The latest news has come in from Nepal: we’ve made contact with the farmers from whom we buy our teas directly. They’re all fine and nothing is damaged; the valleys where the tea grows are much further east in Nepal.
News from Nepal
28 April 2015
ARCHIVE FOR April 2015
An assessment of the 2015 first-flush Darjeelings
24 April 2015
When you harvest the terminal bud of the tea plant several times, the stem becomes stressed and stops producing a new bud. This phenomenon of dormancy, known as “banjhi” in Darjeeling, marks the end of the spring harvest (first flush).
If I had to give my assessment of this season in Darjeeling, I’d say we received batches of very varying quality, and few of exceptional quality. But I’ll conclude on a good note, with the choice of a Puttabong Clonal Queen DJ48 and a Margaret’s Hope Tippy Clonal DJ30. The first represents what Puttabong does best; the second is quite simply breathtaking.
Tea is also about people and feelings
17 April 2015
Behind each “grand cru”, each tea, there is work, there are people. My work, as I see it, is not limited to tracking down the best teas in the world, it also involves getting to know the people who produce it. Drinking tea with them. Listening to them talk about their product. So when I’m in a Palais des Thés store and I look at that impressive wall of canisters, it’s not the names of the teas on the labels I see, but faces, like that of Vikas Gajmer, manager of Castleton (Darjeeling).
Darjeeling spring harvests
10 April 2015
It’s not only the tea plantations that are busy at the moment. Yesterday I received no less than 120 different tea samples to taste. As ever, you need to be quick. If I want to make an offer on one of these batches I must have tasted them all in one or two days at the most. After that, it will be too late.
Of course, I don’t drink all the teas, I spit them out after turning the liquor around in my mouth while I analyse it.
Leaf by leaf
3 April 2015
