STJones schrieb:

> ... Just one thing I need to ask you, I have been drinking
> Darjeelings for a long time and have done a lot of expriments, I could
> see that your quantity opinion was less for the first flush and 2 gram
> more for the second flush. Shouldn't it be the other way round. Please
> accept it as a friendly opinion. Its because, usually first flush teas
> are very mild giving very light liqor color but abundance in aroma. So
> if you put less tea, then I have noticed that it turns out to be like
> hot water.

Yes and no. In my opinion, it differs. Of course, the ff has much less
colour than other flushs, but that hasn't neccesarily something to do
with the strengh of the aroma or intensity of flavour. If you have a
very delicate ff form a high qualitiy estate and then a very early
invoice (like this one for example:
<https://www.betty-darling.de/fs.php?j=https%3A//www.betty-darling.de/xtcommerce/product_info.php%3Fproducts_id%3D149%26cPath%3D1_6 _9>),
in my opinion the fruitiness and the taste is so intense, that an
overdose would harm the flavour. For my taste, it is like a (slightly
bitter) cup of tea with a hint of fruitiness instead of a mild tea with
a broad cascade of fruity complexities during each sip. The same if too
hot water temperature was used. Of course, this isn't a typical
*strong* tea in a sense of second flush or assam (so not full bodied in
this kind of way). It is more like a as *intense* descibed aroma of a
high-class oolong or even gree tea.

On the other hand, there are lots and lots of ff darjeeling out there
(I would say the majority of the market), which haven't got such
complexities (like the ff of the German teekampagne, which is a *real*
cheap ff darjeeling but mostly the standard quality and taste you can
expect from mid-priced dajeeling teas in tea shops). Here you
definetely need more tea to get any aroma and flavour out of it. My
problem with it is, that for me it gets too edgy and a dash too bitter
for my taste, so I don't drink these kind of darjeeling ff (took me
quite a while to notice that differences in darjeeling teas). To get a
quite mild and slightly fruity tea which isn't that edgy or bitter (and
even though payable for an every day use) I prefer darjeeling
inbetweens.



> While second flush are more prominent and full bodied and a
> little more addition of these can make the tea bitter and the color can
> also have a contrast.



Yeah, I had some bitter second flushs. It also depends on the tea and
it's quality. There are sf with dark colour which taste like dishwater
(doensn't matter how much tea you use), there are lots of sf out there
which taste like normal tea with a hint of darjeeling-like flavour and
are *quite* bitter (also quite independent from the amount of tea), and
there are sf out there which are incredebly soft, mild and sweet and
delicate, but in my experience, even with the really delicate ones you
have to use a bit more tea than with the delicate ffs to get to the
right point of maximum flavour.

> Well I agree that tea is one's own taste and as I have mentioned
> somewhere else in this group that "no one can proclaim to be a tea
> master, you are a master of your own taste".

That's the whole point of it. And as you said, also the china is
important and also maybe not only the water you use but also the
climate (esp. relative humidity).


Dieter