Darjeling experts;) Need advise...
New to steepster and just lurking till now, quite impressed of the high level of knowledge in this forum.
What are in your opinion the most fragant and tasty Darjeelings that I could sample?
As some member mentioned before, I tend to find Darjeelings a bit weak and short in aftertaste, even brewing them gongfu style with 6-8 grams per 150ml of water.
I’ve never brewed Darjeeling’s gongfu style, always only western style. Never re-steeped the same leaves more than once either.
Sure I brewed Western style first, with a nice bunch of leave and 2 mins with 95ºC and still nothing impressive. That’s why I tried gongfu. Maybe I did not tried a quality Darjeeling.
When I first started with gongfu Darjeeling it was flash steeps say 7gm in 120ml at 195F. The first 2 steeps are always bitter, I modulated with less tea, more water, higher lower temps, nothing worked. Them I used the vendors recommendations which seemed silly 2.5gm 200ml amd 5 minutes steep. It worked. But not all varieties are the same and steep times will vary. The thing is I was exasperated that I could not make a decent cup of Darjeeling but when I steeped according to vendor directions it was like drinking nectar from the gods. Very finicky tea, needs an abundance of patience. The best part is it really is less tea to play around with so that its not too upsetting wasting tea to find the right brew parameter. Good luck.
It really makes sense that the evolution of tea cultivars goes parallel with the brewing style. I mean that the farmers are growing and selecting cultivars to get good results when they brew the way they do. I’ll definitely give another opportunity to my current Darjeelings that way. Thanks for your advice.
I’m not very experienced, only started drinking teas of any kind for a couple of years, and since I’ve been trying a ton of teas, haven’t developed much expertise on any one. Only reason I’ve not tried to gongfu Darjeeling was that normal western brewing seemed to work fine so I didn’t need to bother with anything else – also vaguely remember seeing some post somewhere about western style being the normal way to brew it.
I’ve generally brewed using a pinch (couple of grams maybe?) of tea in a mug of boiling water for 3.5 to 5 mins.
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