Darjeeling April 2016
EDITOR'S NOTE
Hello fellow tea lovers, April is ones of my favorite times of year. Not only is the weather getting warmer but the arrival of spring also means new tea is being harvested around the world. The 2016 harvests of Shincha from Japan, Pre-Qing Ming green teas from China and 1st Flush Darjeeling are all within reach now. I dedicated this issue to Darjeeling because it holds a special place in my heart. It was one of the first tea regions that I really fell in love with when this obsession first started. The next issue of this journal goes out in July will focus on Kenyan tea. The articles featured here are usually from tea companies but submissions are welcome whether you are a tea seller, blogger or just an enthusiast. My main goal is further tea education and to give back to the tea community that has given so much to me. As always, I'd love to hear your questions, thoughts, feedback and ideas. What would you like to see in the next issues? Please feel free to shoot me an email at nicole@teaformeplease.com. My inbox is always open! Nicole
THE QUEEN OF THE HILLS
DARJEELING By Adam Sherlip Tea Geek and Consultant If there was ever a part of the world so synonymous with tea, Darjeeling would be it. Sure, China offers strong competition with the provinces of Yunnan, Hunan and Fujian, while the Indian state of Assam – the single-largest tea producing region in the world – is certainly a solid contender as well, but when a place so small can have such a huge impact on the world (Darjeeling comprises about 1% of all Indian tea production), you know it’s special. Darjeeling is a tiny region in the northernmost part of the Indian state of West Bengal, nestled in the foothills of the Himalayas between the border of Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim. The Darjeeling region is almost exactly the same size as Rhode Island, and its centerpiece is the town with the same name, far-removed from Calcutta, in the southern reaches of the state. It’s practically impossible to get to Darjeeling comfortably, but the trip is worth it, whether by taxi or by the UNESCO World Heritage “Toy Train” that can easily lose in a race against a stubborn mule. And yet, here in this quaint town with the majestic vantage point looking out at the third highest peak in the world (Kangchenjunga, but you already knew that), you find some of the most exquisite teas in the world that have been nicknamed “The Champagne of Teas.” This moniker exists for many good reasons, but there are some important differences between the two that enable Darjeeling to be in a class all its own.
Many people now know that only sparkling wine from the Champagne region of France is allowed to be called Champagne. This is due to the French appellation d'origine controlee, or AOC, which protects products of distinction based on terroir, the principle that local environmental factors create distinct products that cannot be replicated in other regions, no matter how much the process is copied, and therefore the region of production is the only place the name can be used to describe the product. This practice has been ratified and accepted by many nations around the world, and can be seen in other eponymous products, like Scotch whisky or Jarlsberg cheese. Similarly, only teas from Darjeeling can be called Darjeeling tea, via a recent act by the Indian government to curtail counterfeiting and mislabeling intended to deceive consumers, which certainly makes the comparison apt. But of course, that’s not the end of the similarities and differences. A few years ago I made that daunting trek from Calcutta to Darjeeling and embarked on a mission to taste as much tea from every local tea shop possible before the inevitable caffeine overdose. On one of these occasions (of tasting, not OD), I went in to a shop and asked my uber-sophisticated probing question: “What type of tea do you have?”, and received the reply “Darjeeling”. In Darjeeling. I hope you just shuddered as I did back then, because this type of non-specific answer showed me that they either didn’t know anything about tea, didn’t know anything about tea produced in the region they were in, or didn’t respect me enough as a consumer to differentiate the types of tea they offered (in fairness, I’m used to this interaction, as I don’t look like a tea person…whatever that means). Or worst of all, all of the above. I don’t know about you, but if I was in a restaurant in Champagne and asked (in French, of course) what type of “sparkling wine” was on the menu, and received the response “Champagne”, I’d be out the door before you could say “appellation d'origine controlee.” Let’s step back in time for a few minutes, though. For you history buffs out there, you may recall that tea was discovered and cultivated in China as a medicinal beverage for (conservatively) nearly two thousand years, until it became a luxury good in Western Europe and eventually a global commodity in the 17th & 18th Centuries due to European trade and exploration (read: imperialism). The mid-19th Century is the critical period for the British, in regards to the tea trade and India, with implications still affecting the industry today. As the global thirst for tea increased rapidly by the late 18th Century, the British East India Company, well-established in India at this point, looked for ways to satisfy demand that was being met almost exclusively by China. First came the “discovery” (I put this in quotes because there’s a lot of room for debate on what denotes a discovery, and there’s certainly enough reason to doubt the British during this time in history) in the 1820s of wild tea trees growing in Assam that ultimately became recognized in the 1830s as Camellia sinensis assamica, a larger more robust varietal of the tea plant native to China: Camellia sinensis sinensis.
