Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Darjeeling Tea Lovers
Tea Description:
GOPALDHARA WONDER ‘GOLD’ one of the most popular tea among the Darjeeling Tea Connoisseurs. A very limited stock is manufactured from the YOUNG TEA PLANTATIONS of this garden and this particular lot has been tagged as GOLD due to the supreme quality.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
The dry leaf looks a lot more like a green tea than a black tea. The aroma is pleasantly floral. Because the leaves are more “green” than black, I would advise not going higher than 195°F to brew this tea – that’s what I used and I’m quite pleased with the result. This is my usual ‘go-to’ temperature when it comes to Darjeeling teas, because they don’t seem to be as fully oxidized as other black teas are, even though they are usually categorized as a black tea. Darjeeling teas tend to be a little more delicate and should be treated differently.
I brewed these beautiful pale green, silvery tipped leaves in my Breville One-Touch. I used 2 bamboo scoops of leaf and 500ml of water heated to 195°F, and steeped the leaves for 2 ½ minutes. As I said before, I’m quite pleased with the resulting tea. Delicious!
Then again, I’ve been blown away by all the teas that I’ve tried from this company. Let me tell you, Darjeeling Tea Lovers KNOWS Darjeeling tea. If you’re a devotee of Darjeeling tea, this is a company you should be exploring. They have some of the very best Darjeeling teas I’ve ever tasted.
And this Gopaldhara Wonder Tea is indeed a wonder! Wonderful, that is! Sweet, crisp and refreshing! The liquid is somewhere between gold and green. It’s much paler than many Darjeeling teas that I’ve had this year. And it has a “greener” sort of taste to me. It tastes lighter and cleaner than a typical “black” Darjeeling. This doesn’t have that “muscatel” flavor that you might expect from a Darjeeling. This tea seems more focused on the sweet, delicate notes of flower. I taste notes of jasmine! Nice!
There are also delicate vegetal notes. Not so much vegetable (as in steamed veggies) as it is lightly grassy. But this is a sweet grassy note, not a bitter one. The sip starts out sweet and I pick up on the floral notes right away. Toward mid-sip, some of those lightly sweet, grassy notes start to come into focus. The sip ends with a floral note that is jasmine-esque, and this flavor lingers into the aftertaste. There is a light astringency at the start of the cup, and this astringency does develop as I continue to sip, but never becomes a really strong or what I would call astringent tea, instead, it’s a moderate astringency that leaves the palate feeling clean and invigorated.
An excellent afternoon tea – break out this tea when you have special guests over that you’re looking to impress! Or save it for an afternoon when you have time to reflect – this is one of those teas that I’d call meditative! The kind of tea that I want to enjoy when I don’t have a 101 different things to do … or the kind of tea I want to enjoy when I do have 101 things to do but I want to forget about them and just enjoy a moment for me!
Castleton Autumnal Wonder (2013) from Darjeeling Tea Lovers
Tea Information:
Leaf Type: Black
Where to Buy: Darjeeling Tea Lovers
Tea Description:
CASTLETON AUTUMNAL WONDER, a brilliant tea from the CASTLETON TEA ESTATE a garden of GOODRICKE GROUP LTD.
Clonal teas from CASTLETON TEA ESTATE have always been special and rare. One of the most difficult tea to source due to its high demand.
This tea comes from pure AV – 2 bushes which have been very finely plucked during the early mornings (before sunrise) when the dew is present on the leaves. The dew adds more prominent floral flavour to this rare tea. A tea full of fruity floral notes, the aroma of brewed leaves is enough to make your mouth water.
Learn more about this tea here.
Taster’s Review:
I absolutely LOVE the aroma of these dry leaves! They are sweet and distinctly floral with notes of fruit. The brewed tea smells a bit less floral and more fruity than the dry leaves. There is a slight herbaceous note to the aroma as well, reminding me somewhat of basil.
I love the way the fruit and flower flavors meld. The floral tones are softer in taste than the fruit notes, the fruit notes are profound! There is a muscatel note (grape!) and hints of crisp apple and every once in a while, I swear I could also taste a whisper of apricot in there too. The grape-y notes give this an almost wine-ish taste, complete with a slightly dry finish. The dryness is not abrupt, it’s a smooth finish.
The floral notes are much more subtle, but they offer a nice sweetness to this as well. The aforementioned herbaceous notes translate only slightly to the taste, and I notice these more in the aftertaste than in the actual sip. I draw in a breath across the palate, and I experience a cooling sensation, as if I had one of those tiny mints. (You know which ones I’m talking about, right?) The palate feels clean after a sip.
If you’re a fan of Darjeeling teas, you really need to try some teas from Darjeeling Tea Lovers! Their Darjeeling selections are top-notch, I’m always impressed with the teas that I try from them.