Could anyone give us an update on what the weather has been like in the
Darjeeling hills - have the Estates received enough/adequate rainfall ?
My information is limited to the other growing areas of Dooars and
North Bank [Assam] where it hasn't rained since November. The crop
intake in these areas are extremely poor, and First flush is already a
goner.

Hi Sid,
there has been a little rain but not nearly enough for most of the
plants, a real catastrophe for some of the farmers. Hence you can see
less than mediocre FFs sold for insane $$ (unless you know a nice
vendor).
Let´s all hope for a great second flush.

PS: I still have some promising samples flying around here and as my
schnotz is sloowly recovering I´ll post some impressions in a couple
days.

Karsten


Sidman wrote:
> Could anyone give us an update on what the weather has been like in the
> Darjeeling hills - have the Estates received enough/adequate rainfall ?
> My information is limited to the other growing areas of Dooars and
> North Bank [Assam] where it hasn't rained since November. The crop
> intake in these areas are extremely poor, and First flush is already a
> goner.

Hey Karsten - are you back in D'ling ? If so, send me you add and I
will send you [in two/three weeks time] some second flush you may like
to drink. CTC and black ofcourse.
Sid.

Okay. So where *is* it raining that they make tea?

Are we all going to have to switch to greens?

You might find the Tea News From Darjeeling site useful. Here's a recent posting regarding the local weather:

http://teanewsdarjeeling.blogspot.co...ings-hope.html

Thanks,
Bill

Tea Guy Speaks
http://wileng.blogspot.com/

Tea Industry News
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/teaindustrynews/