The origin of Darjeeling tea is positively connected to the Chinese monopoly on tea and the discovery and subsequent cultivation of tea in Assam. By the end of the 1830s, the first superintendent of the Darjeeling region decided to grow tea in the region, using thousands of seeds that were smuggled in from China. Yes, smuggled. This wasn’t some bureaucrat’s hobby. This was commissioned by the British East India Company to break the monopoly, and by the late 1840s, tea trees were sprouting around the region, with a few workers from China assisting in the cultivation. Unfortunately for them, but fortunately for us, the soil and climate were producing a wholly different tea from anything experienced in China. As fortune would have it (bonus points if you catch that pun), German missionaries settled in Darjeeling in the 1840s and became important members of society, working on, managing and eventually owning tea estates in the region. It was with their hard work, collaboration, and diligent note-taking that a clear corrolation between estates and seasons (flushes) became clear. By the 1880s, a handful of tea estates in Darjeeling were producing enough quality tea to turn a profit. The German influence doesn’t end there, though. One of the earliest estates to establish in the Darjeeling region is Makaibari. Today they’re renowned for producing some of the most expensive teas ever sold at the Indian tea market, and for being the first organic and biodynamic tea factory in the world. Biodynamic agriculture is essentially organic on steroids. Organic steroids. In short, it’s about strict environmental conservation and resource management that minimizes disrupting nature. As you can imagine, in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, this was itself a revolutionary idea, as it was the height of the Industrial Revolution. Biodynamics was a philosophy of a German-Austrian during the late 19th Century, and by the early 20th Century, the Demeter organization had formed to recognize and certify farms and plantations that upheld the highest standards of land and resource management. Makaibari received organic certification in 1988 and today a large number of tea estates in the region have organic, biodynamic and/or fair trade certifications as well, in no short part because of increased consumer awareness generated by the likes of Makaibari.
History provides context, and for Darjeeling, the history is directly connected to the present. The early tea farmers of the region realized that inter-seasonal blending was producing unremarkable teas and began categorizing the tea by respective flushes, such as spring (first), summer (second) and autumnal. Of course, that wasn’t enough for tea traders and connoisseurs, so acronyms built upon “OP” or Orange Pekoe (the primary type of tea leaf cultivated in Darjeeling), to denote different characteristics, such as whether a leaf was whole or broken, its size, color, and eventually quality. This acronym system has expanded and refined itself as the Darjeeling region has continued to polish the teas being cultivated to the point that today we see classifications like SFTGFOP-1, and understand that we’re getting the best super fine tippy golden flowery orange pekoe. And yet we still yearned to learn not only the flush of the harvest, but how early or late in a particular season the tea was harvested. Today, many teas include the lot number to answer that particular question. All of those classifications were applied to black teas, which were the norm in Darjeeling for over a century. The rise/resurgence in popularity of green, white and oolong teas in the West have created a renewed demand that Darjeeling tea producers have worked hard to accommodate. The region is now producing some distinct and unique versions of each type of tea, so don’t be surprised if we find some Darjeeling Pu-erhs in the coming years. Bringing it back full circle, Champagne is classified by the type of grape, the blend of grapes, the color, the sweetness, the flavor profile, and if it’s from a more fruitful year, the vintage. The fact that they are both categorized may make the two seem quite similar, but the comparison is superficial. Many of these classifications for Champagne, as well as winemaking practices in general, are rigidly set by the Comite Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC), an oversight agency that works to protect the industry at large and maintain an image of superior quality to other sparkling wines from around the world, like Prosecco, Cava or Spumante. The Tea Board of India and the Darjeeling Tea Association work to maintain the brand of the region, but again, below the surface are many differences. Many of the finest quality Darjeeling teas are reasonably priced, and last much longer than a bottle of Champagne (once opened). The grapes are harvested once per year and take significant time to mature, while tea leaves are picked during three-quarters of the year and can become available to the market within weeks, providing a more direct relationship between the consumer and the estates.
Each year brings new adventures and discoveries. More importantly, how the two beverages are consumed is a huge distinction. Champagne is imbibed as a celebratory beverage, like a drinkable cigar (here comes the hate-mail), whereas Darjeeling tea is perfect in just about any situation you can imagine, including celebrations. Champagne is fermented, tea is incorrectly described as fermented, but properly described as oxidized. You can piss off purists by adding orange juice to a vintage Champagne, and you can do the same by adding milk to a first or second flush Darjeeling. Like Darjeeling with tea, Champagne makes up a miniscule fraction of global wine production and consumption, but maintains a status of luxury and quality. What do you think? Is it an apt comparison, or a marketing ploy to imply high quality? Does Darjeeling denote quality like Champagne? Can we call something the “Darjeeling of� in the future? Should there be a new nickname for Darjeeling tea? No matter the answers, it remains special.
Adam Sherlip's love of tea began as a child when Captain Picard ordered "Tea, Earl Grey, Hot" from the replicator in Star Trek: The Next Generation. He has worked in and around tea for 16 years, starting with Starbucks, and then launching an independent consulting business at 23 years old to help tea businesses reach a younger demographic. He helped a number of New York-based businesses refine their brick & mortar models as well as their overall branding. His travels around the world enabled him to experience tea markets in China, tea estates in India, and research tea shops all around North America, Europe and Asia to determine consumer patterns and concepts that work no matter the clientele. He then worked for the American craft tea company Harney & Sons, setting up their new NYC retail location, as well as running a demo team for the New York Metro Area. He has since resumed his tea industry consulting in order to work with start-up tea companies looking to make a mark in the tea world, helping them navigate the waters of a complex industry that requires a strong vision and a story in order to survive. More info on Adam at surelip.com. You can also find out about the non-profit that Adam founded & runs, The Hockey Foundation, at http://hockey.foundation
DARJEELING TEA AND GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATION BY NIRAJ LAMA OF HAPPY EARTH TEA
Darjeeling tea is perhaps the only tea in the world that enjoys a Geographical Indication (GI) protection. According to World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a UN-body, GI is a “sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin.� What this means in the case of Darjeeling tea is that the tea must be grown and manufactured in the tea-district of Darjeeling, located in north-east India, to be called Darjeeling. GI protection is currently enjoyed by products like Champagne, Cognac, Roquefort cheese, Tuscany olives and Parmigiano Reggiano. As stated above, all these named products should come from a specified geographical region, underlining the fact that the quality of these premium products are due to the place that it originates from. Indeed your Parmesan or Parmigiano should actually be made according to a specific recipe and production methods only within the provinces of Parma, Reggio-Emilia, Modena, and specific regions in the provinces of Bologna and Mantua. But that is another story.) (
So why would you need a protection such as this for Darjeeling? Like in the case of other products, Darjeeling too needed protection of its brand and quality. Not just for the sake of the locals and the manufacturers, but also for those consuming the tea. In the late 1990s, nearly 40 million kgs of “Darjeeling” tea was being sold annually worldwide when only 10 million kgs was being produced in Darjeeling itself! Darjeeling tea is about 1% of the total Indian tea production. It is a very exclusive tea, and often times it is unable to keep up with the demand for it. So resellers (many of them based in Europe) found an easy way out. They would blend 49% of other teas in Darjeeling and pass the whole thing as Darjeeling tea, champange of teas! Other times they even sold “Darjeeling tea, Made in Sri Lanka.” The task to promulgate GI was daunting for the Tea Board of India. It not only had to ensure that major countries consuming Darjeeling endorsed the protection, but also had to battle many challenges to the GI. For instance even here in the USA, Republic of Tea waged a legal battle claiming that Darjeeling was a “type” of tea and could be grown outside of Darjeeling. They lost. Although the USA had extended the protection to Darjeeling as GI early on, in Europe the blenders managed to get a reprieve for a limited period which ended last year. From this year on, all tea businesses in the European Union have to stop blending Darjeeling tea with other teas. They are of course free to keep producing the blends, as long as they don't put Darjeeling in the product name. Even as the prices of Darjeeling are expected to go higher, the industry must however ensure that it does not go beyond the reach of a regular Darjeeling tea drinker. Nepal tea, whose production methods are getting more refined and sophisticated, will otherwise be a likely substitute.
Darjeeling, as a premium product with extraordinary protection like a GI, also needs to work harder to meet the expectations of the tea drinkers in terms not just in producing quality tea, but also ensuring that the workers rights are better protected. Darjeeling is certainly an exception to the disturbing stories of starvation deaths, trafficking of tea workers from the tea growing regions of India. However, there is still much room for improvement. Ending with on a different note altogether, one wonders if GI would help protecting the regional integrity of Chinese and Taiwanese teas where the provenance is sometimes hard to establish of these teas. Happy Earth Tea (based in Rochester, NY) was established in 2011 by Niraj Lama and his wife Mary Boland. They work directly with tea gardens that are certified Organic and visit them periodically to check on the crops, taste teas and select the best. You can find out more at http://www.happyearthtea.com.
Darjeeling
Know Your Flush! 1st Flush February - April lighter bodied, almost green in appearance
2nd Flush May - June fuller bodied, known for the famous muscatel taste
Monsoon Flush July - Aug stronger in brew and appearance, often used in blends
Autumnal Flush Oct - Nov more delicate than other flushes, aromatic
"Grey Area" Teas By Geoffrey Norman of Steep Stories My all-time favorite tea – Castleton estate’s Moonlight, second flush – is a Darjeeling oolong. It may not seem it, but that sentence alone can (and has) stirred up some debate. Not illmannered ones. Most of us tea people know better. (Most of the time.) But are Darjeeling oolongs even oolongs at all, or are they something else? Something . . . uncategorized? First, one has to establish what an oolong is. Most assume this category of tea is only definitive because of one characteristic – the tea leaves are semi-oxidized. This is not the case. Oolongs go through a similar process as green teas, at first. It’s often referred to as shaqing (or “kill-green”) in Chinese. In essence, exposing the leaves to heat so as to arrest the oxidization (or die-off) of picked leaves. Doing so preserves the green color. Unlike green teas, though, oolongs experience some oxidation before being exposed to heat. Then – depending on the type of oolong being crafted – the leaves are bruised, rolled, shaped, and processed to desired effect. Darjeeling oolongs . . . don’t go through this. Most of the “Darjoolongs” on the market go through semi-oxidation, but that’s it. No kill-green. At least, not on average. And if one has tasted enough Darjeeling oolongs, the more that this difference in process becomes apparent. What makes things even more confusing is the commonly held belief among some tea aficionados that all Darjeelings are semi-oxidized. Not fully, like other Indian orange pekoe grade teas. This has led many to consider Darjeelings – in theory – oolongs because of their lightercolored appearance; both in leaf and in brew. This is false.
Oxidation begins the moment a tea leaf is disturbed or destroyed. This could happen any number of ways, but the most common? Plucking and bug bites. The “muscatel” flavor of Darjeelings has even been linked to this “bug-bitten” phenomenon. The explanation for the lighter palette of leaf and liquor can simply be attributed to altitude, tea tree type, terroir and processing. But that doesn’t explain all Darjeeling anomalies.
Singbulli Emperor, 2015, Second Flush (Thunderbolt Tea)
Aside from the mis-categorized Darjeeling oolongs, there also exists another uncharacteristic processing development. One I didn’t run into until late 2014; that being some estates taking leaves processed like white teas, and letting them oxidize further. Unlike green teas or oolongs, leaves for white tea are plucked, withered and dried – nothing more. As a result of this minimal processing, some oxidation from the initial pluck does occur, but it is halted once the leaves are made to dry.
Sometimes, however, too much oxidation occurs, and this leads to a once-intended white tea being re-labeled as an oolong. The first time I ran into this occurrence was with a deep-bodied “white” from the Glenburn estate, dubbed “Moonshine”, back in 2013. Since then, it has been rebranded a Darjeeling oolong. In 2014, I ran into another from the Thurbo estate. Like my all-time favorite tea, it too was called “Moonlight”. The flavor profile was even similar to the Castleton estate’s offering – spry, melonlike, and floral. I even did a back-to-back of both of them. In a blind tasting, I don’t think I could’ve told the two of them apart. In 2015, I encountered yet another one – Singbulli estate’s Emperor – easily the fruitiest of the bunch. I received it and three different invoices of Castleton Moonlight. Even a version from a different seasonal flush; all were near-impossible to classify. A few different Darjeeling-exclusive websites couldn’t even figure out the best way to categorize Moonlight. Some listed it as a standard Orange Pekoe, some an oolong, and others still considered it a white tea because of the abundance of leaf buds. Not gold-tipped buds; white-tipped ones! The Darjeeling region in India is not alone in this practice, either. Such mystery teas of similar make have shown up in Nepal and Indonesia, too. All were semi-oxidized; all were either considered white teas or oolongs. Which begs the question: What the hell do we call these teas? Thurbo Moonlight, 2014, Second Flush (Norbu Tea)
Castleton Moonlight Imperial, 2015, Second Flush (Thunderbolt Tea)
Fellow tea nut, Virginia “Cinnabar Gongfu” Wright came up with a perfect (if temporary) name for them. “Grey area” teas. For me, that stuck. It fit into the whole color-naming scheme, and put off the debate for a later time. That and it was pretty darn clever. In closing, I so declare: Semi-oxidized teas that have NOT undergone a kill-green shall henceforth be called Grey Area Teas! That is . . . until the matter is resolved fittingly. I dare you all to come up with something better.
Geoffrey Norman began writing about tea in 2007. Since then, he has made it a point to track down unique teas and the stories behind them. He is currently working on his first book and can usually be found in his pajamas with a mug in hand. You can find out more at http://www.steepstories.com
SFTGFOP? What the Letters on Your Tea Packaging Mean
by Nicole Martin of Tea for Me Please One of the things that mystified me when I first started drinking tea was the letter grade system used in Darjeeling (and other British colonial tea regions). Understanding a few simple terms helps to clear things up quite a bit. These abbreviations denote the grade of leaves used to make the tea. Orange Pekoe is usually used to describe a black tea consisting of whole leaves of a particular size. Contrary to popular belief, Orange Pekoe is not a flavor or type of tea. Pekoe is a corruption of the Chinese term Bai Hao (meaning white tip). I've read that the name Orange comes from the Dutch House of Orange. This makes sense since they were trading tea even before the British had started drinking it. It was meant to imply that the tea was good enough to meet with royal approval. Incidentally, the world tea comes from tê in the Amoy dialect of Southern Fujian because that is where the Dutch got their tea from. We might be calling it cha if they had traded in Canton like the Portuguese instead! Fannings and dust are the lowest grades and they are used to produce tea bags. While not an ideal cup of tea, they provide a larger surface area which allows the water to pull color and flavor out of the leaf more quickly.
Now, here is where it gets complicated. This grade has nothing to do with the actual quality of the tea. In general more letters equates to a better tea but this isn't always the case. You can have a badly made SFTGOP and a very well done OP. Numbers are sometimes added to the end of abbreviations. This is simply included for emphasis when a garden feels it was a particularly good lot. Teas that are marked with EX are harvested prior to the official 1st flush. The leaves used to tend to be a bit more yellowish in color but they are not necessarily of lower quality. You may also see information about what cultivated variety was used to produce the tea. The most common of these is AV2. Also referred to as clonal, these teas are often developed for specific traits that could help increase production. Planters choose them because they might be more drought hardy or because the are resistant to particular pests. For a bit of nerdy tea humor, FTGFOP really stands for Far Too Good for Other People. ;)
FTGFOP1 from Rohini Estate Here some examples of common grades that you might run into: SFTGFOP Super Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe FTGFOP Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe TGFOP Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe FTGBOP Fine Tippy Golden Broken Orange Pekoe TGBOP Tippy Golden Broken Orange Pekoe FBOP Flowery Broken Orange Pekoe BOP Broken Orange Pekoe GFOF Golden Flowery Orange Fannings GOF Golden Orange Fannings D Dust
Castleton and The Mystery Musk by Meeta Sharma Contributed by Teabox It is possible that muscatel tea means more to the rest of the world than it does to someone in Darjeeling. Much of the tea’s charm lies in the way it is ‘believed’ to taste – some going as far as to peg it against red wine. To some, it’s a turning point, a perversion to the obvious and predictable nature (and taste) of tea. But very few encounters of muscatel speak about the technique, the people who make it and the place it originates. Last December, I accompanied tea planter and estate manager Vikas Gajmer for a short tour of his tea gardens on the uneven mountainside of Kurseong – a smallish town in southern Darjeeling. We were joined by assistant garden manager Vivek Pande, a youngish chap who looked a little too young for his job. It was a bright, sunny afternoon and the mountain sides looked heavy with hues of green. This is not a normal sight for someone visiting Darjeeling during peak winter. You half expect everything around you to be obscured by mist with no sign of sun or green. “It’s not common to see flowering buds this time of the year. Even we were surprised to see the gardens still blooming,” remarked the pleasantly amazed estate manager. We stopped along a curb, still about 4000 feet above sea level, and got out of the car to peer at the green marvel that was now covering the entire length of his estate. Vikas pointed out a planted section right in front of me, still plump and greenlooking. “This is where our muscatel valley begins. And this is where you get the best muscatel tea in Darjeeling”.
