I got the basic darjeeling sampler from Upton a while back, had a few
cups of each, and was kind of unimpressed. I just went back to it
yesterday, and the Aray Organic Second flush was just amazing. Natural
sweetness, a wide variety of flavors. I can only guess that Darjeeling
is especially sensitive to amount, water temp, and steep time.

Justin Holmes wrote:
I got the basic darjeeling sampler from Upton a while back, had a few
cups of each, and was kind of unimpressed. I just went back to it
yesterday, and the Aray Organic Second flush was just amazing. Natural
sweetness, a wide variety of flavors. I can only guess that Darjeeling
is especially sensitive to amount, water temp, and steep time.

This is pretty true of any delicate tea. It's true that it's not always
easy to bring out the best in a tea, but with a little tinkering and a
little care you can often find something good in even cheap teas too.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

(Scott Dorsey) writes:

Justin Holmes wrote:
I got the basic darjeeling sampler from Upton a while back, had a few
cups of each, and was kind of unimpressed. I just went back to it
yesterday, and the Aray Organic Second flush was just amazing. Natural
sweetness, a wide variety of flavors. I can only guess that Darjeeling
is especially sensitive to amount, water temp, and steep time.

This is pretty true of any delicate tea. It's true that it's not always
easy to bring out the best in a tea, but with a little tinkering and a
little care you can often find something good in even cheap teas too.

Amen to that. At the risk of taking some of the fun out of it, if you
want to be able to reproduce your *good* results once you first obtain
them, you probably need to measure and record what you do. To some
extent, that is: there are lots of ways to do this, and you certainly
don't need to measure and record every time.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

I wish I knew what I did with the Araya. Had some more today and it was
nothing special. Water temp was the same, but I didn't bother measuring
last time, nor did I really clock it. Doh!

I am new here, but am a great tea lover. Don't have great expertise on
the subject but can write a few words on the subject. If you mean Arya
tea, then I too had a good tea from Arya tea estate known as "Arya
Ruby" which my friend had sent. It was a superb tea with good leaf
appearance and gave a good result in the cup. Then I had to move to a
new location for a few days on a business trip and I had carried this
particular tea with me. Suprisingly, the liqor color along with the
taste had tremendously changed. I double checked the tea that I had
brought thinking I had packed some other tea, but it was the same. I
had heard that water plays a vital role in the brewing of tea and this
time I really had to believe it. It was the water that had played a
major role here.

The other thing I would like to focus is the brewing quantities and
time. I have noticed the best of teas giving the worst of results and
this has often given a bad name to the tea which it is being tasted,
but Darjeeling is such a sensitive tea which wholly depends on the
consumer and his way of brewing. The quantity of tea put in your pot
can make a huge difference along with the steeping times. If you over
steep, Darjeelings tend to get bitter, but some love this tender
bitterness as I do. I usually steep for 4-5 minutes (Darjeeling black
tea - First and Second Flush) and about 3 minutes (Darjeeling black tea
- Autumnals) and Darjeeling whites (6-8 minutes).

Sorry to inform who don't like Darjeelings - I am a great fan of
Darjeelings, specially Thurbo First flush (Tippy Clonal), Soureni,
Arya, Gopaldhara, Risheehat, Orange Valley, Margaret's Hope and
castleton(favorites), etc.