Reading the Tea Leaves

“Holiday Teas” are now on store shelves and online.

For me the “tea” that usually comes to mind this time of year is a tisane I used to order from Germany.  Being a tisane, there were no actual tea leaves; the base was made up of fruit bits and hibiscus.  Among several ingredients used to enhance this base is cardamom, which imparts a warm, aromatic note that makes me think of a cozy fire by the hearth.  The tisane was a popular seller, but alas, has no Camellia sinensis.

Last week in a specialty food store I noticed two attractively packaged holiday teas, one in a white tin, the other in a red tin.  The white canister held White tea (in bags) that had been flavored with vanilla and almonds.  The red tin, as one might expect, contained Black tea with cinnamon, citrus, and cloves.  With gold lettering on the tins and placed side by side, and using White tea for a “White Christmas Tea,” they made a festive looking, seasonally themed pair.  (If you are short on patience or time, jump to the end of this post to see which tea one might have had for the price of these holiday  teas.)

This past Sunday I was at The Huntington (Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens) in San Marino, California and stopped at the Tea Room for afternoon tea.  The teas on offer were an English Breakfast, a decaf choice (an herbal, actually), an orange rooibos, and a holiday tea, described as having elderflowers, passionfruit and citrus.

The fact that there was only one item on the tea menu that was a straight tea (not artificially flavored, not a tisane) says a great deal about prevailing tea preferences, as The Huntington attracts and serves many visitors throughout the year.

(There is also a traditionally styled teahouse with a fine selection of China teas, another of the beautifully rendered pavilions in the Chinese garden that opened not too long ago.  Renovations are underway and the teahouse is temporarily closed.)

For those who have been reading my posts, you would be correct in anticipating that this preface leads up to a tea or teas that have little to do with what I have just enumerated.  About this time last year I suggested teas suitable as gifts, noting that teas probably last longer than a bottle of wine might, and that teas are a good value too.  A mere 3.5 ounces, shy of a quarter pound, can yield over 30 cups.  As I thought about what I might like as a giftea, Darjeelings came to mind readily.

My favorite in this group, First Flush Darjeelings (1/F), may be harder to find at this time of year, in terms of selection of estates, but some should still be available at specialty tea shops.  And there are pure tea variations: from one coffee and retailer, for example, there is a Holiday Tea that has Darjeeling as its base, with Keemun and Yunnan added for this seasonal blend.

My fondness for Darjeelings stems perhaps from the images associated with these teas: the gardens situated at such high elevations, with snow-capped mountains as a backdrop against blue skies (at least when I was there), and perhaps from the fact that 1/F Darjeelings come very early in the spring, relative to other teas.  After a dormant winter when no new teas are to be had (makes a tea buyer antsy), those early Darjeelings are a welcome, vibrant sign of the renewal underway once more.

The primary reason I am partial to this tea, of course, has to do with flavor, and my meaning would be more precise if framed this way: I find 1/F Darjeelings so expressive of qualities that inhere in the leaves.  Now, obviously, all (unflavored) teas taste of the leaves from which they were made, but many are indistinguishable even though they were produced in areas thousands of miles apart.  With fine 1/F Darjeelings, the flavor profile is distinctive, with immediately recognizable qualities that are evident in a resplendent way.

I begin with and include Darjeelings representative of teas one is apt to find easily in the marketplace, then go on to describe better quality Darjeelings, including one bearing a markedly assured brand name, with a superlative (“world’s greatest”) that boldly announces this brand’s teas to surpass all others.  (I usually do not mention brand names; my aim is to spread the word about tea character so that whatever the brand, when one sees and tastes the tea, s/he ought to to be able to evaluate the quality.)

So, on to the first in the series, a Darjeeling teabag.

At $1.99 for 10 teabags, the tea was tasty and I was surprised at how well I liked it, and continued to be surprised at how well this conventional teabag held up as the tasting progressed.  With respect to teabags, one is not likely to find an estate name or a reference to whether the tea was a 1st or 2nd flush tea.

