Thursday, February 14, 2013

An Approach to 1st flush 2013 Darjeeling tea




          We are all very excited in the Darjeeling hills to see the winter pass away since the much awaited 1st flush 2013 crop season is about to start. Last year since the winter started off early so all most all the gardens had to stop their tea production by the 1st week of December 2012.

          The 1st flush season for every Darjeeling estates is very important as this harvest fetches them high prices for their quality production. Some of the gardens in the lower portion of Darjeeling hills starts producing their 1st flush teas by March 1st week but the teas produced and offered before the mentioned period is mostly mixed leafs from the winter harvest and very small amount of real 1st flush leafs. For a true 1st flush harvest every garden has to get rid of the old leafs of winter from their bushes and once the whole section of the plantation gets rid of their old leafs then the real and true 1st flush harvest starts and we have noticed from last 2 decades that this harvest never starts before 1st week-2nd week of March.

         It is slightly warmer now in February in Darjeeling than the month of January and the right temperature difference between day and night for a good 1st flush crop is about 9-11 degrees Celsius. Teas produced from the lower elevation garden looks more green in colour since the leafs contains more chlorophyll and the teas produced from high elevation are slightly darker is colour and contains lots of silver tips.

         A very good and well made 1st flush tea should have well twisted greenish leafs and lots of silver tips. The liquor of the tea should be light golden (almost like champagne) colour and the aroma should be tenderly flowery/ fruity and a slight astringency should remain on the palate as an after taste.
   
          We have already started tasting some samples from few low elevation gardens in Darjeeling and personally feel that the true 1st flush have not started coming yet. As usual we are eagerly waiting for exclusive 1st flush teas from high elevation and reputed plantations of Darjeeling.

         We request all our valuable tea lover friends who have been blindly trusting us and buying our high quality teas from us from our online store or our retail store in Darjeeling to have patience and wait our list of true and high quality 1st flush 2013 Darjeeling teas.


          We will inform you all through newsletters and our Face book page.