Emerald Green

Emerald is a rare picking because these tea bushes flush or regenerate, periodically in a year. I picked the teas that came off an October first week flush, so in Darjeeling terms lets call it an autumnal green Darjeeling tea.
Dry leaves:
Make: The leaf is bold and flaunts that it is gently hand rolled. This is possible with emerald because it comes in small quantities.
Visual: Dark green chunky leaves with a mix of slight light green textures here and there.
Feel: The feel of the leaves are delicately crispy and if you apply some force to hold them the leaves may crack to bits and pieces.
Dry Aroma: I have this tendency to rub the dry leaves and consume the smell before I taste any tea. The smell is savory salty with a hint of lime.

4 Tasting Notes

Freshdarjeelingtea.com

Quite perplexed with the dry leaf smell, I start off with the preparation with two table spoons full of leaves in my guywan. Two table spoons full is a lot of leaves and nearly a quarter of my guywan is full. My water is boiled and kept aside to cool, so that I can use it only after it cools down to 80 C.
Steep 1 for 2 minutes: The leaves have not fully unfurled but the liquor that steeps out is clear light green. The taste is light salty sea weed, vegetal like broccoli and has leaves a sweet after taste.
Steep 2 for 2 minutes: The leaves have unfurled into dark green coloured whole leaves accompanied by green buds. The taste is mellower but now the sweet notes more prominent towards a citrus finish

2009-11-18 04:38:05 -0500

175 °F / 79 °C

2 min 0 sec

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