Rohini Emerald Green tea 2nd Flush darjeeling tea 2009

Rohini Emerald Green Tea 2^nd Flush Darjeeling tea 2009

This tea just took me by surprise when Rishi (Owner of the Gopaldhara and Rohini tea estate) informed me that they are planning to harvest some very special Darjeeling tea this 2^nd Flush harvest and he told me that they were panning to make some high quality Green tea in their Rohini Plantation from the young Japanese clonal bushes that were once imported from Japan to make some great green teas in Darjeeling, but the project never succeeded as the former owner of the garden sold the garden to Rishi and his family, they say that teas from this small sector of young Japanese bushes makes some very good teas which are very sweet in taste, he informed me about this when the dormant period between 1^st and 2^nd Flush was going on, he made several teas for me all season long but I exactly knew what I wanted…..so finally during the end weeks of May when the 2^nd Flush harvest in Darjeeling takes place I asked him to make this tea for me, to make this tea it takes a lot of labour and hard work, only one leaf and a bud is plucked from this special sector of the garden when the new shoots have just grown out and is further withered for about 48 hours and then gentle steamed and then fired at the end , the idea of making this tea is to keep it as unprocessed as possible but at the same time it should be a well made tea, this superb tea also has bold looks as the leafs are kept unbroken , the cup is also amazing as after steeping the tea for about 3 minutes ,the liquor of the tea turns green like the colour of the Emerald stone, each sip in the cup is extremely refreshing with a very sweet taste of young cucumbers and young bananas that remains on the palate as an after taste, this tea will surely impress the white tea lovers too as the standard of this green tea takes Darjeeling specialty tea making to another level of satisfaction.

An Approach to 2nd Flush 2009 Darjeeling tea (s)

An Approach to 2nd Flush Darjeeling tea 2009

As days passed away from the early spring to the summer, the 2nd Flush harvest has already started knocking at our doors but this is an extremely sensitive harvest as the 2nd Flush character lasts on the tea bushes for a very short time, in this harvest pronounced effects can be seen more on china variety bushes where the floral character of 1st Flush converts to Muscatel character further making the liquor slightly heavy unlike the 1st Flush harvest, the clonal variety teas are also very round in cup and pronounced in taste in this harvest as the liquor gets slightly heavier making it more sweeter in taste, the best teas in this harvest are plucked from both china and clonal variety tea bushes but only the most dehydrated leafs and buds are selectively plucked to make the muscatel teas.
We have so far tasted many samples from Darjeeling Valley gardens like Puttabong, North Tukvar and Barnesbeg; the Puttabong tea samples were interesting as it showed some very good sign of pre- 2nd Flush Harvests, especially the Puttabong Muscatel samples showed some good character than the clonal varieties but I must say that excellent and pronounced 2nd Flush teas should start in from this valley from the 2nd week of June as most of the tea bushes are going through the dormant period in this valley, while coming to the Kurseong valley gardens like the Castleton, Margaret’s Hope, Makaibari, Rohini and Ambootia, I must say none of these gardens showed any 2nd Flush character, they are rather more on the dormant period but Kurseong Valley gardens are known for making best 2nd Flush teas in the district and since the rainfall was sufficient in the early month of May we have great expectations of Having excellent 2nd Flush teas from this valley.
So I request my entire beloved and most valuable tea lover customers to be patient and as usual we will cater with the best 2nd Flush 2009 teas as usual…. Cheers!

Balasun and Sungma 1st Flush Darjeeling tea 2009
Its been a real adventure this 1st Flush choosing the right teas, now I would say it was easy to choose the high quality and expensive teas but getting some lower priced teas was a real challenge, and some average priced teas are also required to complete the list of teas this season, so we ordered samples from various plantation, like Thurbo, Goomtee, Arya and Singbulli, but all the teas from the month of April showed very dark appearances, I would rather call it a burnt and dehydrated character, I specially had great expectations from the Singbulli plantation but all the 6 or 7 samples did not do any wonders for me, so I finally called up Mr. A.K. Jha ( Superintendent) of Sungma and Balasun Tea Estates, he had send us many samples, some were teas from pure china bushes and some were assamese hybrid bushes but more or less the teas were not up to the mark but I could finally choose 2 teas from Balasun and Sungma and would say it was a complete luck for me to get these teas, as these 2 teas were exceptionally excellent during this period of time, the 1st one is Sungma sftgfop-1 china classic Dj-16, an excellent offering having slightly darker leafs and has a well twisted leafs and full sized buds, the cup is pungent and smooth with hints of young pears without any bitterness, the other one is my personal favourite,the Balasun sftgfop-1 china classic Dj-16,it’s a really excellent tea having very bright leafs and small sized shiny sliver tips, the cup is extravagantly fruity and the after taste is extremely mellow, so I must say that even in low price I could offer 2 great teas in this hard harvest season

