Singbulli sftgfop-1 ch. DJ-28 1st Flush Darjeeling tea 2010:
As days passed away the temperature is rising in Darjeeling and still not enough rain to boost some fresh new leaves to have enough good teas in the market, the early premium 1st Flush harvest season is already over and we have successfully procured early season teas like the Thurbo White delight Ex-1, Castleton Moonlight Ex-1 and Puttabong/Organic Queen sftgfop-1 Dj-5, tea lovers all around the world who have ordered these teas have really appreciated teas, actually the early 1st Flush harvest starts from the 2nd week of March to the maximum last week of March , as soon as the pre-summers i.e. temperatures over 28 degrees Celsius hits the harvest the leafs and the shoots starts getting dehydrated and as more temperature rises the harvest moves towards the dormant period. Now it was a real challenge for us to get a tea which was good and which could stand along the list of other excellent teas that were offered in our list of 1st Flush 2010 teas, this was the category where the tea had to be good but also had to be affordable, I tried various plantation like Goomtee, Jungpana, Giddapahar etc. but nothing was taking my breath away…..well talking about Giddapahar I have never tasted anything fantastic from this plantation but when I read other`s reviews I always thought those were the teas which I missed to taste (well many do not give the DJ No./Invoice no.), so this year I personally visited the garden on the 28th of March`2010, the owner Mr. Shudhansu was really kind enough to welcome us and offer all the 7 invoices samples of the 1st Flush 2010 of his garden Giddapahar T.E. I tasted from the very 1st invoice to the 7th invoice and 1 particular thing I can say about this garden is that all the teas were high fired and had relatively blackish appearance which is not a very good sign of a good quality 1st Flush tea, I was surprised that if the very 1st invoices of the garden was of this character then people must be marketing this high fired character as muscatels and so on….but this is no muscatel character,well we will have to discuss more on this in this coming 2nd Flush, but all I can say is that this garden is a standard garden which makes nice Darjeeling teas but not the best ,I also tried their Giddapahar Ex-1 and Ex-2, they had named this tea as some china delight /china spl. Or something which I don’t remember and claimed these teas as their best of the season but I had already seen and brought some of the finest in the Darjeeling tea 2010 harvest so my expectations were very high, well I do not want to comment on these teas anymore but can only say one thing that if you see someone comparing these invoices from this garden with any of the Puttabongs and Castletons etc. then please give us an opportunity by ordering a small quantity and compare for yourself that what you had been missing when you expected to order high end Darjeeling teas and ended being recommended mid –class teas by new vendors in the trade…..Well lets come straight to the point that I wanted a good tea that was equally high quality but would be affordable for all, my all time favorite gardens in this category was Balasun T.E. and Barnesbeg T.E. I had had to decline both the teas as one was over priced and one was high fired tea and the manager tried to sell us this tea as a good flavoury 1st Flush tea but I know the definition of flavor in Darjeeling tea and a high fire smell….I was really getting upset as I just couldn’t get anything to complete the list and so much responsibility was there on my shoulders, I was literally getting bombarded by e-mails from various tea merchants around the world, so on the 30th of March`10 I got a call from Mr. Parekh (factory assistant Manager of Singbulli Tea Estate) that a very nice china line invoice was ready and he was sending me the sample and as usual I had very less time in hand to make a decision, Singbulli tea estate is situated in the Mirik Valley in Darjeeling district and is just two and a half hours drive away from my retail-outlet, so I finally received few samples and choose the Singbulli Dj-28 sftgfop-1 china to be in my list as this tea was from the mid harvest of 1st Flush 2010 but still had that greenish appearance and had a really refreshing aroma in both the dry leaf state and the cup.Well I`m satisfied with this tea and I hope you`ll also like it,so please come and discover Singbulli sftgfop-1ch. Dj-28 1st Flush Darjeeling tea 2010
