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Fresh tea straight from India! I’m actually pretty impressed it only took three days to arrive here. Before I begin, my experiences with first flush darjeelings is quite limited. I browsed around, curious to find somewhere to start. Most vendors have most of this stuff relatively high priced and depending on the garden it comes from, price fluctuates a lot.Out of a few websites, Lochan offered the cheapest available, so i went ahead and grabbed the cheapest and most expensive one they offer. (In truth though, i can’t say $8 for 100g is anywhere near expensive) Sites such as Thunderbolt and Tea Emporium charge up to and around $30 for a Thurbo first flush. Figuring I didn’t have much to lose, I put in an order. Story goes, that the wonderful folks from FedEx opened up the package from Lochan and opened up the tea too! Thankfully they only one they ripped open was the free masala chai they threw in with the order (a generous 50g too I must say) but I really didn’t care much for the chai at all so I was glad it was the only one they opened.

On to the brew, nice golden colour not getting much muscatel flavours. This one is really light tasting, a hint of malted barely sweetness and slight astringency. No spiciness from what I can tell (supposedly some first flush darjeelings have this flavour profile). It was not as fruity as I was hoping for, but still makes a nice cup of tea. The leaves are mostly broken but not dust like small. I’m actually currently preferring my Nilgiri Parkside from CS more than this, but as far as value goes Lochan has done fairly well. I cannot comment on how this would compare to a higher grade darjeeling and I am curious to find out really, how much of a difference it would make.