The idea of brewing a Darjeeling Oolong Gong Fu style had occurred to me in my tea adventures in China, but I had to find the right tea for this .

This week I did find one!The Eagles Cliff Oolong is what i am going to name it. It is a wonderful experience for a Darjeeling Oolong lover like me. Multiple steeping of a first flush Oolong in a “Guy wan” (In Darjeeling the Tibetans call it “Thakye”).

I selected this beautiful hand crafted small estate tea from Giddapahar (Eagles Cliff) and I think it rivals those from the highly acclaimed Oolongs of China and Taiwan.

Appearance: Colorful, roundish, brittle and rock like dry leaves, this first flush appears to me like a smaller version of a Taiwanese brother, Oolong.

Because of the unusual leaf appearance, I thought of doing a photo illustrated blog.

For the dedicated Darjeeling lover this tea is a rarity.

About the Estate:

‘Giddapahar’ or ‘Eagles Cliff’ is a small family run tea garden situated in the Kurseong valley of Darjeeling district. Plantations with massive stone outcroppings stretching from altitudes of 3000 to 6500 ft above sea level, produces one of the finest teas in the world.

I started with my favorite gong-fu tea set, water and this Eagles Cliff Oolong. Then, religiously made a quick rinse to preheat the guy wan and awaken the leaves with little warm water.

I decide to brew the first one for two minutes and the outcome was pale golden yellow liquor with high floral notes. The amazing thing about this tea is it is very mellow and does not resemble the astringency or bite of a first flush Darjeeling.

The second cup added a little color and revealed a sweet floral aftertaste. This I brewed for 2 (two minutes) minutes.

The third cup looked a slight coloury compared to the usual first flush teas but revealed an amazing taste-a prominent touch of ripe plum and this I brewed for 3 minutes.

This oolong offers a subtle layer of complexities, cup after cup.

The fourth and the fifth cup finished with underlining nutty notes.

Overall profile:

A lovely bouquet of rich and colourful (green and brown) semi fermented full leaves that brew multiple infusions of gentle and seductive cups with absolutely no sharpness of the typical Darjeeling First Flush Tea. The rare “Eagles Cliff Oolong”.

]]> http://www.blog.freshdarjeelingtea.com/2009/04/darjeeling-eagles-cliff-oolong-gong-fu-style/feed/ 1 http://www.blog.freshdarjeelingtea.com/2009/04/the-best-of-many-perfect-cups/ http://www.blog.freshdarjeelingtea.com/2009/04/the-best-of-many-perfect-cups/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:18:32 +0000 teadesigner http://blog.freshdarjeelingtea.com/?p=81

Due to the adverse weather conditions and late approached rain; most of the high-grown Exotic Darjeeling first flush teas are yet to arrive, but I’ve found one.

As I sip and slurp through my tasting ritual, cup after cup I try to imagine the processing that these leaves have gone through.

The amount of care achieved reflects in the infused leaves and glittering cups, but the final say goes with the embedded flavor the tea carries.

It is very difficult to select amongst the Darjeeling first flush because almost every make and single estate label carries a significant character of its own. It needs sharp precision and for me almost wild imagination to select one.

The one that I have selected is a single estate hand rolled Oolong which is distinctive and made in a very small quantity. This comes from a plantation in the Mirik valley of Darjeeling district, Soureni.

A small family owned tea garden squeezed between two big famous plantations of Darjeeling namely Singbulli and Phuguri. I always love the smaller gardens the names of which I will share with my readers after sourcing the best of their teas.

About the tea:

My attention was already drawn to “Soureni Oolong” by the make of the leaves. The sight of the make is the first thought of judgment that arises. The curly and chunky Oolong-wow!

Although there are other teas those need to be religiously examined because you cannot judge a Darjeeling first flush by the look of its cover. The smells of the dry leaf of all the teas were carrying imbued potency. So I intend to cup all the samples, simultaneously.

After the five minute infusion that we always do-the Soureni leaves that opened put me into awe. The layers of aroma were so intoxicating and complex like cherries and honey.

Not that the other teas were not up to the mark but this was exceptional, amongst all.

The final judgment came when I tasted the teas. Oh! Fabulously flowery- an exotic Darjeeling.  Sweet lingering flowery aftertaste with a hint of a lively bite. This is my cup of tea!

Point I said to myself. This is it!

How do I brew this tea? A question I have to face every day of my life?

To the novice, I offer the illustrated “do’s and don’t” to convert them into serious tea followers. After they become one, the answer becomes more casual and simple.

Inspired by this question, and being bred in a tea family. I thought of sharing a childhood memoir on how my grandma prepared the afternoon tea.

We had a fairly large family of nine and few servants, to brew for. We never ran out of leaves but sometimes I heard my grandma claim, “children should not drink tea.” Then we always knew that she had miscalculated the proportion of water set in the oven.

Both elders and children enjoyed our afternoon tea together, with biscuits from a baker, who arrived every Wednesday of the week, walking countless miles. We even eagerly waited for that day.

