Darjeeling Princeton TGFOP1

we had this for breakfast today – I definitely recommend it plain and not with soymilk. Not the best darjeeling I’ve ever had but still very nice. See previous notes. :)

Another Rachel tea! Thanks girl! :)

This is a nice to-go darjeeling. Sure, it has that usual woodsy-bitter-astringency you would think of when drinking a darjeeling but it is a nice middle of the road woodsy-bitter and I mean that in a nice way!

Light in flavor, not bad for when you feel like just having a little pick me up.

First, I have to admit draw to Mariage Frere is the look and shape of its round tin. Then, this particular tea choice is that this is one of only three or four MF that local Williams-Sonoma carry. I already have Marco Polo, have tons of Earl Grey from other tea companies and have a hankering to branch into Darjeelings after my introduction to a sample of Adagio’s Sungma Summer. PLUS, I loved the Darjeeling in 52teas’ Earl Grey Cheesecake. To sum, I drank this to reminisce about other tea experiences and hopefully to create new ones. Darjeeling is a favorite of my MIL so I associate it with afternoon tea sessions with savories like quiche and cucumber salad sandwiches. My recommendation, drink this tea if it is easily available and know it is a gateway tea to better tasting FF Darjeelings. This Princeton is a blend from different estates so, taste-wise, it is a middle-of-the-road experience that isn’t worth the import premium unless you are like me and like vanity tins. This tea won’t be replaced unless you count my eventual refilling (probably with Ovation Teas liquidation Darjeelings I picked up recently). End of review and sorry for all the name-dropping in the process.

Quietly nicking a spoonful of this from my housemate while he’s away… It’s too good to resist.

Unfortunately today I have some cold symptoms so the taste is affected quite a bit, especially considering it’s something as light as a TGFOP darjeeling, but it turned out delicious nonetheless! Recently, also, Twinings UK put up a guide to professional tea tasting on their website: http://twinings.co.uk/about-our-tea/how-to-taste-tea As I have to taste teas for work I’m going to try using this kind of vocabulary and guide from here on out. So with my inability-to-smell-handicap, here are my thoughts today:

This darjeeling brews very very light. A good teaspoonful with boiling water didn’t brew to an amber for quite some time, remaining golden for a few minutes (I tend to judge when a tea is ready by its colour- perhaps something I should avoid doing in future after this?), and having left it has possibly made it more astringent and dry than is normal for this tea. It’s toasty and light without that heavy roasted taste of many black teas, due to its quality I should think, and the toastiness comes towards a floral flavour, even very slightly hops-like and edging into wood flavours. It is really, however, very dry and bitter towards the end.

I’m rounding this off with a little unsweetened soy milk as the tannins are proving too much for me at the end of a tiring day, but lighter, with an afternoon tea, I think this tea could be taken black perfectly!

It’s a well rounded FF Darjeeling with much of the astringency becoming apparent when brewing the tea for the recommended time of 5 minutes at 90C or 95C (on the MF website). it is on par with their other teas like Springside. Comparing this Darjeeling to other retailers i would consider it a good tea. Comparing to the premium Mariage Freres FF Darjeelings, the taste is average. I used to love this tea until I tasted the FF Margaret’s Hope, FF Namring Upper, and FF Castleton.

Slightly bitter yet tasty underneath: yes, I’m at work on Saturday morning, but I really do enjoy my job. Also I’m drinking tea.

I went to one of my favorite stores yesterday, and came across this tea. I’ve never heard of this french company before then. It looked like a pretty good tea to try. It says it’s the perfect tea for 5:00, but I had it with breakfast today. The smell was floral, and fruit-like. The leaves were very typical of a Darjeeling: multiple colors of green, yellow, and light brown. The tea leaves were actually quite beautiful looking.
Because this is the first tea of this company I’ve tried, I decided to do a “quality check”, to make sure the stem to leaf ratio was small. Thankfully it was. I brewed the tea for about 4 1/2 minutes, at which point I decided that was enough to taste the full body. The aroma of the brew also smelled floral, but lost it’s fruity scent. To me, the tea tasted great. It seemed like the mixture of a white and a black tea. It was as smooth as silk, and filled with flavor. It wasn’t too brisk, nor too light. It sat somewhere in the middle. This company seems promising enough to try some of their other teas, which I hope are as good as this.

A woodsy, not overly sharp smell comes from the dry leaf. I steeped at a lower temp than usual, 195F for 3:30. I think I might have to up the temp some. The tea’s color is a sort of apricot-to-amber and a bit on the pale side, which makes me think hotter might get more out of the leaf.

I smell the Sakura from yesterday in the steep — it must have worked its way into the Breville or I failed to rinse it fully. The flavor is mild, vaguely like champagne.

I am going to do this again at 200 instead, and hope that the Sakura has been ousted.

Second try at 200F. The combination of the hotter temp, and the Sakura having washed away (or at least not being noticeable) is an improvement. The tea is a little darker amber, too.

This is a very mild darjeeling. Smooth, no sharp notes at all. No water logged effect on the stomach that I sometimes get with first flush darjeelings.

This is actually a blend of teas from various estates. I don’t think there is a Princeton estate — I did google it and nothing came up, but I suppose it could be the one thing that managed to escape google.

The tea has a fruity aspect, grape, maybe some plum. And a woody aspect, though it is subtle. Not much earthiness.

It’s really everything I like about first flush darjeelings and nothing I don’t, which is why it is getting high marks from me.

(note: I’m not sure if this is the correct MF Darjeeling; I’m using the original tin to store things in the office so will double-check and cut/paste the review elsewhere if necessary)
Was finally in the mood for that last leetle bit of Darjeeling sitting in a leetle glass jar in the back of my tea drawer. The black tea has a rich flavor with a faint not-unpleasant bitterness at the end (reminds me vaguely of bergemot but I’m pretty sure that’s not it). I don’t really know what else to say about it because I don’t have a big tea-describing vocabulary. It’s good!