Nilgiri
Nilgiri is the high-grown black tea of the Blue Mountains in Tamil Nadu, southern India: bright, brisk, fragrant, and notably smooth, with a fruity-floral lift and low astringency that make it an excellent everyday black and a popular iced tea, since it does not cloud when cold. It is harvested nearly year-round, and its specialty highlight is frost tea, made from leaves stressed by winter cold.
Well-made orthodox Nilgiri is bright, smooth, and fragrant with a fruity-floral note and little astringency, and it is prized for not clouding when iced. Most Nilgiri is CTC commodity for blends, so orthodox single-estate leaf is the quality tier worth seeking. Frost tea, winter-harvested from cold-stressed bushes, is the celebrated specialty, with a concentrated sweetness and aroma. Flat or dusty material is commodity blending stock.
Grown in the Nilgiri (Blue Mountain) hills of Tamil Nadu at high elevation, with a near year-round harvest thanks to the southern climate. The frost season from December to February yields the prized frost teas. Most volume is CTC for the domestic and blending markets, while the orthodox specialty segment, including single estates, is smaller and where the interesting tea lives. The high elevation gives the brightness and smoothness.
Western: 90-95°C, 3 g per 200 ml, 3 minutes; smooth enough to drink plain and excellent iced. Gongfu: 4-5 g per 100 ml, 90°C, 15-25 seconds ascending, 4-6 infusions for orthodox leaf. Its low astringency makes it forgiving of a slightly long steep.
Everyday Nilgiri runs €8-20 (about $9-22) per 100 g. Orthodox single-estate and frost teas reach €25-50 (about $27-54) per 100 g.
Prices reviewed June 2026
Nilgiri is one of the few black teas reliably marketed as not clouding when iced, because it forms less of the compounds behind tea cream, so it stays clear cold and became a favored base for iced and instant teas. Frost tea, harvested when winter cold stresses the bushes, is the region's connoisseur specialty.
The steps overlap in practice; this is a reading order, not a set of separate stages.