Although everyone in the family had their own likes of tea. My grandmother stuck to her own regime of brewing. She had definitely made a point in the family that when it came to tea (especially the afternoon one) she had to make it herself. I remember she had an aluminum container with a lid where she stuffed her own blend, though it was always single estate. If I recall it correctly today, it could be a seasonal blend, nobody actually felt the need to enquire because no one disagreed with what they got, until the day, she lived.

The water was boiled in a sumptuous container; it is called “Dek chi” in local dialect. I remember hearing some rambling when it was time to set it aside. The most important ritual was the amount of leaves used and the dispensation time into the various cups. Steeping and brewing was not important to her as she used a bowl headed long serving spoon (It is called Da-rdu) to stir, carry and flow the brew up and down in the container. She never had any use for pots. She served the small cups for children; a little larger one accompanied by a saucer to the elders and aluminum mugs for the servants.

The servants were the first to be served because they added salt to their tea. Salt and milk were served separately. One of the servant who took care of my grandfathers horse liked his tea with a bit of milk, he did the most amazing thing that I will always remember. He always added a little milk, a pint of salt and then some gushing cold water from the tap. He kept his mug low enough to create a fizz of bubbles on top of his tea and then gulped his tea like beer in a single breath. That was how he liked it.

We had our share with sugar already added to it. I don’t really recall the aroma or flavor because then it was just another cup of tea and didn’t need to answer on- How do I brew this tea?

Tea lovers all over the world put some good effort to come up with a perfect cup of tea, but isn’t it “Choice” that matters, after all!

As a tea enthusiast I never resist the offer of samples that pile up my desk everyday. Since the climate has not favored the early spring crop this year, we generally presume that we will not see the quality we often get in a more amiable environment. But we are wrong, most of the time. Nature has to deliver what it promises and answer the hopes of all Darjeeling enthusiasts, like me.

It is weird, but when I stumble upon an exotic Darjeeling tea that really defines the season n the character, it excites me a lot. Having tasted many of this season’s first flush teas, I have found “an exotic” only today. So I had to write about it.

This tea comes from a tiny plantation called ARYA Tea Estate just below the Darjeeling town. Arya is a small Organic tea garden that makes very little tea as compared to other plantations in Darjeeling. Let me describe the leaves as it lays in front of me:

Make: Orthodox -neat, fresh with a green finish. Finely crafted almost “wiry” in darjeeling terms. For an exotic, the word greenish implies to resemblance with fresh new spring shoots that you see in the fields. Abundance of fine silver buds is also a sign of a fine first flush (Spring pekoe).

Feel : The feel of the dry leaves to touch….is dry yet silky.

Smell: The smell of the dry leaves is like that of toasted honey.

I intend to prepare this tea in a typical darjeeling tasting style. Two and a half grams of tea in the usual tasting apparatus that consist of a cup with a lid and a bowl, and steeped for five minutes.

I could not wait. As I dipped my nose in the lid, the fragrance that emitted out of the small hole in the lid was amazingly “lively”. As soon as my sand watch became empty on the top side. I poured the liquor to my tasting bowl. The color was bright golden with a pale lemon hue.

I turned over the infused leaf. It still acquired the lush green color. The aroma was coming in waves….vegetal almost pine like….toasted honey…..very floral.

I drained the liquor to my glass cup and slurped it….the tangy lively bite of fresh Darjeeling first flush, eminent. I rolled it in my mouth for while…the different layers of flavor started to emote in my olfactory glands…. prominent toasted honey after notes and a lingering floral sweetness as I gulped it down.

An exotica i really cherised! Thanks to Arya Tea Estates and Mr.Sanyal for sending me the samples. I don’t know how many layers of flavor profile this tea will develop as it matures…….we will wait and see and I will definitely post a new one If it does…….

Long Live Darjeeling…Shangrila of Teas….

The lip smacking fresh Spring Teas is being harvested!

Plantations are lushing with fresh new shoots and the colourful dressed pickers are busy picking the fresh new batches of spring leaf which carry on till the end of april.

The air among the pickers, planters and tea makers is filled with excitement to roll out the best makes of darjeeling tea in the market.

Generally, Darjeeling recieves a generous shower of rain in december consequently followed by some in January and febraury. But this year, the rain has failed and stemmed the growth of the new spring leaves.

The harvest is late, but the reselient 130 years old tea bushes still yeilds the most awaited Spring Tea of the season 2009.

Darjeeling Teas have always been associated with charming ladies who lend their human touch and passion to this brew. This is what makes darjeeling a Special Brew.

Cheers and enjoy the photos!

We inaugurated the Shangrila tea Store at Candolim, in Goa on the 27th of January 2009.

Our Shangrila legacy is about bits and pecies of valuable information and indegineous knowledge of growing, cultivation, harvest, sorting, SELECTING and working towards sharing to all tea lovers about the nectar of the Himalayas, the herb and above all -the gift of the land of thunderbolt – DARJEELING TEA.

At Shangrila we have a simple goal “let all tea lovers get access to fresh and pure teas, from the source.”

Be assured of the quality and leave rest upon us because we belong to the source and believe us when we say- “we have lived three generations in our pursuit for fine teas.”