Biodynamic Darjeeling

This tea tricked and impressed me. I received it yesterday as one of four free samples from The Tea Merchant – thank you! It came wrapped up in brown tissue paper with a golden wax seal. LOVED that. I steeped up a cuppa this darjeeling this afternoon and must admit it’s my first darjeeling. While I love black teas, I have not experienced a darjeeling yet so I didn’t know what I was in for. The aroma was a bit musty and reminded me of barns and animals – not in a negative way, but in a hay-ish sort of way. No poo smell, I swear.

Steeped for three minutes, I have a surprisingly light orangeish liquor which shares the aroma of the dry leaf, but more refined somehow. It’s like the dry aroma was a fuzzy picture and the steeped liquor is it’s sharper cousin. The taste is impressive – again, it’s clearly a black tea but really good quality. It’s smooth and has a hint of astringency underneath the tea. I find it hard to describe, other than black tea. My words are failing me today.. EDIT: After reading other reviews, malty totally fits what I am getting here. It’s very malty – I don’t know what muscatel means, really, so I can’t speak to that but it reminds me of rich beer, almost.

I must say that I thought the leaves were a bit small for a pure tea and I expected that to translate into more bitterness, but it doesn’t seem to have. I expected fuller leaf, but this doesn’t suffer for the breakage that is there. Solid black tea – not my favourite, but certainly would make a good standard black in the cupboard.

Thank you again to The Tea Merchant for these samples.

Compared to second flushes, I am not much of a fan of first flush Darjeelings. This is one of the better ones I’ve had though. It’s very sweet, and I get lots of citrus and other fruits…grapes of course and just a hint of apple. It’s floral, but not too heavy. It’s a very light cup as you’d expect with a first flush, complete though with that shot of astringency that makes me love Darjeelings.

I’ll stick with SFs but this isn’t bad at all!

This is my third sample provided by The Tea Merchant. I need to look this up on their website as I don’t know what they mean by ‘biodynamic’, anyway my experience with Darjeeling is a bit limited. I have a bagged Darjeeling from Mother Parker with Saturday breakfast, and I used to drink loose Ahmad Darjeeling. I view the opportunity to taste this tea today as continuing education.

Removing a scoop of leaf from the bag reveals this is CTC, but as has been discussed before, that is not an indication of quality. It is actually a very typical production method for black tea. The scent reminds me of unscented pipe tobacco leaf.

Steeped for 3 minutes with almost boiling water resulted in a golden amber color brew that appears more orange as I pour. The sip is a bit different than I expected. It actually does have an apple like character. When hot it feels brightly tart (astringent?) on the sides of the tongue. This disappears as the cup cools. The apple flavor becomes more apple wood as it cools. Then the traditional muscatel flavors I was expecting begin to show through. At one point I thought I caught cinnamon hints. This seems a bit drying. A really nice cup with no bitterness. It has me craving breakfast.

The sample from The Tea Merchant is huge! I actually added this one to my cupboard just because of the size of it. I do not normally add samples to my cupboard!

This is a light, fruity, sparkling, darjeeling. I do not have much experience with Darjeeling yet, not nearly as much as I have with some other teas. I am very much enjoying this cup!
It is of a high quality, very easily sippable, and a nice light black tea!

As I said there is a sparkling sensation in the mouth, and a very bright mouthfeel.
I get notes of malt but very light notes, there is a flavor and aroma of hay fields, some peachy notes that peek out bashfully now and then which then change to an apple note in the aftertaste. I also get an almost floral flavor that turns to a woodsy one. LOL this is a wonderful experience!

I would keep this in my stash! Going on the shopping list.

Oh and as others have said – their packaging is darling!

Thank you to The Tea Merchant for sending me these samples! I look forward to trying them all, but I thought I’d start today with this Darjeeling. I adore Darjeeling, and this one is so lovely!

I taste notes of wood, spice, apple and muscatel within each sip. I like that the tea is not too much of any one of these things, it is sweet, crisp and light, and keeps the palate fascinated with it’s ability to offer so much without being overwhelming.

A really lovely afternoon tea, even if it is 9 pm!

Thanks to The Tea Merchant for this sample! I am woefully unfamiliar with the intricacies of Darjeelings, but I’d like to broaden my experience with them and I think this is an excellent place to start. They’re a really interesting type of tea—much lighter than a black, but with flavor profiles really different from a green/oolong/white/etc. Actually, maybe a bit similar to an oolong in complexity, and I think there are some Darjeelings that ARE oolongs so I suppose that makes sense! And they brew up so pale—this one is a soft, almost peachy amber.

