1st Flush Darjeeling tea 2008 – Overall Review

Well its been a very busy and tough 1st Flush crop this year, only after being in Darjeeling through out the year one can understand how tough it has been this year to procure the good teas. Actually in the early March the atmospheric temperatures were very low as a result of which the 1st Flush harvest started at least 9-14 days late, specially high elevation Gardens like Puttabong, Risheehat, Gopaldhara etc. suffered a lot. But again in terms of early production Gardens from Mirik Valley Like Thurbo, Phuguri etc did very well throughout. Specially seeing the Thurbo teas in general I personally think it is one of the best 1st Flush producer this year and on the other side famous gardens like Sungma and Singbulli tea estates which used to be our favorite did not do so well.I must also admit that I have seen some of the best clonals from gardens like Castleton and Thurbo this year, specially talking about the Castleton Moonlight this year it was awesome and all our mail clients were crazy for this tea and the full invoice tea was sold out within 3 weeks, that’s unimaginable for such an expensive tea but of coarse an excellent tea.
Not to forget the “Thurbo Oriental Delight White Tea” this was another surprise for us, within a span of 4-5 days this tea matured like anything and was wholeheartedly accepted by most of our elite customers, even some of the black tea lovers admired this tea, well at the end of the day I must also thank the Thurbo Garden factory assistant Manager Mr. Anil Gurung for this tea, as he did exactly what we wanted for this tea, well let that be our trade secret but I’m also happy that our customers are satisfied. Now we are looking for ward to the 2nd Flush 2008 teas, we hope we will be able to procure excellent teas again… at least we’ll do our very best...