First Class Teas

This tea is three and a half years old, by my reckoning, so the flavour is starting to go. That normally makes for a particularly pathetic cup of tea. But today it turned out pretty well.

What I did was use more leaves (probably 1.5 times as much as usual) but brew it exactly the same (1 min using 80 degC water).

So, until I hear anything better, my solution to old leaves will be to use more leaves and treat it the same otherwise :-)

Lesson learned!

I don’t have it often, I have had it for ages and only drink it occasionally, because it just reminds me of chinese restaurants. Doesn’t mean it’s not nice though, I enjoyed a pot and a half this evening!

Lovely. My favorite Darjeeling.

I drink this very often because I can give it to people who like a ‘normal’ tea, although it’s actually quite special. Unfortunately when I drink with other people I often have black tea when I’d rather a green tea or oolong

I have this quite often, I don’t know why I haven’t logged it before. It’s proper and powerful and tasty and really good with milk and perfect to prove to people that there are better teas than PG Tips – it’s still a “normal” tea, but it’s brilliant. This was the second tea at my tea party

Really growing on me, this is sooo good! I wish I’d bought more than 15 grams cos it’ll be done in no time at this rate. I had some yesterday too…

This was my second pot. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood first time round, because I found it a little bland and probably underbrewed it, then put the leaves back in and overbrewed it. Still, this time it was much better. Really lovely sweet flavour, very much enjoying it. Especially on the tip of your tongue as the first sip goes in. Awesome

Educating some friends, I held a tea party with friends with cookies. I first drank this

This is a really nice light refreshing tea to enjoy. It is quite flexible about how long you steep it and does not require milk. I had two of my largest cups today :-)

Lovely fresh hay nose, sweet leafiness and lingering flavour. Second brew particularly refreshing.

Perfect for a rainy day when I have been feeling a little gloomy

Just bought a new pack of it and you really notice that it is fresher. Maybe it’s a bad idea having 30 types of tea in my cupboard, cos they’ll all get old

My housemates were keen to have this again. Once you get someone onto a good thing, they don’t like to let it go! And it IS a good thing

Had 3 cups of this today. I thought I’d try it on some friends, because it’s a great tea for any people who want to try something interesting but still want a “normal” black tea that you can have milk with. They loved it, so we kept topping up the pot!

Even after several posts on this, it’s still good! For no articular reason, I often drink this without straining it – the tea leaves taste okay

I bought myself a thermometer, and boy, does it make a difference to my tea! I’m on a second brewing and it’s so soft and sweet, I’m never going to sleep…

Six large cups on a work night is probably not a good idea, but it’s so more-ish and very easy. I start with half a teaspoon and for each extra cup I add another half dozen or so ‘cannonballs’. Mmm mmm, I hope I can sleep tonight

I made this using my infuser so I’d just gt one cup. Left it slightly longer than I normally would, and it was strong but sill not bitter. What a lovely way to finish the evening

Unlike the darjeeling earlier, I prepared this well, using water at well under boiling point and leaving it for around two minutes. So gooood!

And that’s the end of my first flush darjeeling from last year. Just in time to get some this year, I think! It has really been a lovely tea and I have enjoying it very much. It’s a tea that’s worth looking after and trying to make the perfect pot!

This is the best I have made this tea since I started commenting on here. Strange that it is so variable – I think it must jst be very sensitive to brew temperature and time. This was hot water but not boiling (90 degC??) and brewed for 3 mins. And awesome

Two cups. Still a wonderful tea. I’m trying to run it down so I can justify buying some of the Yunnan Gold First Grade Tea from First Class Teas… it sounds incredible

Using almost boiling water, it took 2 1/2 minutes to brew, and it tasted sweet and fantastic. Any more and it would have got bitter, and this is quite sensitive to brewing time in my experience. Maybe I should use cooler water, I’ll keep experimenting