Climate change is diluting Assam tea

Eegad — I've thought casually about this before, but here's a good story about how climate change is affecting tea production in the Assam region. As you know, you can't grow tea just anywhere; it's pretty finicky about its conditions. With rainfall totals dropping and temperature rising, yields are getting smaller. And it's no better in Darjeeling.

It gets worse: This report (and this one) claims that climate change is even make Assam tea less potent. If you drink Assam, no doubt you do so because of its strong, bright flavor. The unsettled climate seems to be diluting it.

You know what that means. Prices will only go up.

Perhaps it's a delicious irony that the right's radicals, who deny the facts of climate change, named their new party after a possibly endangered plant.