Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black (Darjeeling)
Where to Buy: Canton Tea Co.
Product Description:
The Giddapahar Tea Estate is a small, family-owned Darjeeling tea estate and is also known as ‘Eagles Cliff’. The slopes are shrouded in mist most of the time, giving the Chinese tea bushes just the conditions they need to produce wonderfully fragrant leaves. Once they have been skilfully processed according to age-old methods, the Giddapahar China Delight Darjeeling is one of the very best teas available of this grade with wonderfully sweet, mildly nutty, complex characteristics.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
This is such an interesting Darjeeling. Usually, one of the first things that becomes apparent to me when I sip a Darjeeling is the grape-y, wine-like flavor to it … the muscatel. But here, I noticed first a warm, toasty nut flavor. It tastes sweet, like almonds.
That is not to say that the muscatel is not there … it is. But, it is presented differently. Instead of a straight-forward muscat grape flavor, I notice this almond with mere hints of the muscat. Toward the finish, I notice a slight black currant flavor peeking its way through.
It is a light tasting tea, as is usually the case with a Darjeeling, and this lightness allows for the lovely complexity of the tea to shine through. It begins sweet and crisp, with the aforementioned almond taste, by mid-sip, I notice hints of musty wood … again, mere whispers of flavor, and the fruit-like tones begin to reveal themselves as the sip nears the finish.
There is a fair amount of astringency that arrives toward the end of the sip … but, even as astringency is generally expected with a Darjeeling, I am noticing that the astringency here is a bit softer than in other Darjeeling teas. It finishes sweet with a lingering nutty tone in the aftertaste.
A deliciously intriguing Darjeeling, one deserving of the time to contemplate it’s many layers of flavor.