The point of using a teabag is not having to deal with wet leaves clinging to the sides of a mug or pot or strainer, so most people probably never cut open a teabag.  But look at the tea inside this teabag: one sees not a uniform color but a mix of tan, light olive green, and brown fannings (not dust).

This speckling is a good sign, and the cup was easy and likable.  If served this in a restaurant after a meal, most people would probably the tea pleasing, with little to object to as a Black tea choice.  I will say more about the flavor below.

Bear in mind that for the price of 20 cents a bag for this Darjeeling, one could buy a loose leaf tea that is $30/lb and might be more promising, although better flavor is not guaranteed.  More on this later.

Here then were the other Darjeelings tasted:

(#1 was the teabag described above.)

2. Gomtee [single estate] FTGFOP1, 1st Flush; sold as loose tea.  I estimate the retail price to be between $70-$100/lb.  (The letters in this grading term stand for: Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe; the “1″ indicates higher quality.  Note that for some teas, a designation such as FBOP or BOP1 – Broken Orange Pekoe – does not necessarily mean a poor tea.)

3. Another Single Estate (not named) FTGFOP1, 1st Flush Darjeeling; sold as loose tea.  Estimated retail price between $80-$120/lb.

4. “Royal Darjeeling” from TWG Tea Co., 1st Flush loose tea in a cotton bag.  $18 for a box of 15 bags, each bag holding 2.5 grams.  This price works out to be $217.92/lb [!].

5.  A Darjeeling sold loose, with no estate name, grade, or mention of which flush; could have been a blend.  Retail price was $7 for 4 oz. ($28/lb).

6.  Puttabong  FTGFOP1, 1st Flush, shown below.  Price was $24.95 for a 4 oz tin ($99.80lb).

Some garden names in Darjeeling (and Assam) are more mellifluous than others, which can be tongue-twisters when first encountered.  “Gomtee” and “Puttabong,” both relatively well-known gardens, are easy names and I will refer to them by their estate names.  I refer to tea #3 simply as Single Estate 1/F, to tea #4 as Royal Darjeeling, and tea #5 as Standard Darjeeling for my purposes here.

My tasting notes:

GOMTEE: the dry leaves smelled nice; get slight flowery whiff.  Green bits evident against dark brown leaves; most are short strips. The cup was fresh and lively, with a winey quality; wakes up the palate with its fresh floral notes.  A good example of what a 1/F Darjeeling should display.

“Muscatel” is the term often used to describe the flavor of 1/F Darjeelings (more on this later), and this feature comes through, although more faintly than the Puttabong.  When the Puttabong was swallowed, there was sweetness; with the Gomtee, there was some astringency, which I don’t mind, rather than sweetness.  Pleasant aftertaste in the mouth.

SINGLE ESTATE 1/F:   the dry leaves did not give any floral aroma, which is not unusual for a fine quality Darjeeling.  The leaves were the greenest of all the teas sampled, as the photo shows.

Best in appearance; the leaves were the most uniform.  From the light coloring of the leaves, one would expect some astringency, and this was borne out in the cup.

I happen to like a touch of astringency in some teas, but this one was puckery, perhaps a bit too raw for some.  There was more of this note than a floral quality, which should have been in greater evidence for a tea at this price range.  The greenness of the leaves showed well after steeping.  Smell the leaves and one gets a sharper, “greener,” edgier tang than from the Gomtee or Puttabong.

TWG’s ROYAL DARJEELING:  I cut open the cotton bag (hand-stitched, no less) to get a better look at the leaves.  There was a mix of shapes and sizes: short, dark brown-green strips and a few light green bits.  From the photo one can see green flaky bits, dark brown smaller particles, and more standard leaves.  The dry leaves gave a sharp, perfumy aura that I did not find inviting; it was a tad too reminiscent of potpourri, even though the tea was a straight, unflavored Darjeeling.  (Noteworthy: no grade or estate given.)

