Nepal First Flush

The dry leaf smells like a very sweet darjeeling — like a fresh, summery “green” black tea without a hint of smokiness or earthiness. After a steep, it smells more vegetal, but still sweet. The tea is pale and yellowy-green and smells a bit like fresh cut grass. (I mean that in a good way!)

The flavor is light and dries my mouth a little bit. It reminds me a bit of local honey in the way that I faintly taste flowers. I think my preparation should have had more leaf, and maybe another thirty seconds since I find the flavor so mild. I will return to this after a second try.

So this is pretty similar to Darjeeling but I like it a lot better than first flush Darjeelings. It seems to be even fruitier and then it also has a bit of butter to it. It definitely has a lot of green tea-ish notes to too.

I didn’t get much in the way of astringency from it. It was very sweet, and I drank it way too fast to notice much else than what I already said. It was that good.

I’ve only had Darjeeling once before in a tea room, so I’m not sure I’ll know what I should be looking for in this, a tea that is said to be similar to a Darjeeling. But in any case, here’s what I found.

I used 2.3g for 200ml of boiling water and did steeps of 2, 3 and 4 minutes. And I’m not feeling very inspired at the moment, so this note will more than likely be a simple blow-by-blow commentary.
1st steep: There was a fair range of color in the dry leaf, from creamy buds and tiny light green leaves to the red- and greasy-brown twists that made up the great majority of this tea. The scents were of bright grape and malt with a background of straw. In the cup it was a light honey color and quite astringent with a slight bitterness. There were flavors of rosy florals and ripe fruit (whether grapes or stone fruit, I couldn’t tell) with a gentle matinees.
2nd steep: I had this with lunch, a creamy chicken salad sandwich, so the astringency of this cut through that nicely. A good pairing. But prior to that, when pouring into my cup I was struck with a scent of peach that made me happy. That the color this time was more peachy was a nice coincidence. I felt the same astringency and bitterness, but since I was eating at the same time, I didn’t get anything new in this cup that wasn’t in the first.
3rd steep: The color is more orange now, and the astringency takes a couple of sips to be noticeable. I could taste fruits and florals, but overall quite weak on flavor.

These must be the most boring notes I’ve written yet about a new tea, so if you’ve got this far, good on you. Going to start a new pot of something else now.

A bit grassy, but not in a bad way. I was expecting it to be a little more “black” in flavor… it’s got a very different feel to it. I see people saying it tastes like oolong, green… and even Fruity Pebbles. I don’t know that any of those really describe it fully, but I can get a sense of each of them. There’s something else, too, that I can’t put my finger on. I almost want to say tobacco, but not in the same way that rooibos tastes like tobacco. Strange.

This tea looks like a black tea before you steep it. Steeps almost like a green tea (Light golden in color) and confuses me whenever I try to place it in any category.

Smells strangely of broccoli, subtle floral notes and with maybe a whisper of mint added to it. Not the normal mint that knocks your nose off kilter, just a slight tingling sensation that whispers of mint on a cold winters day… Kind of a crisp it is cold out slightly minty smell if that makes sense.

Taste wise this one is drastically different than the Yunnan Noir that I was previously drinking this morning. Complex and subtly layered there is a lot here for my tongue to try and get a handle on. Ends on a buttery and slightly bitter note, the bitter part kind of like the ending taste you get from a good IPA (a very hoppy beer for those of you who don’t know). The floral notes from its nose may be what is causing the IPA/hoppy associations to fire in my brain… who knows… it is my brain after all (laughs)!

As I said before this is in the black section of Adagio’s teas and black it may be from the oxidization, however this is unlike any black tea I’ve had before. It is definitely not your typical black lets get this day started type of tea. This is more of a I just had a good meal and want something to sip while having a good conversation with family/friends type of tea. One that other tea drinkers would have fun discussing with you in my opinion.

I’m having trouble trying to come up with a numeric rating on this one. Not what I was looking for this morning, thus it may be lower on my numeric scale now than it deserves. A good tea, although I think I brewed this one at the wrong time today.

Nice tasting light tea, this paired pretty well with some spicy nachos

A lovely little tea with a ripe taste. Like many of Adagio’s teas, I feel it benefits from a slightly shorter brew time than recommended.