The 2016 First Flush Darjeeling thread
I’m really excited about this years Spring flush. Mainly because I have a boatload more knowledge this year, and also because theres a big space in my tea box for more Darjeeling.
Anyone have any tips for what to look out for this year? Arya Ruby & Singbulli Silk have been the standouts in my journey so far this last year, and am interested to try their new harvests.
Thank you for posting this! I’m just beginning to try darjeelings.
I’m in the UK, as for good vendors, from Canton I got good unbroken leaf & Mariage Freres is good also.
Yeah if you can get some Arya ‘Ruby’ of a good grade its really nice spring flush stuff.
Turzum ‘Muscatel Dream’ has been my favourite second flush. It really smells of muscatel. A lot. lush aroma
As I’m sure you know, TeaBox has such a huge coverage and partnership.
If you are huge on Darjeeling I’d say look for http://www.teabox.com/tea/samples-of-all-2015-darjeeling-spring-first-flush-teas when the 2016 one comes out.
Also, you get DJ+number for when the batch was picked. DJ1 is the first batch of the flush.
For low-grown teas lower numbers are better because the season finishes more early than the higher elevation gardens for which later DJ numbers are ‘better’
So yeah, im gonna get out my map mid feb and work out who is who
Still trying to work through my FF2015 Darjeelings. Marriage Freres was late and was still getting shipments in the fall for their Spring Darjeelings. As the flavor and taste of Darjeelings vary year to year depending on the climate and growing conditions, there is no sure bet of what might be good for 2016.
For 2015 I’ve tried:
Castleton FF
Margaret’s Hope FF
Bloomfield FF
Happy Valley FF
Moodakotee FF
Singbulli FF
Namring Poomong FF
Arya FF
Jungpana Upper FF
Puttabong Supreme FF
And none really stood out as being the better estate out of the group. The really big disappointment was Castleton. All of the teas required extended steeping times to extract the full flavor. Let me know if you find one you really like for the FF2016 Darjeelings.
Mariage usually has a large selection of DJ1 pickings but I really don’t see a correlation in the DJ number and taste.
Thats interesting about the DJ pickings, I thought it was a thing – will probably save me some money then as I was going to do some competition between them.
Nice to see another Darjeeling fan, it doesnt seem to get much love around here.
I tried:
Arya
Giddapahar
Goomtree
Gopaldhara
Puttabong
Singbulli
Thurbo
Tumsong
this year.
Do you know what makes good conditions for the spring flush?
More rain. For the past several years, the Darjeeling area has been suffering from lack of rain.
I have too much on hand to buy more, but had very good luck with these guys:
http://www.thunderbolttea.com/
Liquid Proust beat me to it, but Teabox.com is excellent. They have a great collection and their website has a lot of information about each of their teas. Their teas are shipped vacuum packed and shipped directly from the source, and yet it always arrives more quickly then I think it should. I watched the tracking website in amazement once as my tea made it from Darjeeling to my house in just five days.
I’m glad to hear of someone else anticipating the first flush as much as I am. I look forward to reading your tasting notes. If you are interested in swapping some let me know!
Oh, and if you would like to try Teabox.com you can use my referral link to sign up: http://teabox.ref-r.com/c/i/7054/2893026 It will give both of us $10 off our next order. There may be a minimum order, I’m not sure.
Just had my first spam email for an EX1. I dont know what the difference is in taste between EX & DJ but ive read that one of the differences is with size of harvest, as after the flush you get more tea.
It was explained by Mariage Freres that EX stands for experimental and they use artificial irrigation for the Namring early releases of the Poomong Upper and now the King Upper for this year. As for taste, I found the Namring Poomong Upper FF2014 and FF2015 to be more delicate, lighter in both taste and body. Whether the taste, flavor, and quality of the King is worth the premium price of 60e remains to be seen. Last year, I purchased both the Margaret’s Hope FF, and Margaret’s Hope Supreme FF. The difference in taste was only marginal and I preferred the cost performance of the regular Margaret’s Hope and not the higher priced Supreme. I hope your ex is aggressively performing her rain dance.
haha just imagining her doing that is making me chuckle. (if you knew her you would too – big wild hair, mad as a box of frogs)
I have bought margerets hope before and enjoyed it out of the SF teas – is there a correlation between the taste of FF & SF? like if the 2nd is really muscatel, will the first exhibit a similar flavour?
What I like about First Flush teas is it’s infinite possibilities of adjusting the taste according to what you like. Using normal parameters, 5 grams, 300ml, 3 minutes, 90C will leave you with a slightly lighter taste. Like it stronger? More tea and increase steeping time. Like it more astringent? Increase the steeping time. Etc.
Yet because First Flush Darjeelings are temperamental and complex in flavor, it is also sometimes difficult to nail down what parameters will lead you to extract the best taste possible according to your preferences. This is one main reason why I never order samplers and will at least purchase 50g so I can make multiple brews and determine what I feel are the best parameters. I do this every year and will order a wide variety of First Flushes as they become available.
Not much of a correlation when comparing First and Second Flushes. It’s almost like comparing apples to oranges.
Happy Brewing!
Just tried some Namring queen, thanks RuiA :)
really nice stuff, sugar and flowers and fruit, with an underlying almost nuttiness that I get from FF darjeeling. I cant work that flavour out but its a dry savoury one and just is really nicely in the background here.
I need to try more steeping parameters but the first one had nothing bad at all in there. No bitterness, it was fluffy and sweet.
God I love decent darjeeling
You are welcome. Namring Queen Upper this year was one of the best Darjeelings I have sipped. It is almost faultless.
Interesting. I’ll have to include both the King and Queen the next time I order from Mariage Freres. What parameters did you use?
190F at 3 minutes?
I did 176f 3 minutes with the aim of pushing it more next time, will try 190f tomorrow morning and let you know
Rui just told me he did it grandpa style and it worked well, so im guessing the major lack of bitterness i noticed is prevalent even with this method
just did a 90c 3 minutes, zero bitterness., – it could be pushed more. I am eyeing the amounts because my scales ran out of batteries. A good pinch and another bit for luck.
I cant describe the aroma and taste but its the classic FF darjeeling almost nutty fruity thing. I wish I knew the word to describe it, but I could drink this all the time. very nice. Not as strong as others in certain ways but so pleasant because of it.I would be interested to see what others think
I really wanted to like this tea. It has a fruity sweet flavor with some floral notes as well. Yet this is where the tea ends. No depth, no body, some complexity, and very light. I tried 180F at 3 minutes. Increased the amount of tea, 195F, 4 minutes. 195F, 5 minutes. At 5 minutes, the nuttiness really comes apparent, the fruitiness disappears, yet it still lacks body and depth. Yes, I can get a large amount of body from a robust, Summer Flush Darjeeling yet the bold brisk taste will sometimes mask the other flavors the tea has to offer. I like the combination of body, depth, complexity, and a very small bit of astringency rounding out the taste. The taste and flavor only a fine FF Darjeeling can offer.
I had a discussion about body and depth of Spring Flush Darjeelings a while back with Mariage Freres. They were explaining some of their Spring Flush Darjeelings will develop more body and depth as they age. I surmise this is the reason why some of their Spring Flush teas are first offered towards the fall and even towards the end of the year. Like the FF Margaret’s Hope 2015, which they started offering in November of 2015. I bought enough of the other 2015 FF Darjeelings to last me for the next 4 to 5 months. By August, they should have a better selection of their 2016 FF Darjeelings. I also bought a large stash of High Mountain Taiwanese from TTC which should also last me for 4 to 5 months. Other than that, I have my unflavored green Rooibose I brew cold for the upcoming Spring and Summer months.
For the 2016 FF Queen Namring, even if it develops more body, it does not justify the 68 euros for 100g.
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