Hookhmol?

How do we define the quality of Black  Assam CTC tea? At present we do not have nationally accepted standards for judging quality of tea, even though many parameters, such as infusion, strength, briskness, aroma, flavour, colour, brightness, bloom etc., are used by the brokers and buyers in various tea auction centres, where bulk teas are sold. As a result, either the price or marketing is determining  the quality of tea.  Strangely, people are able to get away by marketing tea as black, grainy or weighty etc. Consumers are confused and are left with no choice but to buy tea as a low quality commodity even though the quality of  Assam tea can vary from zero  to ten on a scale of 1 to 10 . It is high time that we take the initiative to move towards standardization of quality which can be easily understood and adopted by competent consumers. Unfortunately it is not happening because of various regulations and traditional nature of the business but we firmly believe that our consumers deserve better.

As some of you are aware that most of the teas produced in Assam are sold as bulk tea in the public auction centres since the colonial days. Anybody  can hire a commission agent, registered with the auction centre, to buy any quantity of bulk tea at a pre determined average price and then blend it, put it in a pouch, brand it and sell. Now, let me ask, do the consumers get to enjoy the best teas produced in Assam? The asnswer is No, the consumers get to consume only average or poor quality blends not the best possible tea.

Let us look at the sale price of bulk tea sold from sale 14 to sale 52 in the year 2014. The data is available at www.assamteaxchange.com

	Quantiry (Kg)	Percentage
Above Rs 200	37,77,284.50	3.2361284
Between Rs170 to Rs200	1,85,17,621.80	15.864678
Between Rs 130 to Rs170	5,20,65,586.50	44.606362
Below Rs 130	4,23,61,839.30	36.292831
Total	11,67,22,332.10

We can see that only 3% teas sell above Rs 200 and another 16% sell between Rs 170 to Rs 200. It means that 19% of the best and good teas get lost to blending with remaining 81 % of the poor quality teas. And in worst cases Assam teas are blended with non Assam teas which way inferior to assam tea and are sold to consumers as a commodity. Essentially it means that 20% of the produce is used for liquour and flavour and 80% of the produce is used as fillers. This is ok for mass producers and mass consumers but those of us who produce the best quality tea with a passion would love to serve it to the tea lovers and quality seekers.

So far we have been producing teas which fall in that top 3% category but were selling as bulk tea. But everytime we served our tea to people in general they loved it so we decided to bring our product directly to the market.

We present before you “Hookhmol” which is

                      (1) Fresh and Pure Assam CTC, as it is grown, processed and packed here in Assam

                      (2) Unblended high quality single factory produce not mixed with any fillers

Hence we are taking the opportunity to serve you with the best quality Assam CTC tea “Hookhmol”.