From: Kernel Mustard Subject: Darjeeling Tea Megami Mailing List ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chris and/or Meryl Jefferson said: // Well, I took the Goddess Belldandy's advice and went out and got myself a // package of genuine, made in India in the foothills of the Himalayas, // Darjeeling Tea. Good stuff, people. No wonder she likes it. Not flat, like // those hideous American brands; and it has a fine aroma. I probably let it // steep too long. Five minutes probably is best. "Mellow-mellow", as Urd-sama // would say. // // For the rest of us goyim on this side of the Pacific, the one I picked up // was marketed by Twinings, and comes in a purple box. For Darjeeling you typically want a relatively short infusion time, but since you're using Twinnings bags you probably want the fairly standard 5 minutes (certainly no more than that, you might want to experiment in the 3-5 minute range)... it depends somewhat on personal taste, as well as if you're going to use additives (milk, sugar, honey, lemon, treacle, whatever... personally I don't bother, especially with Darjeeling). Travis Butler said: // Hmmm. The time I tried Darjeeling, I found it rather bitter. Then again, // I'm used to making my own blends, and I tend to use lots of lemon grass, // peppermint, and cherry bark... Probably over-steeped... Darjeeling is very touchy, its part of the nature that makes it /The/ high quality tea. I can also see this as a bit of a reaction if you've become used to blended teas or tisanes (commonly called herbal teas, even though they contain no tea)... if I have Darjeeling over a period of time, I find that even a good Orange Pekoe can be very distasteful... its a matter of becoming accustomed... this is part of why "daily" Darjeelings like Twinnings (even in bag form), can become an essential part of a tea connoiseur's stash (saving the better grade teas for special occasions). Chris and/or Meryl Jefferson responded: // Look, I used teabags. So sue me. One of the other subscribers to this ML // says I should stop what I'm doing immediately and go out and purchase a tea // caddy and tea in the bag. If you're planning to try some of the more expensive Darjeelings you're going to have to deal with leaves... there's many different ways to do that. The benefit of buying tea leaves is that they stay fresher longer than the broken leaves you get in a bag... this means that you should store it in a somewhat airtight container (especially with Twinnings, which comes loosly wrapped in paper instead of sealed packets). You can get Twinnings without the bags, in small tins, if you want. Twinnings is the best "daily" Darjeeling I've had ("daily" meaning that the price is around 10 cents a bag, so its quite affordable for daily use)... a key point to remember is that with cheap Darjeeling you're typically only getting about 50% actual Darjeeling tea, and that's typically picked during the rainy season (that's why the price is so low... for those who haven't seen Darjeeling prices, it can get really expensive for the top quality estate teas... $100 for 1 kg is typical). Basically, Twinnings is a good cheap place to sample Darjeeling tea... and its certainly worth trying. Here's a little lesson on Darjeeling. Darjeeling is naturally named and grown in the Darjeeling region of India, but you can also get it from Nepal (which is a somewhat cheaper way to get some very nice Darjeeling tea, actually... I had some of this recently, and it is excellent for the prices you can get). It's pretty much designed to be the acme (or king) of teas. It's grown at the highest altitudes and has an elaborate grading system to describe how picky the leaves were harvested (using such terms as Fancy/Fine, Tippy, and Golden to describe the size and age of the leaves (we're talking the young, small buds here... a true Darjeeling is always at least a Flowery Orange Pekoe (one level of quality higher than Orange Pekoe... this again refering to the size of the leaves))). The really high quality Darjeelings are labeled by the estate name where they were grown, and are typically vintage (which guarantees that all the tea was from a single harvest)... they also tend to be either the first or second harvest after the season (called flushes, they'll typically mention which). Since, Darjeeling uses only the top quality young buds of the tea plant, it tends to be quite astringent (and bitter)... so you really want to avoid steeping it to long (steeping is the process of infusing the leaves in the water). You really don't want to steep Darjeeling for more than 3 minutes, and you typically want to steep a first flush less than that (90 seconds to two minutes... it's also been suggested that you let the water cool to a bit below boiling before infusing a first flush). For the broken "daily" grades you'll probably want 3-5 minutes (most suggest 5) since they're somewhat safer due to the fact that they contain lower grade leaves and are less fresh. Basically, this means that you'll want to avoid the most expensive Darjeelings until you have quite a bit of practice (or a Goddess who knows what she's doing :). Quite often you can buy small 15g samples of the top notch teas so that you can try it before buying a large amount. You can get Darjeeling teas in Green tea or Oolong (a Green/Black halfbreed) form, if you prefer... I've never tried it these ways myself. // Wonder how Bell does it? Simple... Volume 1, page 40. Given the choice of any infusion method she wants, she chose a "plunger pot". I've got one here, it does a really good job, but I like to make a larger pots of tea (it only holds about 1 1/2 cups). // Chris // // "All power tends to corrupt; absolute power tends to corrupt absolutely." // -Lord Acton. Actually, I thought that absolute power was kinda neat. Brent Ross