It smells a little bit like an English Breakfast, but with much softer flavors. The dominant taste to me is woodsy and a bit fruity, apple or grape? It’s faint but crisp, and melds into a softly floral background. It’s very full-tasting, and it lingers in your mouth for quite a while. It’s also quite sweet with no additions, and I’ve gotten 3 good steeps out of it so far!

This is the only quality Darjeeling I’ve tried so I have nothing to compare it to, but I enjoyed it! A very different tea experience, and it left me feeling a bit contemplative. And for some reason, I think this would be really nice cold-brewed, so I’ll be trying it out that way soon!

Big thanks to the Tea Merchant for such a big sample! I am gonna enjoy every ounce :)
The tea itself is quite lovely. Smooth and fruity… but while some other people found mostly muscatel, I could swear I found crisp honey apple! with a little muscatel. and not much astringency at all, which was nice. Must be the Biodynamic part that makes it taste so durn nummy.
My second infusion I added a touch of honey and that was good to, but the first cuppa was better.
Next up, I try this iced! Mmmmm.
Rating: 87

It’s been a week … after several wearying days in a row, I am feeling decidedly undynamic, so let’s see if this helps.

Darjeelings aren’t generally my morning go-to teas; they’re not quite heavy enough for wake-up duty. This one is medium, both in flavor and in “kick.” It’s a juicy thirst-quenching tea, nice fruity background. I’m seeing muscatel and apple in other notes, it reminded me a little of citrus pith. I just need to adjust the time of day I imbibe :)

You’ll like this if you love darjeelings. It’s good quality stuff.

Cheers to Michelle for sending me this and the next Darjeeling I’ll be logging! I feel Darjeeling is a natural follow up to Oriental Beauty and often want to compare them. They both have a the muscatel thing going on, the darjeeling more so, as well as floral and woodsy notes but darjeeling feels more airy and has more high notes, it’s more flowery and peppery where as the formosa has smoother, warmer, lower notes of leather and camphor.

I don’t have a whole lot of experience with Darjeelings compared to some folks on here. I’ve had two from Teavana and one straight from Upton, plus a few in their blends and lovely white one and I got to taste a Darjeeling Oolong at Adagio. Most have been first or second flushes and while I’m sure I could look up their estates in some cases, I don’t recall them off the top up my head.

At first I feel in love with them, then I really disliked them, them I tolerated them and it seems today I am appreciating them more than I have in a long time. And this is quite nice. It starts off tasting like grape leaves and vine, woody and nice balance of green, sweet and salty. But this tea really shines when it’s cooled down, which I think is a testament to its quality, many teas turn bitter when they cool but this one only gets sweeter.

I infused this one three times, the second was my favorite and it had some nice fruity and honey notes. I felt the third tasted a bit watered down despite being steeped for 5 minutes (I actually followed recommended brewing parameter on this one somewhat, though it looks like it might have been Michelle’s recommendation rather than the merchant’s though my first infusion was close to their’s temp wise) but it did develop some interesting pepper notes and then once again sweetened when cooled. Thanks Michelle!

Thanks again to The Tea Merchant for this sample!

Many more leaf colors than I am used to seeing in darjeelings. There are some leaves that are somewhat reddish, even. Very pretty.

I did forget about this while I was sorting laundry and it brewed for a few minutes longer than recommended. That said, I expected a huge hit of astringency at the end and it was only really a medium one. No bitter taste, either.

A bright, clean taste. Very nice. A not unpleasant bite to the scent of the steeped cup, but that may come from oversteeping.

Liberteas Thanks for this!

This darjeeling flavor is right up my alley! JUST-RIGHT! Nice even-steven from beginning to end! YUM!

After a long trip to see my family, I just returned home from a long days drive to find a lovely package of samples from The Tea Merchant. I absolutely adore the wrapping job with the wax stamp. A massive thank you to this lovely new company for the samples! I am so excited to be home and able to drink proper tea again!

Dry: Muscatel smell with a slight floral edge, but not sweet floral. More commanding.
Liquor, 4 minutes: Beautiful amber color with an extremely malty delicious smell! I knew I picked the perfect tea to have as my first tea back home after 12 days! There is a woodsy sweet/ spiciness to this tea. It has a body that is hard to compare.. a yummy pudding that has just been made with warm milk. Thats what is coming to mind for some reason. Beautiful malty notes and the smell, as it cools, is reminding me of saskatoon berry bushes on a hot day. Especially when there are some just-overly-ripe berries there. Perhaps an apple flavour, though very crisp, not sweet.

Overall, I am really enjoying this cuppa. I could definitely see myself drinking this. I am in love with Darj.