I don’t drink many Darjeelings, not really on purpose, they just seem to not come my way. This was a sample from my visit to Teagschwendner. If this is indicative of Darjeelings, they aren’t my favorite. So astringent! The description even says that like its a good thing. I feel like my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth. No resteep is going to happen for sure.
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I feel the same way – I’ve only had 2 Darjeeling teas ever, and both of them were very sharp – like pepper-crusted goat cheese, but not nearly as scrumptious. I know I should try things instead of writing them off, but if that’s the way they normally are, I’ll probably stick to Chinese black teas, thank you.
Darj are very finicky. Especially first flushes. You have to be careful abt temps and time. FF treat as greens-oolongs, second flush is more like dark oolong parameters . They considered champagne once you know how to treat them. I haven’t noticed many ppl drinking Darj. Excelsior and Sandra come to mind. Read their blogs.
It’s weird that the parameters on the package were so harsh. 212 for 2-5 mins (I did 3).
I hope you still have something left to try. This is SF so 195F and 2-2.5 min then try at 3 min. I can see some green leaves on a pic. No way 212F. I love SF but besides muscatel I need stone fruits. It’s hard to find recently because of droughts.
@boychik: Looking back at my notes, the Darjeeling I had was a second flush, and I steeped it at 85C for 3 minutes. Should I try going even lower?
I dunno. Try 2-2.5 min. Which estate did you have? It also depends on estate. Some of them are famous and they generally have a high quality leaf = more expensive. If some Darj is cheap most likely it’s not spectacular. There are exceptions of course. To get a better idea browse thru Upton, they have great variety of estates, diff flashes. You can get some very inexpensive samples fr them. Another source I really like H&S. they do hw for you selecting great teas, but I’ve noticed they don’t have much recently probably because its not that great. I heard that 2013 harvest wasn’t good. 2012 was much better. Mike Harney is very picky, he selects teas himself. I’ve noticed you like more greens so FF could appeal more to you.
Boychik you are so helpful!
:)
I feel the same way – I’ve only had 2 Darjeeling teas ever, and both of them were very sharp – like pepper-crusted goat cheese, but not nearly as scrumptious. I know I should try things instead of writing them off, but if that’s the way they normally are, I’ll probably stick to Chinese black teas, thank you.
Darj are very finicky. Especially first flushes. You have to be careful abt temps and time. FF treat as greens-oolongs, second flush is more like dark oolong parameters . They considered champagne once you know how to treat them. I haven’t noticed many ppl drinking Darj. Excelsior and Sandra come to mind. Read their blogs.
It’s weird that the parameters on the package were so harsh. 212 for 2-5 mins (I did 3).
I hope you still have something left to try. This is SF so 195F and 2-2.5 min then try at 3 min. I can see some green leaves on a pic. No way 212F. I love SF but besides muscatel I need stone fruits. It’s hard to find recently because of droughts.
@boychik: Looking back at my notes, the Darjeeling I had was a second flush, and I steeped it at 85C for 3 minutes. Should I try going even lower?
I dunno. Try 2-2.5 min. Which estate did you have? It also depends on estate. Some of them are famous and they generally have a high quality leaf = more expensive. If some Darj is cheap most likely it’s not spectacular. There are exceptions of course. To get a better idea browse thru Upton, they have great variety of estates, diff flashes. You can get some very inexpensive samples fr them. Another source I really like H&S. they do hw for you selecting great teas, but I’ve noticed they don’t have much recently probably because its not that great. I heard that 2013 harvest wasn’t good. 2012 was much better. Mike Harney is very picky, he selects teas himself. I’ve noticed you like more greens so FF could appeal more to you.
Boychik you are so helpful!
:)