Does ANYONE on steepster drink Darjeeling?
I’ve just posted a review of my first Darjeeling….when I went to the “teas” page to see what Darjeeling was the top rated by Steepster posters, i couldn’t find a single one in the first 5 pages of teas! (After that I gave up.) does anyone like darjeelings? They seem mighty under-represented on Steepster……
I used to drink a lot of Darjeeling. It’s still a favorite and I still have quite a bit on hand but I’ve been obsessing about Yunnans for the last year or so. :)
Hehe, I can’t tell a Darjeeling from an Assam or really any type of black tea. It’s not an area I’ve explored really well. I get the feeling that they might become more popular with the goldentips subscription though. =)
Unless I’m totally off the mark and Darjeeling ISN’T Indian. Oops.
When the Ttb box comes, you’ll get the darjeelings… It’ll be fun to see if you like them!
I reviewed a couple from my first Golden Tips box. I like them.
http://steepster.com/teas/golden-tips/48016-okayti-muscatel-darjeeling-second-flush-2014
http://steepster.com/teas/golden-tips-teas-india/47920-darjeeling-giddapahar-muscatel-black-tea-second-flush-by-golden-tips-tea
And this TG one. http://steepster.com/teas/teagschwendner/7853-darjeeling-ftgfop1-phuguri
I wanted to get back into Darjeeling but it has been 30 years. The ones they are making now are too green, literally nauseating for me to drink.
I think that darjeeling has had marketing troubles because it is so temperamental. It has not been helped by the erroneous instructions (in near ubiquity) according to which it should be steeped at 100C/212F for 5 minutes. Wrong, wrong, wrong! I find that the best steep is 80-85C for 3 minutes or less. In fact, I use about the same specs as for China green.
I had been focusing on greens and oolongs of late, but now I am squeezing some darjeelings in between… The Golden Tips subscription is a great enabler to anyone aspiring to be a darjeeling connoisseur. (not a shill, just sayin’)
Yeah, once I stopped burning my Darjeelings I found I liked them a whole lot more! :) Steeping it at 190F made all the difference.
It’s really frustrating that so many companies do this and manage to put people off. You really have to wonder who is writing the guidelines for the packets. It’s certainly not people that appreciate Darjeeling. Depending upon the Darjeeling, I like mine between 80-90C.
Steeping times vary for Darjeelings. Back in 2012, in order to get the full taste from FF Ambootia, I had to steep the tea for 5 minutes while the FF Castleton required only 2 minutes and would start to get bitter with steeping times over 2 minutes. as for hot water temperature i usually keep that around 90C. I ALWAYS let the tea leaves steam for a short time in the preheated teapot to develop the aroma. I wish I could invite you all to my home so that I can serve you what I think is the perfect cup of Spring Flush Darjeeling tea.
Excelsior, if we can’t be invited over, we can certainly learn from you here! Your sharing of knowledge is much appreciated!
I drink darjeelings, and love them (esp. oolongs!)
I rated a Seeyok Muscatel Darjeeling a 94 last week (I sub to Golden Tips)
I love FF, 2nd Flush, and late flushes, each having their unique taste and charm.
When there is no money in the bank left, I turn to Nepal teas (which – in some respect – can be quite similar to Darjeelings, but are less pricy) ( the Darjeelings I really, really crave for are from well-known estates, and alas, the most pricy of them all lol)
Darjeelings can be bothersome, coz steeping times is hit and miss at times. (for me 80C water, not hotter! and usually around 2/3 min. steeping time, if you oversteep, they are less forgiving than any other (black) tea.
And: NO MILK in darjeelings, EVER.
Part of the problem with Darjeeling is that many people try them fairly early in their tea drinking experience, then move on.
I’ve noticed that Steepster tends to get excited with new teas or vendors and then the top ratings are dominated by that particular style/vendor. When I started out about 2 years ago, Teavivre dominated the first page; now Whispering Pines is the flavor of the month. I recall reading a non-steepster blog referring to a company as a “darling of Steepster”. To a large extent, this is a product of group-think (we subconsciously don’t want to depart from the norm, so if a tea is highly ranked, we won’t give it a poor rating even if we aren’t that wild about it).
This is exacerbated by the unusual averaging system used by steepster that rewards a tea for multiple ratings. For example, one of my favorite teas is Turzum clonal delight by Thunderbolt teas. If you look it up you will see that it is rated 87, yet the three reviewers rated it 97, 98, and 97 (97.3 average). Compare to top-rated Whispering Pines Cocoa Amore (rated 92) with 10 reviews averaging 96.6. The Darjeeling has a higher average rating but not enough reviews to give it a high score on Steepster.
It is natural to get excited about something new. I notice that if I buy 4 ounces of tea and drink it over a period of a year, my ratings tend to slip, often to the point that a favorite tea becomes something I just drink while I’m reading the paper. I’ve noticed this with a large lot of Darjeeling I bought last Fall from Thunderbolt tea. When they first arrived they were among my favorite teas, but in total I bought nearly 2 pounds, so they no longer seem special. Thus my rating for the afore-mentioned Turzum clonal delight has slipped from 97 to 93 (though I haven’t updated my Steepster review). It’s still great, but if you drink it every day it becomes an every-day tea.
Good points. And I also don’t usually rate or review teas that I have already reviewed. I may drink them every day, but I don’t review them every day. Doesn’t mean I like them any less, just that they won’t be getting reviews popping up from me frequently.
I don’t think the tea community here has a “group think” insofar as nobody wanting to post a poor review or ranking because others like the same tea. We all know the rating system is flawed, too large a scale with undefined parameters, and that the averages appear to be a weighted average based on number of reviews, with teas starting at 70.
What is going on is that a tea company posts a significant discount coupon on the forum. People with a tea budget are usually happy to give that company and their teas a try, and people on a stricter budget are looking for savings. So a number of people take advantage of a sale and then all these folks have new teas to review. It also happens that companies offer free tea samples in exchange for review. This is not a Steepster phenomenon, a great many tea bloggers are getting free samples too. Most people reviewing teas disclose when a sample is free.
I think the rankings should be taken with a grain of salt, not least because the site has some technical issues that mess up the rankings page. By reading individual reviews I get a good idea about a tea in the narrative, not because of a number rank.
It’s probably worth also considering that people are unlikely to buy a tea they know they will not enjoy, so the ratings are always going to be towards the top end with a few outliers of teas people tried and did not like.
For me, if I like something, it will hardly waver regardless of how much I have or how long I drink it. It usually takes about 3 to 5 mugs of tea to nail the perfect parameters and after that, some Darjeelings are divine. One of the best cups of Darjeeling I have tasted is the Mariage Freres 2012 FF Namring DJ1. I bought over 500 grams of that tea and I was sad to see it run out after a few short months My appreciation of that tea grew the more I drank it.
You’re correct, Darjeeling is not frequently discussed on Steepster. I’ve reviewed 5 Darjeeling teas (and two black blends that contained it): http://steepster.com/looseTman/feed.rss (Put “Darjeeling” in the top-right corner search box.)
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