These leaves landed on my tea table in the form of a free 3 gram sample that was kindly included in a recent order I made over at House of Tea.

According to their notes this tea is a product of the Rohini estate, which is located at Kurseong in Darjeeling. These leaves grew at an altitude of about 1000 metres, and are of the AV2 cultivar. As the name suggests, this is a second flush tea, summer 2017 to be precise. The tea was hand rolled, and is comprised of a relatively large amount of buds.

I brewed up the 3 gram sample in a 2 dl ceramic teapot, using filtered tap water at 100°C. I performed 3 infusions of 1½, 1½, and 2 minutes duration.

These certainly were very pretty leaves, and for such a small sample they gave an equally attractive, not to mention flavoursome, liquor.

There was the usual Darjeeling floral aromatics, mais naturellement, but this was backed up with a raisin like sweetness, that also reminded me of that British classic, the Bourbon biscuit.

The body was a little beefier than one might expect from a Darjeeling, almost reminiscent of a Yunnan hong cha, which together with a slight astringent nip that showed up towards the back end of the session left me with the feeling that, from my own perspective at least, this tea would work well as a “non Summer” Darjeeling, if that makes sense.

I might just get some in – I can picture it working well in an Autumnal, late afternoon, just as it’s starting to get dark slot, with both that dark comforting warmth, and that flowery callback to a lighter, sunnier season.

Certainly worth a closer look. Nice.