Jun Chiyabari Estate Nepal Tea

This was an exceptional cup. Light, fruity, fresh, with some floral overtones. Light yellow liqour. Really pleasant. I may have to buy a tin of this.

I love the very faint apricot and fennel notes. Really good tea.

This was one of the highlights of the last few years of tea drinking—a truly memorable cup. Like a darjeeling on steroids, fruit, sugar and herb notes were powerful without being overwhelming. The dry leaf was a thing of beauty in itself. While I’ve had a couple of ordinary teas from this fledgling estate, when they get it right, they can produce some of the best teas in the India/Nepal region.

I can understand how people would love this tea, but it just wasn’t for me. I guess the flavors that just predominate for me are earthy and mossy. I really didn’t get the fruity notes at all, though now that I think about it there was faint liquorice flavor. And the liquorice is definitely more pronounced when smelling the dried leaves. I tried this tea again and again wanting to like it more, but I just didn’t. For me it is good, but just not spectacular. I predominately drink green and black and this just wasn’t one I liked though it seems like a high quality tea. The taste is like a somewhat less toasty and smoky formosa oolong, but definitely similar in body. There is a bit of fennel and mint and its very smooth. It also stands up to quite a few steeps, which is nice.