The mission to cultivate India’s unsung tea traditions

An indigenous heirloom smoked in bamboo + Poorvi Chordia on Indian teas beyond masala chai.

A taste of Nagaland

The tea: Naga Khalap smoked tea, sold by Herbs & Kettles. $29 for 30g.

The Camellia sinensis tea plant is native to a subtropical band of land between eastern India and western China, stretching through Assam, Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Laos, and Yunnan. Smack in the middle of these regions are the ancestral lands of the Naga people, a cohort of ethnic groups that have weathered centuries of border disputes and colonization attempts. Khalap, also called phalap, is their traditional tea, and if you like smoky or fermented styles such as lapsang souchong or puer, it’s a treat to drink.

To make khalap, a tea maker pan-fries fresh leaves until they soften, then dries them in the sun. Hollow tubes of bamboo are shaved down into containers and the leaves are stuffed inside. Once the leaves are pounded in snug, the bamboo tubes are hoisted over a fire to soak up the smoke and fully dry. These tubes are continually smoked for months or years, making older khalap a kind of drinkable heirloom. If this procedure reminds you of puer in Yunnan, you’re on the right track. The cultural influences are similar.

The source: Poorvi Chordia, co-owner of Herbs & Kettles with her husband Abe Thomas, has a knack for finding unusual teas from India. Chai and herbal blends are the company’s bread and butter, but Poorvi has a large selection of single origin styles like wild black tea scented with foraged galangal, oolong and yellow teas, and tribal khalap. Poorvi reached out and sent me samples of these unblended productions. I’ve enjoyed them all and reach for them frequently.

To brew: Khalap is traditionally steeped in a large pot, but Poorvi prefers to brew hers in small vessels with more leaf, and I agree. 5 grams in a 150 milliliter pot (1g/30ml), steeped for 30 to 60 seconds, yields a light bodied yet rich tasting brew with comforting campfire notes. Give the tea a quick rinse and include a piece of bamboo with the leaves for good measure. You can resteep it several times. Smoke is the obvious flavor, but it’s well integrated into the leaf rather than domineering. I get a nice warmth along the sides of my mouth that I attribute to the tea’s aged qualities, with hints of oak and resin. It’s a simple sensation compared to a good aged puer. If you’re after something with a lower price per gram, you may prefer something like iribancha. However I don’t mind paying a premium for a taste of a tribal production from half a world away. This one is a transportive experience.

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A whole piece of khalap tea. This and the following photos are courtesy of Herbs & Kettles.

Poorvi Chordia’s cabinet of tea curiosities

As Poorvi Chordia learned on her visit to a Naga village in Arunachal Pradesh, it takes many hands to make a good batch of khalap. The tea must be plucked, then pan-fried until it loses the right amount of moisture. Then it’s spread out to dry in the sun, the success of which is dependent on the weather. Villagers work together to shape the bamboo stalks, stuff the tea inside, seal each tube, and smoke them until dry. Older khalap is considered more tasty and valuable. Keeping it in good condition during aging takes skill, too. Like so many traditional crafts, the value of khalap comes from hard labor and generations of experience.

Poorvi considers khalap to be the Naga (and Singpho, another tribe) version of puer, which itself is an indigenous product of Yunnan’s ethnic minority groups. Cultural cross-pollination in the past was likely. “These tribes were able to migrate freely, but then borders were drawn, and now they are dispersed from each other,” she says. Like with puer, which once sold for pennies and is now among the most in-demand teas in China, Poorvi sees potential in khalap to highlight the diversity and depth of artisan teas from India that are all too frequently overlooked.