wet leaves and drier leaves

in Hamburg looking through the windows at Messmer Momentum's Darjeeling boxes  

Why are most Monsoon tea flush Darjeelings not normally sold outside of their region? Aren't all flushes worth drinking. I've had something called Autumn Flush from at least one company, and it was tasty enough. Certainly not bad. Anything but bad.

Then while I was talking to Michael J. Coffey and Geoff Norman, we got to talking about wet leaves versus drier leaves. Michael was talking about about Taiwanese tea rather than Indian tea, but he made an interesting point.

Apparently, the wetter the leaf is when it's been picked, the lesser quality the resulting tea will be. Now, I'm not a grower. Clearly. Sitting here in my flat in Germany, anything I say about growing tea is based upon very limited information. I read and I listen to tea people more knowledgeable than I, but I'm passing this onto you the way I heard it. My retelling is hopefully accurate.

I found the next thing Michael said to be the most intriguing. Here's what it was:

'There’s a tension between the farmers and the pluckers.  Pluckers want to work early in the morning, because the dew is still on the leaves and they’re plumper. They’ll be paid more for the same amount of work. Farmers know that higher quality tea results from plucking late in the morning.
 Some farmers will make a compromise, and they’ll do both an early and late morning plucking. Afterwards, they’ll sell the two different batches separately; the late morning one being of lesser quality.'

Michael Coffey said that this was true of Taiwan in general, so this doesn't directly relate to Darjeeling tea. The reason I even mentioned my favourite tea growing region of India, is I've often wondered how the rainy season affects the tea grown at that time.

There you have it. Wet leaves = ok, but not necessarily the best. Waiting until later in the morning to pick the leaves makes the resulting tea even better. Well, that's great because I was hoping to sleep in anyway.

The World's Special Tea

How early can one get into tea? And how might one go about it?

I'm sure there's no need to encourage a child. If you're seen drinking tea, eventually the small person is going to ask for a sip of that steaming hot beverage. It's inevitable, right? Earlier this year, I had tea with my niece and wrote about it in:

tea party with Amelia

But I stand by my initial thought on this. I have no qualms about a child having a sip of my tea but if a child isn't accustomed to tea, I'd start with an herbal blend. It just seems like the more natural introduction. 


Still, I wondered then what I'd say if she wanted to know about the history of tea. How did people start drinking tea? for example. Or Why does your tea have such funny names?


So imagine my surprise when Jo Johnson asked if I'd like to see a book she'd written that specifically introduced tea to children. I enjoy tea samples and receive my share of them, but I think my writing about tea books has (correctly) led people to believe I'm as interested in tea writing. In case it wasn't completely clear, I'll say right now: I love tea books. They're good for the teablog, they encourage conversation about tea, and finally they're books. One of my weaknesses.


The book is called The World's Special Tea, and it's exactly what I'd want to have had in order to introduce Amelia to tea. It tells the history of tea from it's earliest Chinese origins through Japan and on to Europe. There's a brief explanation of the Boston Tea Party, as well as the English replanting of Chinese tea seeds in India. 


The book tells about the Camellia sinensis plant, from which all tea is made, and even mentions herbal or Tisane without getting mired in a discussion about what is and isn't tea. I like that. I've mentioned it here before: although I understand the hard-line position that we should only refer to tea as that which comes from the tea plant, I find it's often pedantic and nit-picky. With an adult, I might get into a discussion about this topic, but with a child? A Tisane is tea.

beautiful gift packaging 

And the best part? The book comes with it's own special tea for children (hence the name). Exactly the sort of thing I wanted for Amelia when I served her tea. An herbal blend with a mixture of Rooibus, bits of apple and ginger, as well as orange peels and cinnamon among other things. 


Would I drink this tea? If I were drinking tea with Amelia, I'd drink it happily. Although I rarely think to myself, 'I want some delicious tea,' and then reach for an herbal blend, that's not the point here. Having said all that, I did brew up The World's Special Tea and I could taste many of the flavours that were described in the ingredients. 


Most importantly, this is an inventive answer to my original question: What would I serve a child who was interested in tea? There's a bit in the book about planning a tea party. Not so sure how well I'd manage that one, but I might give it a try. 


The book itself? The World's Special Tea? I can definitely recommend it. Happily.

nostalgia for a place I've never been

I'll start out with a disclaimer. Bavaria is nothing like Darjeeling. Not at all. Not that I've been to Darjeeling. Not yet anyway. I'll go there one day. The more I read/hear about the mountainous region of northeastern India and its mystical air and bountiful soil, the more I desperately want to see it for myself.

So, instead I've been here in the Bavarian Alps for most of the last two weeks, and it's rained more than it hasn't. It's beautiful up here whether it's raining or not, but I love hiking and this torrential rain has definitely limited my opportunities to go up the mountain.

I was sitting here this afternoon, staring out the window at yet another dark and heavy cloud...I wondered to myself, 'What's the perfect tea for this weather?' Well, the mountain air and relentless rain is very similar to what I know of Darjeeling.

I've written quite a lot about Darjeeling in these pages, but here's one of the posts I liked the most. Actually, the comments/discussion after the post is what I liked most of all. Check them out: soil from which it came.

Had a few infusions of the Singell Estate first flush that I wrote about in the previous post. As good as it was down in the Bavarian capitol, it was somehow even more delicious up here at the higher altitude.

I somehow feel nostalgia for a place I've never been. Just thinking about is making me thirsty.