With a good PR campaign at its launch, this relatively new brand (The World’s Greatest) has received wide press, and I make an exception here in “reviewing” a brand, or at least, one of the brand’s teas.   The brand deserves or calls for naming since it is not just hyped-up advertising; the very name stakes a claim of being the best.  (Remember the price: $18 for 15 x 2. 5 grams bags, or about $217/lb for the tea.)

I drank this tea over the course of several days, sometimes comparing it with the first Darjeeling teabag described at the beginning of this post.  TWG’s Royal Darjeeling 1/F brewed a cup that still held that somewhat sharp, perfumy quality that I first picked up from the dry leaves.  To me, the cup tasted less of tea than a lightly scented (potpourri-like) beverage with some papery undertones.  This being a 1/F tea, there was some astringency to be expected; this tea comes from an early plucking.  There was fragrance in the cup, of musk and spice rather than of flowers, and the main appeal of a 1/F Darjeeling is this fresh floral feature.  The color of the brew was surprisingly red for a 1/F tea.  (See photo below.)

When tasted together with the Darjeeling teabag, the latter was softer, rounder, and more pleasant, even if absent any prominent aroma up front.  If tasted blind, the standard teabag tea would have tasted more generic but more likable, and I would have chosen to finish the cup made from the teabag rather than from the Royal Darjeeling.  (Again, the price of the standard teabag was 20 cents; the Royal Darjeeling in its cotton bag cost $1.20 each.)

STANDARD DARJEELING:  I bought this tea at a coffee and tea shop.  The label on the jar simply stated the tea as “Darjeeling” with no garden, grade, or flush named.  If a tea retailer carries one Darjeeling, it might be something like this one — my reason for including it here.  (Dark brown leaves, fairly even in size; a few green flat leaves just visible upon close examination.)

So… the price was palatable, but the tea less so.  Again, I tasted this loose leaf tea alongside the first Darjeeling teabag.  Coincidentally rather than by intent, the prices of these two teas were very close: the loose leaf Standard Darjeeling came to 19 cents a cup (@ $28/lb, about 150 cups per pound, figuring 3 grams per serving), and the Darjeeling teabag was 20 cents each.

Just poured tea is usually too hot to drink right away, and this is a good moment to smell the spent leaves.  A solid Darjeeling, even a blend or one with no garden or flush named, should have a pungent aroma.  This loose leaf Darjeeling had a slightly jarring metallic note, which forecast disappointment ahead.  The tea was puckery on the sides of the tongue, with a slight tang or sour note, which was not conducive to taking many more sips.  I was fine with the astringency, but the taste suggested damp wood or paper, which was not so acceptable.  The brew color was a pretty apricot-orange.

The Darjeeling from the first teabag initially just tasted like a nice Black tea; gradually, other notes developed – not floral but showing that aromatic pungency one looks for in a fine Black.  The finish held a little astringency, and once again, this teabag Darjeeling proved to be a pleasant Black with a little more to it than a generic Black.  So here is an instance where loose leaf tea (#5) did not make a better cup than one (#1) made with a conventional teabag.

Finally, then, to the tea that would make an excellent gift, any time of the year.  Remind yourself  to look for comparable teas in late March or early April.  (Note: an estate name in itself is not a guarantee of high quality.  Some gardens are well known, e.g., Margaret’s Hope, but quite a few companies sell teas from one district.)

PUTTABONG 1/F:  Recall that the dry leaves of tea #3 (Single Estate) were distinguished by a greener cast than the coloring of the other leaf teas.

In this last tea, there was a silvery-green look to the dry tea, a promising feature, and these silvery strands showed up as buds among the wet leaves.

