water at 75–80°C, 2 to 3 minutes. Boiling water brings out bitterness, which Kangra’s greens otherwise have very little of.
3. Oolong: water at 85–95°C, 3 to 5 minutes. Hand-rolled oolong will give two to four infusions. When DarjeelingTeaXpress, the business that became Teabox, sold a Kangra autumn oolong in 2012, it advised 90°C for 3 minutes 30 seconds, right in the middle of that range.
4. White tea: water at 80–85°C, 3 to 5 minutes.

The black tea advice follows from the taste. Kangra’s spring blacks are only lightly oxidized and greenish, like a first flush Darjeeling, so water straight off the boil can flatten their aroma and pull out more astringency than they need. The greens are the most delicate of all, which is why they get the coolest water and the shortest steep.

More detail in How to brew loose leaf tea.

The nearest airport is Gaggal, just outside Dharamsala, and the road from there toward Bir runs past Palampur, where the first estate was planted. When our writer Prachi Sibal made that drive to Gunehar, about two hours, her driver stopped at the Tashijong monastery, the Baijnath temple and even the agriculture university at Palampur.

Kangra is a valley of many visitors. Dharamsala is home to the Dalai Lama and a large Tibetan community, and Tibetan monks are often seen walking through the Mann family’s estates in the morning or evening “to find solace or for quiet reflection.” The family’s old estate bungalow has hosted British officials, film stars, writers and chefs, and more recently a wedding. Read the planters’ own account in In Kangra, for a tour of the tea gardens.

Beyond the gardens there is the 13th-century Shiva temple at Baijnath and the old Kangra fort of the Rajput Katoch dynasty. The valley also gave its name to the Pahari, or Kangra, school of miniature painting, and its old hill stations include Dalhousie, Dharamsala, Palampur, Mandi and Kulu. In McLeod Ganj, above Dharamsala, Prachi Sibal spent an afternoon over chai with the Tibetan bookseller Lhasang Tsering; her story is The bookseller of McLeod Ganj.

The valley is also a crossroads. Miller lists its neighbors as Punjab, Jammu and Kashmir, Lahaul and Spiti, Chamba, Tibet and Ladakh, and its people include the nomadic Gaddis, goat herders “who move seasonally with their flocks” between mountain and valley.

Tea is part of daily life in the villages too. The people of these hills call themselves pahadis, hill people, and for generations tea has been one of their main livelihoods. When Prachi Sibal spent a winter in Gunehar, near Bir, she found herself “called for tea often and by nearly everyone I talk to, including the village grocer.” Read her story in Missives from Gunehar: Leaving the city.