Category Archives: Darjeeling Tea

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends! It’s great to be back sharing another cup of tea with you. And I’m incredibly happy to report that today’s tea is…..drum roll, please…….

a first flush Darjeeling!

The first arrival of the season from the Thurbo estate.

Oh my, oh my.

I’m just savoring every sip of this marvelous tea, the quintessence of springtime in a cup.

Have I ever mentioned that first flush Darjeelings are my favorite tea??

The leaf is bold and quite tippy, meaning the plucking has been from the very new growth on the tea plant. Even though there are  spring green-colored bits of leaf, this tea has been processed as a black tea. Still, the newness of the growth renders the processed leaf and steeped tea liquor very light and “green” tasting. However green, it’s still very different from an actual green tea.

I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in just under boiling point water. As I lifted the lid of my glass teapot to remove the infuser basket, a fragrant aroma reminiscent of the crisp spiciness of celery greeted me.

The light caramel-colored liquor has a sweet flavor with a mild pungency and whispers of tropical fruit like banana.

What a special treat to enjoy just back from my Michigan trip.

I had another fabulous visit with my family and visited 2 bead stores while I was there, Bead Haven in Frankenmuth and Munro’s in Berkeley. I’ll share photos of my piles of treasure very soon. For now, it’s time to make another pot of tea and get my bones back into my studio.

Happy Easter and Passover to all who celebrate!

Redeem

The time. Redeem

The unread vision in the higher dream…”

~T.S. Eliot

Saturday Morning Tea

The sun is shining in a deep blue, early spring sky as I begin my day with a cup of Darjeeling. I wish I could tell you that I’m enjoying a cup from this year’s first flush harvest season but they haven’t arrived just yet. This is a cup of an autumnal Darjeeling from the Sungma estate, harvested last fall.

Darjeeling, located in northeastern India, has 3 plucking seasons, first flush, second flush and autumnal. Sometimes there’s a plucking that’s not quite first or second flush and is called “in between”. The autumnal harvest isn’t as famous as the first and second flush, however, it produces a wonderful tea with the characteristics of Darjeeling yet with a much mellower and smoother flavor profile.

As I do with most Darjeeling black teas, I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in boiling point (212 F) water.

The rich liquor glows like dark honey in my glass teapot. As I pour my first cup, a delicate fruity aroma wafts up.

The flavor is incredibly smooth with bright notes of fruit. This would be a great tea for those tea lovers looking for a deeper yet mellow Darjeeling cup. It doesn’t have any of the green astringent notes of a first flush or the bold muscatel notes of a second flush.

I love how the deep blue of the sky mixes with the rich color of my tea.

Sky and earth, water and fire.

My grandkids are visiting from New Mexico right now and I am having such a grand time immersing myself in the little ones’ world. Monday we’re headed into Boston to visit the New England Aquarium. Ella can’t wait to see the fishies!

Enjoy your weekend, dear tea friends!

“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” ~Emily Dickinson

Saturday Morning Tea

The hard edges of winter continue to soften as temps creep up over the freezing mark and snow and ice transform. As we start the transition from one season to the next, it’s almost as if nature is holding its breath waiting for just the right moment to burst into life. I find my mood these days to be just in the same place – poised and waiting. Waiting for warmth. Waiting for growth. Waiting for nature to rebirth itself in its continuing cycle.

I’ve strayed a bit from my usual choice of Darjeelings this morning. Not a first flush, not a second flush, not even an autumnal but a Darjeeling Oolong. Tindharia estate Oolong tea.

Most of the teas produced in the Darjeeling tea growing region of northeast India are black teas. Some are green teas, rarer are white teas but rarer still are Oolong style teas. I don’t have any information on the oxidation level of this Oolong but if I had to guess, I would say it’s low.

The leaf is much bigger than a Darjeeling black tea and wow, look at that intact fine plucking of the upper leaves and bud. I love to find a leaf set like that as I sift through the wet leaf. Taking photographs of the tea in all its steeping stages has given me a finer appreciation of how the tea leaf makes its journey from bush to cup. It gives me an awareness that I wouldn’t usually have. It’s amazing what you see when you look at something very closely.

I steeped the leaves for 4 minutes in 190 degree F water. I find its light golden color to be more in line with a green or white tea as well as the vegetal, almost herbaceous flavor notes and aroma.

Isn’t this a gorgeous teabowl? My friend got it for me in Hawaii on his recent vacation there. The glazing reminds me of cake icing. Mmmm…

As my tea cools, I detect a fruity, almost muscatel flavor note. Oh, there you are, Darjeeling flavor. A whisper of peach reminds me of a Fancy Oolong from Taiwan. This tea has an incredible range of complexity.

I love the pattern of cracks on my teabowl. I wonder if they fired it in such a way that it was intentional. Intentional or not, I love its character. It makes me want to peer more closely at it to discover its wonders.

Just like with my tea leaves…

“We shall not cease from exploration

And the end of all our exploring

Will be to arrive where we started

And know the place for the first time.”

~T.S. Eliot

Saturday Morning Tea

Wow, for the first time in 6 weeks, we actually got through a whole week with no significantly nasty weather to deal with. It was such a treat to not have to get up at zero dark thirty to dig myself out before work! Speaking of a treat, this morning’s tea is quite special. It’s a Darjeeling tea, not a black tea but a green tea, called Arya Emerald.

I wrote about the 2007 harvest lot of this tea here. The Arya estate, located in the Himalayan mountains of northeast India, produces special, hand processed tea lots with beautiful gemstone names like Ruby (black), Pearl (white) and Emerald (green). I reviewed Arya Ruby a couple of months ago here.

Dry, the dark green leaf is long and twisted with light green bits but a 3 minute steeping unfurled the leaves, revealing many intact leaves that are a beautiful, light olive green. With most green teas, this one included, I use 180 degree F water for steeping.

The aroma is lightly vegetal with a hint of Darjeeling astringency.

The vegetal quality carries on into the flavor but only lightly so, with notes of tart green grapes and sweet pear which I enjoyed very much.

I find it interesting that such intensely green leaves can produce a liquor that is so golden yellow.

I’ve chosen my spiral teabowl as the light color of the liquor allows me to see the wonderful spiral shape inside the bowl.

Do you have a favorite teabowl or mug? What does it look like? One of the things that influences my choice of mug or bowl is the color of the tea liquor.

I had an odd experience this week. Normally, when I include a link to a former post in my present post, WordPress sends me a “pingback”. Of course, I know about this already because I was the one to place the link in my post. But this week I received one I didn’t recognize. I discovered that another website called rakkatei was posting my latest post in its entirety as if they had written it! I found this quite disturbing, especially when I couldn’t locate any contact information on the site. I did some research and was able to find a company name and promptly sent them a letter requesting that they immediately remove my content from their website. So, if you’re seeing this post on that website right now, please know that it does not belong to them. I am the author, Karen at Art and Tea. Has this ever happened to anyone?

Have a great weekend, dear tea friends, and Happy Valentine’s Day!

“Where there is great love there are always miracles.”

~Willa Cather

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends!

A world of white greets me these days as I walk out my front door and carefully negotiate my way to my car along channels cut into the snow. After all was said and done, 19 inches of the white stuff fell last Wednesday. And now our temps have sunk down into single digits. 5 degrees…brrrr..

I’m glad to be inside right now, hot cup of tea warming my hands. In my cup is a second flush Darjeeling from the Thurbo estate. It is considered a “silver tip” Darjeeling because of the profusion of tips, the new silvery growth on the plant.

I steeped the leaves for 3 minutes in boiling point temp (212 F) water. In the picture above, you can see some of the huge mounds of snow we have.

The Thurbo estate is located in the Mirik valley in Darjeeling district in northeastern India. I’ve read that it got its name because long ago the British set up camp there to invade Nepal which is close by. The local dialect word for “camp” is “tombu” which could have morphed into Thurbo.  An interesting little bit of trivia.

When the sky is clear, the snow glows blue and purple at twilight. It’s a magical sight. I think those colors have seeped into my consciousness.

The rich amber liquor has a predominant chestnut aroma which carries on into its flavor. Hints of ripe fruit round out the very smooth cup.

This tea is perfect for this frosty, frigid January morning.

Despite the hours of shoveling and clearing away, the snow has brought some positive benefits with it. A snow day from work this past Wednesday pushed me right into my studio (yay!) and I finally finished my Towers and Turrets pendant. Now I’d like to turn it into a necklace so it’s off to the bead store I go today, armed with a very generous gift certificate from my oldest son (thanks Justin!).

I know that I’ve spoken about the art side of my blog being sorely lacking these past months. I’ve been thinking about that a lot this week, even reading art posts from past years and wondering where that motivation and passion went. Buried underneath a full-time job, I guess.

Anyway, one of my personal goals for 2011 is to share more of my artwork with you once again and I’d love for you to share your creations with me.

What are you creating?

The Eskimos had fifty-two names for snow because it was important to them: there ought to be as many for love. ~Margaret Atwood