Browse through any tea compendium or informal guide and you’re likely to find “muscatel” used in conjunction with Darjeelings.  In my mind, “muscatel” calls up a sweet wine or the grape itself.  A more accurate description might be the drier Muscat wine, not the late harvest one, but one that still holds a refined, floral character.  Yet what I sense first in a fine 1/F Darjeeling is flowers — as fresh blooms, not cloying (as with some lilies), not sweet (like roses) — but as an overarching, delicate, pervasive quality, as if one were walking in a garden.  And the delight of 1/F Darjeelings is that this fragrance can be tasted, even as it is subtle and ephemeral.  As the tea is swallowed, the flavor deepens, with a floating sweetness developing until a nice astringency lingers at the finish.  To me, this is a winning combination: the light sweet notes and the hint of astringency that speaks of freshness, a hint that leaves no puckering.  This 1/F Puttabong had more depth (light-bodied though it was) than the Gomtee and definitely more of the floral component.  The brew was the lightest in the group, a pale golden apricot color.

Inhale deeply from the emptied mugs with only the wet leaves remaining, and the three single estate teas and that >$200/lb Royal Darjeeling would be easy to tell apart.  The last was almost musty, conjuring up a closed space.  The leaves from the Single Estate (#3) tea held a sharp, young, “green” (a bit raw) character, where in the Gomtee and Puttabong, equally young leaves gave a light, evanescent bloom for the nose.

Some more comparisons:

I realize this is a lengthy post with more teas covered than usual.  I am also aware I have assembled teas that would not normally be placed together for comparison: conventional teabags, a self-styled high-end loose leaf tea in a cotton sachet, single-estate teas, and a no-name Darjeeling, perhaps a blend.  But I wanted to describe a personal favorite, Darjeelings, in terms of what might be readily found on store shelves or in a tea bin and contrast them with teas that require a bit more shopping but are worth the extra effort.

Some will rightly point out the unfairness of putting a conventional Darjeeling teabag together with a single-estate 1/F tea, but for didactic purposes, this juxtaposition makes the lesson clear, or rather, makes the baseline clear from which to evaluate better teas.  The first teabag, which I came to admire, was aromatic, especially if you swish the tea in the mouth a bit.  Do the same with the Gomtee or Puttabong, however, and you’ll pick up much more: these teas wake up the taste buds; you can taste the distinctive aroma that is unique to fine Darjeelings, and the alternation between fragrance for the nose and its flavor on the palate resonates with each sip.  This is the experience to look for when considering a $100/lb 1/F Darjeeling. (It may help to think of it as being less than 70 cents a cup).

So apart from my own personal preference, why am I suggesting premium Darjeelings as gifts, even if only to oneself?  Teas blended and marketed expressly for this season are undeniably colorful, almost confetti-like with their additions of petals and fruit bits.  With their warm notes from spices, they offer much for our olfactory sense too.  Place these holiday teas next to even the prettiest Darjeeling and the latter looks drab and pallid.  How then can such a tea compete with, say, a Cranberry Black tea or a White Christmas Tea?

I wrote at the outset that I am drawn to 1/F Darjeelings because the teas show so much of what inheres in the leaves.  This category of high altitude teas reveals the essence of the leaves, the essence of varietals that are specific to the gardens in the region, and there is much to admire and enjoy in those intrinsic qualities.  We taste the essence of the leaf, not the essence of something else that was added to and usually ends up overshadowing those tea leaves.

And because gifting is always related to budgeting, a final word about prices: the two tins of holiday teas I described at the beginning were $7.99 each, for 1.4 ounces of tea (15 x 2 gram bags).   This works out to be the equivalent of $91.31/lb for the tea.  For nearly the same numbers ($99.80), you could have a whole pound of that lovely, unforgettable Puttagong 1/F Darjeeling, which I hope will evoke images of those high mountain gardens for you as well.

——

A Postscript: if it’s visual appeal you’re after in teas, leave behind teas with non-tea ingredients and consider this Green (in anticipation of spring):

The cup was made from:

which show up clearly as budsets: