The tea Assam actually drinks
Most writing about Assam tea treats CTC as the cheap option and orthodox as the real thing. That is a tasting-room view. In Assam, CTC is what is in the pot in almost every kitchen, and there is nothing second-rate about a good one.
CTC stands for crush, tear, curl. The leaf goes through toothed rollers rather than being rolled whole, which breaks the cell walls and gets far more out of the leaf, far faster. That is exactly what you want when the tea is going to be boiled with milk. Whole leaf orthodox in milk tea is a waste of the leaf: the milk flattens the very subtlety you paid for.
How to make proper Assam milk tea
Water and milk together in the pan, roughly two parts water to one part milk. A heaped teaspoon of CTC per cup. Bring it up, let it come to a rolling boil, pull it off, let it sit thirty seconds, bring it up once more. Sugar in the pan, not the cup. Strain.
Ginger crushed with the flat of a knife, added at the first boil, is standard in most Assamese houses in winter. Cardamom is a Delhi habit that has travelled; use it if you like it, but it is not how this tea is drunk here.
Full method, including the ratios for a pot of six: how to brew Assam tea.
When to buy orthodox instead
If you drink your tea black, buy the second flush orthodox instead. This one will taste harsh without milk, and that is not a fault, it is what it was made to do.