Darjeeling tea 2009: 1st Flush selections get even better

Darjeeling tea 2009: 1st Flush selections get even better


I think this year we have tasted more than 60 samples to get some 5-7 teas in our list of 1st Flush 2009 teas. Well talking about that I cannot stop myself from writing about our Gopaldhara clonal classic ftgfop-1 DJ-3 tea, actually we have been tasting tea samples from Gopaldhara tea estate since last Second Flush 2008 but I was not excited with any of their teas so one fine day Rishi (the owner of Gopaldhara) called me up asking why I was not ordering any teas from them and I told him the reasons that was stopping me from promoting any of their teas, so he promised me that he would send some good Gopaldhara tea samples that could fit in my list of fine Darjeeling teas, so during the 3rd week of March as usual I received a large sample packet of Gopaldhara tea samples and as usual I thought it would contain teas that would not fit my taste buds, but my father asked me to open the tea sample packet and we went through at least 6-7 Gopaldhara and Rohini tea sample but none of the teas were appealing, at the corner of the sample packet there was this Gopaldhara ftgfop-1 clonal classic DJ-3 tea sample pouch, so to give it a try I opened the sample pounch and WOW!…..I was excited to see this tea, this was exactly what we were looking forward to, in this hard season ,it was hard withered to keep that greenish and tender look on the tea and one should also consider the hard withered teas in this season as it’s a sacrifice of quantity when the tea is hard withered meaning the quantity of tea leaves goes down. The dry leafs were amazing and with a slight blow of warm air from the mouth on the leafs gave out a very fruity aroma and when the tea is further brewed for about 4-5 minutes, the cup immediately give out some refreshing fruity flavor with slight hints of young green bananas and white grapes, must say ….an absolute beautiful tea of the season!
Also on the other side I agree that good teas are available in a very limited quantity this 1st Flush season but one cannot say they are not available at all, I was very sad to see blogs written by so called tea wise people that the 1st Flush 2009 Darjeeling teas are not very good, well I don’t mind consumers writing about it as they get this news through some news website or magazine etc. who keep their homework incomplete, but even tea merchants write this type of blogs which even they know that is not fully true and by writing this they get an advantage of getting rid of their old teas in the same high price and may be they do not want to spend their money on good teas as good teas costs good price…..anyways I`m proud to write that I’ve been able to cater good teas this season too as its been over 1 month that I been tasting various samples and choosing the right teas and also I’ve been able to prove the point wrong that 1st Flush 2009 Darjeeling teas are not up to the quality level due to drought, I would request all tea lovers to follow their own mind and choose teas from us instead of following blogs of people who have no idea about what they are blogging about…or may be merchants who are blogging to escape the heat of investment for good teas this season!

Margaret`s Hope 1st Flush Darjeeling tea 2009

Margaret’s Hope 1st Flush Darjeeling tea 2009

As days past away hunting for good teas in various gardens in Darjeeling, I got a call from Mr. Anil Gurung (factory assistant) Margaret’s Hope Tea Estate that a couple of excellent batches of tea have just been made and I should be there by the early morning on the 21st of March 2009 as another big buyer from Japan was coming for the same tea, so I quickly took my camera and started my journey from Darjeeling to Margaret’s Hope, we were passing through some very steep road and beautiful scenery could be seen from the car’s window but I was actually getting impatient, finally I happened to reach the garden and I saw Mr. Anil Gurung and Mr. Pande (Manager of the garden) waiting for me, I immediately got down from the car and we all headed for the tea tasting room of the garden, after I reached there I came to know that the big Japanese buyer had given her bid for the teas and wanted the teas at any cost, so I was a bit nervous while we did the tea tasting but I must say both the teas were simply excellent, the first one that I was offered was the Margaret’s hope ftgfop-1 china spl.DJ-4 which was made from pure china origin (bushes grown from the seeds)leafs and shoots, had a very bright leaf appearance and the cup showed some very interesting fruity character and the most important factor regarding this tea was that it had an after taste of young fruits and flowers that remained on the palate for a long time so there was no turning back ,so we had a stiff bidding completion with the other Japanese buyer and luckily we got the tea, Infact I was very happy that I got a very nice tea in the time when there was very less amount of good teas in Darjeeling, the next tea was this tea called Margaret’s hope (Wonder) White tea, this tea is made exclusively made for us from young clonal bushes like AV2 and P312 by Mr. Gurung (factory assistant ,Margaret’s hope),with full unsorted long leafs and full sized buds, I must say it’s a master craftsmanship right from the tea plucker who carefully plucked the tender shoots and buds to the factory assistant who made the tea, its simply a beauty from dry leaf to the cup, a true champagne of the 1st Flush Darjeeling.

Puttabong Queen sftgfop-1 Dj-7 1st Flush 2009

Puttabong (Tukvar) sftgfop-1 DJ-7 1st Flush Darjeeling tea 2009



I was a bit upset to see most of the early invoice 1st Flush tea samples to comprise mostly of dry and dehydrated leafs in the teas from various gardens in Darjeeling as there has been no rainfall since last October 2008, it looked hard to get a very good tea but it was not impossible to get one, so after judging the various factors of the situation I called up Mr. Somani (superintendent) of Puttabong Tea Estate as this is one of the highest tea plantation in Darjeeling and they make some great 1st Flush teas every year, I had a long discussion with him over the phone as I had received some tea samples from them which impressed me a lot, so I told him that the 1st tea of the season that I want to offer in my list should be the best among all as usual and after hours of discussion he suggested me that I should wait for a couple of days since the young clonal fields of the gardens were filled with fair amounts of tender young shoots and buds, so after two days he told me that he asked few of his expert tea pluckers of the garden to finely pluck the one leaf and a bud from the young bushes during early hours of the morning when dew drops are present on the leafs and buds so that the shoots remain even more tender which is good for the production.
I must say those couple of days was really worth for waiting as the made tea was one of the finest we might have ever offered, the made tea consists of extravagant number of silver tips and the leafs look extremely greenish, the cup gives out an excellent flowery and fruity aroma and some hints of young mangoes remains on the palate with some sweetness as an after taste. This is how the Puttabong sftgfop-1 Queen Dj-7 was made.
I also cannot stop writing about the fact that I’m lucky be a part of Tea Emporium, Darjeeling which has been in the trade for generations now, and the reputation which surely backed me up to get the best invoice of the season when there is a very large scarcity of good teas in the market, and I also feel sorry for the merchants that I know are just struggling to get anything in hand at the very moment, and even if it rains now there will be no magic as the soil is heated now and the rain will make more leafs grow but the quality factor will go down.
Similarly like the Puttabong Queen, we have more good teas to offer in the near future and we invite all tea lovers to join the tea party.

High Hopes for Darjeeling tea 1st Flush 2009

It has been an uncertain winter since December 2008, where one cannot say either Darjeeling has received enough cold or cloudy weather which is natural at this point of time but it has been rather sunny ,clear days and nights filled with bright stars in the sky and some full moon nights.Well taking about the situation of spring 2009 teas,I`ll say we have a great expectation as I passed through Kurseong ,through some great tea making gardens like Castleton and Margaret`s hope,I saw most of their clonal field were prunned and its a good sign as when the spring starts, we will get to see some great fresh and young teas,but its all dependant on the mercy of the nature as we need some serious winter rains right now but the question is when???? its been cloudy almost everyday from the last week in the end of February 2009 but due to extreme heavy winds the clouds are shattered and chased away and we are still hanging on for winter rains. We expect to have some great early teas from Namring and Thurbo as the weather conditions in these areas are still bit alright than the other gardens.
I cannot stop myself from writing about the winter crop, as I see some companies selling these teas as early 1st Flush starters,but its too funny as these types of teas belong to the dormant harvest period as the leafs in this time are extremely dehydrated ,so the appearance of the winter teas are rather dry and sometimes looks like a mixture of green and burnt leafs, the basic character is neither like the Autumn Flush and not even like 1st flush, but the truth is IT Sells! but one should not keep this type of tea for a long time in stock as this types of tea will lose its flavour each day and may be by a month a brew will only give away a cup of hot water and nothing else......
anyways we have been bombarded with e-mails each day for the new crop for 1st Flush 2009,all I want to say to all is that, Please have patience and we`ll offer you teas that have been value for your money for years!.....Cheers!