The Muscatel Valley at Castelton Vikas manages the 130years old Castleton tea estate, a renowned property in Darjeeling’s tea growing region. He has been with Castleton for the better part of the last decade. Tall, square faced, lighteyed and broadshouldered, he has a seemingly ‘big’ personality that stands out almost immediately. He has been with Goodricke (Castleton’s parent company) for as long as he can remember, having worked in Dooars (Assam) tea gardens as well as a few years in Nepal. The rigors of his job have left him with a hardened face that offers him a formidable exterior. But when he speaks, it’s with an excited tone (his Nepalese ancestry coming through clearly in his accent); fluid and easygoing. In a world where massproduced and unabashedly blended, generic tasting tea is a norm, Castleton is one those few tea gardens committed to preserving legacies and singular virtues of their tea leaves. And, fortunately so, seeing it is the garden that produces what the world has come to regard as the ‘champagne of teas’, the muscatel tea. Funnily enough, this estate has never been really been advertised. Not even for its muscatels. The company has never felt the need to because Castleton enjoys a devoted following among tea lovers across the world. These are people who wait, religiously and patiently, for the season’s produce, some even travelling for days to sample the teas fresh each flush. “I remember a few years ago, a Japanese lady showed up at the factory on a late Sunday evening. On that day, because we had finished with the season and were able to complete our day’s work by lunch time, we had closed down the facility until next morning. She was so upset to find the place shut that day. She called up the facility early next day, telling us how she needed to see Castleton once before she leaves town. She was a big fan of our teas apparently. The next morning when she came down to the factory, she started crying right at the door,” Vikas tells me.
Neither Vikas nor his factory manager, D B Gurung, “got” it. I attempted an explanation about the happy tears. I spoke about the attraction of legacies like Castleton’s and how our [Teabox] customers even seek a deeper connection to their cups of tea, in order to appreciate the tea better. Bewildered looks were exchanged across the room. Theirs is a focused mission, I am told, to guarantee the best quality tea that preserves the estate’s longstanding heritage and reputation. Everything else, sentiments included, is secondary. Castleton estate Castleton was planted in the year 1885. It is north and southwest facing, spread over elevations ranging from 2500 feet to 5000 feet above sea level. It is not a vast and imposinglooking estate, not at the first glance, it’s not. The ridgelines aren’t imposing, they stoop low, and the whole estate has a recklessly uneven quality about it. But even with the [geographic] imperfections, the view is picture perfect. Winter had only just started when I had visited the estate and I expected an offseason lethargy. But, surprisingly, the place was brimming with activity. Pluckers were busy pruning tea plants or replanting cleared sections. A couple of sprinklers had been watering the westfacing section of the muscatel valley, which was now drenched in water as well as light from the bright evening sun. There was no grey and cold in sight and with all the green and bright around me it could very well have been the start of spring.
Chinary tea bushes, still green and glistening
The estate is divided into two main divisions: Castleton and Springside. Each of these divisions is further divided into sections, all of which have been named after very peculiar things, as I found out. Bhalu Khop (bear cave), Dhobitar (washer man’s clothes line), Baseri (graveyard)…all unconnected and just plain odd. Even the estate itself is called by many names. “Some call this place Kumseri, some call it Gaurishankar. The people here have given this place and these sections their names and we’ve chosen to keep it that way,” said Vikas, as explanation. About 70% of the estate is covered in heritage chinary bushes, some over 130 years old. The rest of the estate is planted with high quality clones, including the AV2 and Seeyok 1240, along with Assam hybrids. Most of the high quality clonals are planted higher up in the estate, some all the way up at 5000 feet, which is about as high as tea can flourish. In this elevation, thanks to lower oxygen levels and cold weather, the plants grow slowly, developing highly concentrated flavors that taste bright and are intensely fragrant – two qualities indispensable to a great cup of tea. Between the elevations of 4500 and 3000 feet, the estate is dominated by chinary tea bushes. Thanks to ample sun and temperate climate, tea plants bloom far more easily here. Additionally, this also the elevation at which you can expect to find the perfect teas for producing a muscatel. “This used to be one of the wettest regions in the country, second only to Cherapunji at one point. But lately, the distribution of rainfall has become highly irregular. It’s pours heavily, but you don’t know when it’s going to pour,” notes Vikas. Lately, the estate receives about 200mm500mm of rain between July and September. This makes ‘catching’ the muscatel rather difficult. “There is a very small window of 10 days, sometimes two weeks, to capture the muscatel, which grows only in the late summers, around June. At Castleton, you cannot afford to miss this plucking window,” remarks Arun Kumar Gomden – a retired planter who managed the Castleton factory between 1984 and 2000. The mystery musk In the world of tea, there is no topic more debated than the muscatel. Experts stand divided on what exactly qualifies as muscatel tea. Some say that it refers to the juicy quality of a summer flush black tea, resembling cantaloupes and grapes, while some call it a spicy, fruity taste. To some it’s a matter of fragrance while to others it’s a particular kind of taste, and no two muscatel lovers will budge from their chosen slant. “It’s a special quality, actually. And it’s very hard to describe,” is Mr. Gurung mysterious description of it. He has been with Castleton for a few years now, but has spent over 30 years managing the Seeyok factory, another one of the many famous Darjeeling tea gardens, lately known for its own brand of muscatels. I had hoped he would shed some clarity on this whole muscatel myth and lore, but all I got was a big wad of nada. “I am just a cook, you see. That’s my job – to make the best tasting teas. With a muscatel, you just …know… when you have made a muscatel. The leaves look different, they smell more fragrant, even when they are in the trough,” he continues.
