A friend has brought us some Darjeeling from Palais des Thés Israel store. I never tried Darjeeling so this is exciting. This tea is not there anymore, so here’s the link to their main French site.

Here’s the quote from Wikipedia on such teas:

Darjeeling tea is a tea from the Darjeeling district in West Bengal, India. It is available as black, white or oolong. When properly brewed, it yields a thin-bodied, light-colored infusion with a floral aroma. The flavor can include a tinge of astringent tannic characteristics, and a musky spiciness sometimes described as “muscatel”. Although Darjeeling teas are marketed commercially as “black teas”, almost all of them have incomplete oxidation (<90%), so they are technically more oolong than black.

The tea we tasted comes from the new garden “Delmas Bari” at North Tukvar, the oldest commercial area of Darjeeling gardens, operated since 1850s. This tea grade SFTGFOP1 indicates the very finest tea, and sometimes decoded as “Far Too Good For Ordinary People”.

Dry leaf appearance is dark olive green. When we had brewed it, first thing I told to a friend was, “Hey, it’s Eau de Cologne!” And I know what I’m talking about, once I had drank Bulgarian After Shave bottle, to win a bet! 🙂

It’s better to put it in a teapot, as we did first, but this time I put it in gaiwan. This tea produces greenish amber liquor, very fragrant. I steeped it at 80°C going toward 90 at the last steeps. It’s easily survives about 8-10 fast steeps.

The taste is interesting if you never tried this. Very lively, lingering, something similar to black currant with tangerine, light cinnamon and milky oolong undertones. Spices. Not astringent unless overbrewed. I must try more Darjeelings. Should be good at spring.