India
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Assam tea estate makes India's first commercial matcha
The Indian Express··27 Aug
At Chota Tingrai Tea Estate in Assam, a friendship between two tea families beginning in the 1980s led to India's first commercial matcha. Fourth-generation planter Mrityunjay Jalan partnered with Japan's Hara family, whose company first visited Assam decades earlier. Japanese expert Masanori Yanagawa spent nearly three years, from 2016 to 2019, training estate workers, who launched matcha commercially in 2026.
Prism
What It Means For You
- Tea drinkers get a domestically produced matcha alternative instead of relying entirely on imported Japanese or Chinese green tea.
- Assam tea workers gain new skills in Japanese-style processing, potentially opening jobs beyond traditional black tea production.
- Consumers buying 'green tea' in India may start seeing verified matcha-grade products instead of oxidised blends mislabelled as green tea.
What's Happening
- The idea began when planter Mrityunjay Jalan, studying in Singapore, noticed Indian green tea differed from authentic Japanese versions.
- The Hara family's Ume-no-En tea company first visited Assam in the 1980s and later helped set up green tea production from 2016.
- Worker Augustina, who has spent nine years at the estate's Green Tea Factory, said matcha required entirely new techniques to learn.
How A Decades-Old Friendship Built Assam's Matcha
- Mrityunjay Jalan's great-grandfather was among the first Indians to commercially plant tea in Assam, founding Chota Tingrai Tea Estate in 1943.
- Japanese tea expert Masanori Yanagawa spent nearly three years at the estate teaching Japanese green tea-making methods.
- Training was interrupted by the pandemic before resuming, with commercial matcha production beginning in 2026.
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