Jorhat Tea Estates

Jorhat is often called the tea capital of the world, and the drive into town passes estate after estate of neatly clipped bushes shaded by tall trees. The district sits at the centre of Upper Assam's tea belt, where the malty, full-bodied Assam tea is grown in the warm, humid plains. Tocklai Tea Research Institute, founded in 1911, is one of the oldest and largest tea research centres in the world and has shaped tea cultivation across India.

A stay in a heritage tea bungalow is one of the most memorable parts of an Assam trip. Several colonial-era planters' bungalows around Jorhat and neighbouring districts have been converted into small boutique stays, with verandas, gardens and home-style Anglo-Assamese cooking. Guests can walk through the gardens with a supervisor, watch pluckers at work during the season, visit the factory to see withering, rolling and drying, and finish with a guided tasting of orthodox and CTC teas.

Jorhat is also the gateway to Majuli and is close to Sivasagar and the Hoollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary, home to India's only ape, the hoolock gibbon.