On Wednesday 09 November 2005 09:11, Mårten Nilsson >
>) wrote:

> I've bought Twinings Darjeeling (loose) and I don't like it at all. I've
> also tried other cheap brands (lipton, I belive) and it was also
> worthless.

I find Lipton "Connoisseur" and Brooke-Bond "Supreme" to be good,
considering their price of $9-10 per pound. All the single estate
Darjeelings I've purchased are much better and are much more expensive.

I don't like Lipton "Finest" nearly as much. I haven't had Twinings for a
couple of years and I didn't find it a good value for the price. I'd buy
"Connoisseur" or "Supreme" again except nobody in town stocks them any
more.

> This would lead me to the conclusion that I simply dont like
> darjeeling if it wasn't that I have also tried some First Flush from the
> teastore and it was not only good, it was nothing like the Twinings or
> Lipton varieties.

Maybe you just have a taste for the first flush, like I have a taste for the
second flush.

The brand-name blends are likely to be a mixture of flushes. They will try
to provide the same taste in every batch in every year. The brands above
most certainly are not straight first-flush tea.

> So do I have a question? Is there some kind of standard Darjeeling or
> is it a very wide category?

It's a very wide category. For harvest time, there is first-flush,
in-between, second-flush, and autumnal. For processing, there is white,
oolong, black, and maybe green Darjeeling. For packaging, there is
single-estate and blended. There are also differences between the
appearance, aroma, and flavor of the teas from the various estates.

> Can you expect anything from a tea bearing that name?

There should be some similarities between any teas that really are from
Darjeeling.

However, tea is just another crop: It's grown under a variety of weather and
soil conditions, and then harvested, sold, exported, shipped, repackaged,
and retailed. There will be many smaller or larger differences based on
the "categories" above and of course any categories which I've neglected to
list.