Arun Kumar Gomden is the man who first produced a muscatel black tea, right here in Castleton back in 1985. He was a factory manager back then, and in the summer of that year, the estate produced the most peculiarly fragrant teas, something unconventionally different from the usual. “It was intense, more fragrant than a regular summer tea and fragrant in a very atypical way. It was rich, filled the mouth with the softest fruit flavor, something like grapes, growing in intensity as it flowed. It wasn’t your typical chinary summer black tea. And calling it so was not going to do justice to this tea. And so, we came up with the term ‘muscatel’. It has nothing to do with musk, let me make it clear. But because of its grapelike taste that year, we named this tea after the Muscat grape, widely used in winemaking,” tells Mr Gomden. That was the year muscatel (of FTGFOP1 grade) debuted in the world tea market, sold for the highest price in Calcutta Auction Sale. And six times since, Castleton’s muscatel tea has fetched the highest price at tea auctions everywhere. Prestigious honors, including a gold medal award at the North American Tea Conference of 2014, have become a norm; all proudly displayed at their factory’s tasting room on the ground floor. The estate even set the world record in 1992, when the DJ42 FTGFOP1 (muscatel) batch sold for whopping Rs. 13,001 per kg at the Calcutta auction.
Most Darjeeling estates today produce the muscatel. But none has been able to match up to Castleton’s standards. Some have even gone as far as to dub Castleton’s as the true muscatel, against which every other muscatel is benchmarked. Jungpana tea estate, one of Darjeeling’s top estates located further east of Kurseong, is the closest to a competitor as far the muscatel teas are concerned, but Vikas isn’t worried. “Every time we visit some garden around here, they will offer us every tea but a muscatel. They will never serve us a muscatel,” he says, not without pride.
From left: Estate manager Vikas Gajmer with Asst. manager Vivek Pande
A muscatel tea starts in the garden. Leaves from only the most seasoned chinary plant are plucked (usually two leaves and bud) to make this tea. These plants grow in temperate conditions, typically in an area of a garden which is open and enjoys a lot of sun. Because chinary plants tend to be quite temperamental, easily affected by rigors of nature and planter’s intent, you can never quite predict how its flavors will develop. But over the years, planters have learnt to gauge the behavior these plants from section to section. They can now make a fair assessment about whether a section has the potential for muscatel or not, and the chosen section is then tended to with special care.
Come summer and the entire estate erupts with colors and fragrance of every kind. Summers in Darjeeling starts around April and peaks around May. The initial few ghani (lots) of summer flush tea lie on the lighter side of the flavor spectrum. But by late summers, around June, when it’s humid and rainy the more densetasting teas are produced. And it’s from this lot that muscatels are made. There is no way to physically see a muscatel tea, no visible markers, per se. It’s only when freshly plucked chinary leaves from late summers make it to the troughs in the factory that the planter knows whether or not a muscatel can be made from them. “It takes a seasoned planter to make it. A novice can ruin a perfectly capable chinary by treating it like an ordinary tea. From the moment you sense it, you just take really special care of the leaves that eventually get turned into muscatels,” says Mr. Gurung. These ‘capable’ leaves are typically subjected to short wither and long oxidation. They have to be fired just right, cooked to perfection, one can say, to extract the muscatel quality. “When you are making a muscatel, the whole factory floor turns fragrant, I can almost smell mangoes, sometimes peaches all over the floor,” exclaims Vikas. Everybody else nods in agreement. The myth and the truth Google “what is a muscatel tea?” and you are likely to come across a story about a fruit fly which supposedly infects a tea plant to a point where its chemical compounds ferment and turn fruitier. This story couldn’t be further from the truth. “How can infestation create great agricultural product? If anything, infestation, if left uncontrolled, will destroy the entire cultivable section,” asks Vikas. Logically, this couldn’t be truer. The fact is that chinary tea plants are highly susceptible to infestation because they are the naturally occurring tea cultivars, unaffected by any kind of lab treatment, unlike a clonal plant which, through vegetative propagation of certain desirable qualities, is produced in a lab. Chinary plants tend to get affected by thrips and jassids very frequently but, under controlled conditions, it isn’t harmful and you can still make good tea from this leaf. But a muscatel is a result of intensive care extended to the leaf from the moment a plant is pruned, plucked, processed, and packed. Today, the commodity market price for a muscatel is anywhere between Rs. 1600 and Rs. 7000 per kg, climbing steadily upward year after year. The demand is high and buyers are willing to pay a ridiculous premium for an exceptional muscatel. Which has only complicated the lives of muscatel producers like Vikas. “This is not an easy garden to work with, let me tell you. Everything here comes with its own set of challenges. Be it availability of permanent [and skilled] labor to erratic rainfalls in the middle of the year, there is no way to tell what challenges the season will throw at you,” he says.
