Lopchu Tea Estate Darjeeling

This is a pleasant afternoon cup of tea, mild & sweet. No astringency or bitter tastes, really just a relaxing cup to enjoy. Thanks to YYZ for sharing this with Sil, who shared it with me :)

This is another “out of my comfort zone” teal courtesy of yyz. Thank you!!! Always interested in learning about new teas.
This is unlike any Darjeeling I’ve tried before. Zero astringency, nothing offensive here…
This has quite a bit of the “up your nose white wine” notes. It’s not floral, quite fruity, really smooth. This is a tea that could interest me in looking at more Darjeeling……

YYZ sent this one my way and let me tell you, i am a FAN! this is how i want more darjeelings to taste. :) I’m not sure what previous years tasted like but this is not floral and doesn’t have that typical darjeeling taste that i tend not to enjoy all that much. i am going back to bed…sick is not a fun place to be and today i’m too exausted to be even out of bed..but it was nice to get in a couple cups of tea. especially such nice cups.

I finally got around to opening my 2013 box of this tea. Still a cupboard staple for me. This seasons tea thus far is sweeter and warmer tasting than the previous year and a much less floral. Red fruits, and sweet red wine and sweet plum dominate the top notes with cocoa, and brown sugar notes rounding it off over light malt and slightly less biscuit than the 2012. Aftertaste is of brown sugar. Still really love the tea from this estate. I love that I can buy it locally. Maybe I’ll be able to try the pink box this year as well?

Edit to keep the cocoa and red fruits dominant keep the steeps shorter and use closer to a level TSP/225 ml rather than a heaping, and use a temp between 90-95*C.

I let this steep for longer than I normally do ( 5 min at around 86*C) and it brought out more muscatel type characteristics than I am accustomed to finding in this tea. Still really nice, it just made the tea taste more fruity.

I have a new box of this, but I still have some of last years left, so this note is on last years tea, I was lucky to get a new box because most of the local shops sold out quickly and i haven’t even seen the pink box this year. This is still a great tea, it reminds me of late fall, and early spring forests with that crisp, sour, spicy smell of fallen leaves, mixed with a biscuit tone, bright fruit and malt, with a slight spicy floral note and hints thyme. A really great tea that is more forgiving than most Darjeelings and is perfect on a sunny fall day.

Lopchu tea estate is located between Darjeeling and Teesta in West Bengal. The majority of its tea is from bushes originally from Yunnan province in China. The tea estate is proud to sell 100% of it’s tea under it’s own brand name. The tea estate is part of the darjeeling region but it’s flavour is unique enough that many people see it as a type into itself.

I bought this tea at a local store. Both this tea, the Flowery Orange Pekoe in a blue box, and the Golden orange pekoe in the pink box are often sold at stores near where I live. It is interesting to have the experience of buying boxes of tea carefully wrapped in paper.

The dry leaf smells like the forest, a mix of very fresh green scents, tempered by earth and spice, very green and clean. It brews to a deep orange red copper colour. It has a very fragrant smell. It is very fruity, with citrus, berry, and red wine accents, underlain by a more savory spicy smell, with hints of chocolate and biscuit which gives it a certain earthiness, plus a sweet and spicy floral. Flavour wise the first notes were green and floral, followed by sweet,citrus fruit accents, which were followed by bitter bisuit notes. It has an aftertaste of grapes, berries and floral spice. It has a fairly heavy body for a darjeeling, but leaves a light and bright feeling in the mouth, otherwise its fairly smooth. It Resteeps very well. It also tends to be more forgiving than some darjeelings and can take higher temperatures without becoming overly astringent. This tea is very
aromatic with lots of flavour and is great hot or cold.