Saturday, November 13, 2010

Darjeeling Tea: Autumn flush 2010

Darjeeling Tea: Autumn flush 2010

The autumn flush Darjeeling tea harvest started a bit late this year , we had predicted that this year the harvest will start earlier than the past few year`s harvest since the atmospheric temperatures were dropping down every day by 1-2 degrees Celsius but during the last weeks of October it rained very hard in Darjeeling as a result of which a lot of crop was damaged as during the rains the finish product (made tea) has a darker color and a less flavor and a proper autumn flush tea should have a high flavor and a bright liquor. So we had to do a very careful selection this time since we have already catered teas like Turzum clonal flowery, Puttabong Queen and Singbulli in the 1st Flush harvest and excellent teas like the Turzum clonal delight, Gopaldhara wonder tea and Sungma organic musk in the 2nd flush.These teas have already made a reputation of its own in the hearts of the tea lovers, so keeping this in mind I decided to go for a short list of teas which would be simple and value for money for our most valuable customers since we already have great teas in our list from 1st and 2nd flush so I took a firm decision to keep a simple list of good teas in my list during this Autumn flush 2010 harvest. So I started with the Balasun sftgfop-1 classic Dj311 which is a very nice tea plucked from pure china bushes, this tea has a very rich flavor in the dry leaf state and has a fairly strong cup which fits a good cup of breakfast tea and can also be enjoyed with a splash of milk and sugar. The next tea that I was looking for had to be a tea with a light liquor and a fruity flavor as I have always tried to keep all the teas in my list to be completely different from each other, so I chose the Risheehat classic Autumn sftgfop-1/Organic Dj493, this tea has a very bright liquor with a very flowery and fruity flavor and has an overall smooth character in the cup. After these two great teas I had to look for something special which would be a great treat for a tea lover so here comes a very special tea from one of my favorite plantation in Darjeeling, it’s the Sungma Organic Autumn musk sftgfop-1 DJ276, its a classic muscatel tea plucked from pure china bushes which are upto 125 years old in age, the cup gives a very unique fruity and herb like flavor and ends with a nice muscatel taste on the palate, I recommend this tea as a perfect afternoon tea and I`m sure it will be highly praised by the tea lovers. The last tea in my list is something very unusual; it’s a Darjeeling green tea which has been well made by the tea makers of the plantation, it had already made a reputation of its own in our list of teas offered last year, it’s the Rohini Emerald (Green Tea) PP-18, this tea is plucked from very young P312 clonal bushes of the plantation, the liquor of the tea turns green in the cup so its named Emerald, this excellent green tea gives out a rich fruity and flowery flavor from the cup and ends with an unique sweetness,i`m very happy to have this fine tea in the list.
I invite all Darjeeling tea lovers to join our autumn flush 2010 tea party and I hope as usual I`ll be able to satisfy all palates.