A section of Castleton Absenteeism rate in the estate has increased significantly in the last few years, with pluckers opting out of a life in the tea industry. Because of this, Castleton has to rely heavily on seasonal labor, many of whom aren’t skilled and need to be trained in the right plucking techniques each time. There is also the factor of a difficult terrain. Because the estate is widely dispersed, spread on two sides of a national highway that literally cuts through the garden at one point, it is difficult for a plucker to pick a large quantity of leaves in a single round. “If we were to pick only the buds for making our Moonlight white teas from plants at 5000 feet elevation, a plucker couldn’t possibly collect more than a few kgs of buds in the entire day because that’s the kind of attention and care required to do this job.” For the sake of quality, Vikas has to let go of a lot of productivity. “I have a reputation to keep. Great planters have made this estate what it is. Can you believe that Castleton was discounted as a sick property back in the 1980s? Only after we adopted stringent quality practices, with respect to pruning of the plants, soil treatments and novel irrigation techniques, have we been able to grow healthy plants and produce teas like our muscatel. So, if my plants will only let to make an x quantity of tea, I will not force more out of them. You have to respect the plant at the end of the day.”
It is this excruciating attention to the leaf, this incessant need to coddle the crop, which makes Castleton great at what it does, what makes it one of the most desirable luxury products from India*. Truth be told, a tea like the muscatel, with all its elusive qualities and enigmatic charm is nothing but a good chinary leaf, nurtured and processed with a great amount of love and attention. What makes it a muscatel is the ability to spot the potential for muscatel. In my opinion, making muscatel is a matter of talent, not skill. And Castleton is where you come to appreciate the talent. All tea gardens are inherently hopeful. But Castleton offers aspiration. It pays tribute to the genius of old planters who have made the garden what it is and continually builds on their legacies. Chasing authenticity is not an easy feat, but Castleton sees it as a responsibility. They refuse to let outside expectations govern them. Taste trends elude them. Here, their tea, with all its idiosyncrasies and temperament, is all that really matters.
Meeta is a staff writer for Teabox and it's resident tea taster. This article originally published on Teabox.com on February 1st, 2016. Click here to see the original version.
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Recommended Darjeeling Reads by Nicole Martin of Tea for Me Please I can never get enough tea books in my life so I thought this might be a great chance to recommend my favorite reads that are related to Darjeeling. All The Tea in China by Sarah Rose You might be asking yourself, what does a book about Chinese tea have to do with Darjeeling? The answer is everything! This book tells the story of how Darjeeling came to have tea in the first place. Robert Fortune was sent to China undercover by the British government to steal plants and seeds so tea could be grown in India. It's because of this act of agricultural espionage that we enjoy Darjeeling tea today.
The Darjeeling Distinction by Sarah Besky This book is actually an anthropological study of the Darjeeling tea industry but don't let that scare you! It's engaging read that provides a lot of information that I have not seen elsewhere. Darjeeling is a complex region but Sarah does a great job of covering it from many angles, most importantly from the perspective of the tea plantation workers themselves.
Darjeeling: A History of the World's Greatest Tea by Jeff Koehler Jeff offers an in depth exploration of Darjeeling and the Indian tea industry in general. From the East India Company to modern political issues, he covers the entire storied history of the Himalayan hill station. Jeff's passion for tea, Darjeeling and its people add warmth to a story that might otherwise be a bit more doom and gloom.