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Kalami Tea Revisited

Okay, I asked earlier about "Kalami" and "Barooti" teas, which are sold to the middle eastern market.

I had thought all of these teas were Assam, although recently I found a Chinese tea in a Persian market in Washington which claimed to be "Kalami of Yunnan." But most of them are.

It turns out, and I want to thank my local Persian acoustician for the translation, that "Baroot" means "gunpowder" in Persia, and that the BOP-sized tea is sold as "Barooti" meaning like gunpowder.

He said that "Gulabi" is a Persian word meaning "rose water," but he didn't see how that applied to tea. He thinks "Kalami" is an Arabic transliteration, and says anything with a G in it is not Arabic.

Anyway, so this is a little bit more information about all this tea that I have been drinking....

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey
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Have you tried that possibly Yunnan tea? And, if so, did it look and taste like a Yunnan red/black?

Rose-*scented* tea isn't terribly unusual. Could that be it?

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

My local stores couldn't tell me Barooti means gunpowder. However what average American would recognize the word gunpowder meaning tea. It is also like the Asian stores where nobody speaks English but they take AE. The leaf I've seen is BOP and not curled like gunpowder. It isn't even green. I still haven't satisfied myself on the use of Kalami. The Arabic Royal World brand says Kalmi(missing A) Orange Pekoe Ceylon. So in a sense I think they mean whole leaf. Kalami/Ghalami is the whole leaf assam you see in the Arabic stores. Gulabi is the name of a Company.

Jim

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Reply to
Space Cowboy

It was clearly black tea. I did not try it, but I could probably go back and get the box.

No, the Kalami/Gulabi tea is a full-leaf Assam tea, no scenting. It has a vaguely peachlike smell sometimes when it's fresh, and it's very clearly a continuously-picked commodity tea.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Right, it is in no relation to the Chinese "green gunpowder" tea. In fact, the Chinese "gunpowder" tea isn't much like gunpowder at all. It's much grainier even than a blasting powder. The Barooti, like a typical BOP, is about the consistency of a rifle powder.

So I am willing to bet there is no connection between the two uses.

No, I have seen Gulabi used by a large number of companies, and it is clearly not an Arabic word since they do not use the G. I'm willing to bet on the Persian translation, but I'm curious how it got used and why.

And I don't know what Kalami/Ghalami/Kalmi really means or what language it's in. This is what I started out trying to figure out.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

Gulabi is one corporate brand name, Mumtaz is another, of G.A.Randerian(Gar) Limited, Calcutta. Sort of a Unilever of the Middle East. Their corporate logo (Shield with G.A.R LTD) is a registered trademark in Iran no 15873. Gulabi also has a registered trademark no

155569. This information comes from their Gulabi Kalmi teabox. I can't find their Gulabi Barooti box for any more trademark protection. Gulabi is to Iran/Middle East as Lipton is to the US/West. Ahmad describes their Barooti tea as "A premium blend of Golden Broken Assam Leaf tea from the best gardens of the picturesque Brahmaputra Valley in Norhtern India." Their Kalami tea starts with "A premium blend of golden long leaf Assam..." Other companies that sell Barooti/Kalmi are Shiva, Shahrzad, Shiva. I have the boxes. The letter S must be popular in Arabic.

Jim

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Reply to
Space Cowboy

Okay, I can buy that, although I have seen teas in a lot of different boxes sold as "Gulabi" although that may be due to various sorts of infringement. Next time I am at the Persian market up in Washington DC, I will check things out.

I will not drink "The Famous Brand" Mumtaz, after finding an enormous roach in a box about twenty years ago. It was very dessicated and had clearly been processed with the tea at least somewhat.

Makes completely sense.

I am now advised that "Kalam" is cabbage in Persian, and that therefore "Kalami" means cabbagelike. That also makes perfect sense.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

I'm sure I have all the Arabic brands of Kalmi and Barooti. There are about 10 stores serving our Arabic community. I've only seen the Gulabi name on their two boxes. If they're using that name for other teas I haven't seen it. I've discovered that Kalmi and Barooti are particular marketing terms for Iran only and not used generally elsewhere even though some brand of each lines the shelves of every store. As I said in another post awhile back this might something similar to a Arabic 'kosher'. I checked Arabic blogs such as

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and you will see transliteration starting with G. You'll have to drill down to see it in the people who reply because they don't have the language pack. Tea is an agricultural product and we've discussed foreign matter in the past which is why I always boil my water. I've seen somethings in my wild tree green puerh log which would probably interest my health department.

Jim

Scott Dorsey wrote:

Reply to
Space Cowboy

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