Drinking Ceylon BOP Uva and not comprehending Cricket

Have gone back and ordered some of the black teas I was drinking when I began this blog early last year. They arrived last week, and I've been pondering how to reintroduce them. I drank a lot of Ceylon early on, and it seems fitting to spend a bit of time talking about it since the Cricket World Cup Final between Sri Lanka and India is in full swing, as it were.

Just to be very clear up front: I don't know anything about Cricket. That isn't an invitation to try and explain it to me. Many an afternoons sitting in the pub have been wasted by people trying to explain Cricket to me. It's no use. But I can certainly take advantage of the occasion to rattle on about the tea grown in Sri Lanka.

Here's how I talked about Ceylon Bop Uva way back then: BOP Uva, what a name, eh?.

So my question is what do I think of this tea now? Has my opinion changed?

When I talk about green or Oolong tea, I make photos of the beautiful leaves. I took a few photos of this BOP Uva, but it's really nondescript looking black tea. I've spent quite a bit of the afternoon reading about tea growing regions of Sri Lanka, and the most definitive thing I can say about this tea that's labeled BOP Uva, could come from any of a huge number of estates. It's not a small region at all.

What's the BOP part all about? Simply stated, BOP stands for broken orange pekoe. It's described rather well at Wikipedia, but it means that this is medium grade black tea. Rather than full leaves, they're broken into much smaller pieces. It actually looks a bit like very course ground coffee.

The leaves have a very light floral taste, and the tea itself is mildly spicy. Many sources recommend that tea from this region is good with milk. I tried it first without and then added just a bit. It was tasty either way, but the thing that made the tea interesting without milk was completely masked once milk was added.

(later)

As the day progressed, the Indians prevailed in the Cricket. When I imagine the fields of tea plants that I see in photos of Sri Lanka, I wonder if the people picking the tea even got a chance to watch the Cricket, or if they'd even want to.

Getting my brain around Darjeeling

For some reason right as I'm drinking more Darjeeling, there are articles specifically about this region in the papers I read. Maybe there are always so many mentions of this tea-growing region of India, but I doubt it. I wrote about it several days ago, and today I want to talk about a few specific ones that I like.

Have written about Darjeeling Singbulli 2nd flush here before, and I still think it's one of the best tasting teas I've tried.

Similar to that is another 2nd flush called Darjeeling Jungpana FTGFOP. This is a really delicious Darjeeling. There’s something almost floral in the smell and taste of this tea. Much stronger and tastier than a first flush. It's definitely my taste.

Having said all that, I want to also recommend a lighter tea of this sort because I know not everyone likes such strong teas. It's a 1st flush called Darjeeling Gielle, and it has a much milder taste. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. I had it this afternoon, and it was perfect for a light, refreshing break from my normal morning brew. It has a light brown color in the cup and, from what I've read, comes from the middle of the spring growing season. If you can find either of these very different Darjeelings and try them, please let me know what you thought.

The interview I read this morning was in the Business section and talked about some interesting things I hadn't considered. A tea grower called Ashok Kumar Lohia, who owns plantations in both Assam and Darjeeling, was being interviewed. He mentioned that Darjeeling tea had the same problem Champagne, Scotch, Gouda cheese and Parma ham have.

Because they're considered the finest regions for their products, people sell inferior products by trading on these well-known names. Tea sellers play fast and loose with the name 'Darjeeling'. Although only nine tons of tea is grown there in a year, you can find forty tons on the market. Luckily, the EU has decided to help protect the name and will demand more strenuous regulations for what can and cannot be sold as Darjeeling. We'll see if it actually does any good when the first cases actually make it to litigation.

The last thing I want to mention is how the interview began. He was asked why Darjeeling tea was so special. So different from other teas. His answer was that because the tea was grown so high in the mountains in the shadow of the Himalayas that there was something mystical about it. That the soil and the air was certainly crucial, but that the god Shiva lived there and his spirit affected the tea. It's easy for me to dismiss that part, but then he said that the people who actually tend to the tea have an important impact on the way every cup of tea turns out. That growing tea takes a patience and dedication that has been honed for generations. The esoteric stuff is so difficult to quantify, but the thought that this tea tastes so luxurious partly because of the trained hands that prepared it. That's something that even this Western brain can comprehend.

source: Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntags Zeitung Wirtschaftsteil 18 April 2010 p.33

Going to Darjeeling in my mind

‘The name Darjeeling came from the Tibetan words, dorje (thunderbolt) and ling (place or land), means the land of the thunderbolt’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darjeeling_district).


When I started this blog, I wrote a post about wanting to go to the Nuwara plantations in the mountains in Sri Lanka to see where one of the nicest Ceylons is grown. It was still the dead of winter, and I looked out at the Bavarian snow-covered rooftops. I imagined a nice, cool summer day in the Sri Lankan mountains, where maybe it was warm in the daytime but cool at night. So now my dream is to go to the Darjeeling or Assam region of India. But because I’m getting more and more into Darjeeling tea, I’ll start there.

I’ve been poring over travel guides/websites while I pour my tea. Haven’t yet been to India. Over the years, I’ve tried to plan the perfect first journey to the subcontinent. It’s all a bit daunting. Honestly? I don’t even know where I’d want to go first. Someone told me I should definitely start in Mumbai the first time around just to get acclimated. Doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

The things most often associated with Darjeeling are the world-renowned tea and Tenzing Norgay (Sir Edmund Hillary’s Sherpa). All over the region, you’ll find references to Tenzing. From shop signs that use his name to attract your business to people naming their children after this historically important man.

Read an article in the FAZ about Darjeeling, and now I’ve decided I’m going there. As soon as possible.