Earlier this week we were in San
Francisco, attending the 2nd Annual San Francisco
International Tea Festival. There were many wonderful exhibitors
with their wares at this festival. It took us a two hours to check
out the exhibits. Unfortunately, there were items downstairs that we
never got to see as we ran out of time. However, we felt very
fortunate to have met so many wonderful people at this event.
We had signed up for a Darjeeling tea
tasting and were not only very eager to taste these teas, but also
to meet with the Glenburn Tea Estate people themselves, and to learn
more about the Glenburn Darjeeling teas. Sidhant Prakash was one of
the two speakers for this tasting. Both speakers were very
knowledgeable and a joy to talk too.
Before we started tasting eight teas,
we were given a little background information that was fun to absorb.
First of all it takes 1,000 leaves to make a pound of ready to steep
tea. Sixty percent of all of the work is done by hand, of which all
of their tea is handpicked. When it comes to picking tea by hand, it
is not as easy as it looks. Tea requires an exact plucking
technique. The plucker wants of course to only get the first two
leaves and a bud, not the stem.
Tea is effected by soil and climate.
Tea from the Glenburn estate is grown on the western slopes of the
Darjeeling mountains between 1,000 and 5,000 feet.
One tidbit of knowledge that I learned
was that teas harvested during Monsoon season (July-September) have a
much mellower taste due to the over abundance of water. When the
plant gets less water, it stresses out a bit and has a stronger tea
taste. This occurs during the harvest; March to June and October
thru November.
The winter months are used to prune
the tea plants and perform many other tasks that cannot be done
during the harvest season, one of which will be working on an
irrigation system.
Of the eight teas that we tasted with
Glen burn Tea Estates, there were three that really stood out for us.
First, was a lovely white tea called Moonshine, which had a lovely
citrusy taste, a light liquor, and finished well on the tongue. It
was very tasty. This tea is harvested in March at the beginning of
the tea season. Our second favorite tea was a white
tea, Silver Needle. Silver Needle is harvested during the Monsoon
season and therefore has a much more mellow taste. I found the aroma
to be wonderfully intoxicating. The tea liquor had a lovely
light appearance and finish on the tongue was smooth and buttery. The other tea which we both favored
was the Autumn Oolong, which is harvested in November. The Autumn
Oolong had a wonderful aroma and a coloury liquor. It had a
wonderful crisp sensation in the mouth and left a nice lingering
taste.
It was sad to leave the San Francisco
International Tea Festival and the Bay Area, but hopefully we will
return sooner rather than later. There is always joy in hoping of a
return trip. I'm already planning what we would do the next time we
visit. Of course, tea is always in the plan. How could it not be?
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