Darjeeling first flush

Where it grows

The districts recorded against this tea, all of them in India. Elevation is given as the band the district is recorded at, not a measurement of the garden this leaf came from.

• Darjeeling — 600–2000 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it. Gardens span a wide vertical range; the figures are indicative rather than sourced.

• Mirik — 1000–1900 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it.

• Teesta Valley — 300–1500 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it. A very long vertical drop within a short horizontal distance; the lower plots sit far below the district’s usual reputation for altitude.

The plants it is made from

Cultivar is the level below the variety group: a named selection of the tea plant, propagated as clones from one parent. Most consumer writing stops at the country and the category, which leaves out the layer that decides how the leaf behaves before anyone picks it.

• Camellia sinensis var. sinensis — Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

  Small, narrow, serrated leaves on a shrubby bush with good cold tolerance. Slower-growing and lower-yielding than assamica, and associated with more aromatic, less tannic character — which is why it dominates in the categories where aroma matters most.

• AV2 — Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

  The rise of AV2 is the main reason Darjeeling first flush tastes different now from thirty years ago — a cultivar shift, not a change in processing.

• T78 — Variety group not established

  A clonal selection propagated by cuttings, so a planted section is uniform in bush size and flush timing where the old seed-grown stock beside it is not. Its individual traits are less consistently reported than AV2's.

• China jat — Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

  Small, narrow, hard leaf on slow, low-yielding, long-lived bushes with deep taproots. Later-budding and lighter-cropping than the clones, and generally the material behind the district’s most highly regarded first flushes.

How it is made, in order

Read top to bottom: the list is the production sequence, and the sequence is what makes this tea its category rather than a neighbouring one. The same leaf from the same bush becomes a green tea or a black tea depending on where the heat falls relative to the bruising, so reordering these steps would not vary the tea — it would produce a different one.

1. 1. Withering — Reduces water content, softens the leaf for later handling, and permits early enzymatic and aromatic development.
2. 2. Rolling and shaping — Ruptures cell walls to expose leaf juices, and forms the leaf into the shape it will hold through drying and storage.
3. 3. Oxidation — Allows polyphenol oxidase to act on leaf polyphenols after cell rupture, converting them into the larger coloured compounds that give oxidised tea its colour and body.
4. 4. Drying — Reduces residual moisture to a level at which enzymatic, microbial and oxidative change effectively stops, stabilising the leaf for storage.

The route it is made by

The steps above are what happens; this is the named production route they belong to, with the other teas made the same way.

• Orthodox black tea — Rupture first and let the reaction run. Heat arrives only at the very end, to stop something that has already been allowed to finish.

  Where it is practised: The whole of the fine black tea trade: Darjeeling, Assam's orthodox lines, Sri Lanka, Nilgiri, Nepal, Kenya's orthodox factories, and the Chinese gongfu black teas of Fujian, Anhui and Yunnan, which run the same shape with markedly gentler settings.

What its chemistry turns on

Every true tea contains caffeine, catechins and amino acids, so listing them would say nothing about this one. What differs is what the processing above does to them — and that is the same list of steps, read for its chemistry instead of its craft.

The compounds that substantially decide what this tea is: Linalool, Linalool oxides, Methyl salicylate.

• Withering
  • creates Geraniol
  • creates Linalool
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Theasinensins
  • raises Methyl salicylate
  • raises Nerolidol
  • raises Soluble sugars
  • lowers cis-3-Hexenol
  • lowers Green-leaf volatiles
  • lowers Leaf lipids
• Rolling and shaping
  • converts Leaf lipids
  • creates Theaflavins
  • raises Pectins
• Oxidation
  • converts Carotenoids
  • converts Catechins
  • converts ECG (epicatechin gallate)
  • converts EGC (epigallocatechin)
  • converts EGCG (epigallocatechin gallate)
  • converts Epicatechin
  • converts Linalool
  • creates Beta-damascenone
  • creates Beta-ionone
  • creates GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid)
  • creates Linalool oxides
  • creates Tea cream
  • creates Theaflavins
  • creates Thearubigins
  • raises 2-Phenylethanol
  • raises Geraniol
  • raises Nerolidol
  • lowers Anthocyanins
  • lowers Theogallin
• Drying
  • creates Strecker aldehydes
  • raises Beta-damascenone
  • raises Thearubigins

These are statements about the leaf and the cup. What any of these compounds does in a body is a different kind of question and is not answered here or on the pages linked from it.

History

Darjeeling was planted from the 1840s using Chinese seed obtained when the East India Company was trying to break China’s monopoly. The small-leaf sinensis stock that arrived is why Darjeeling tastes nothing like Assam despite both being Indian — a botanical accident of industrial espionage.

TeaHQ synthesis — TeaHQ's own reading of well-attested general knowledge, with no single source behind it.

Brewing

• Western brewing (teapot or mug)

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 85–90 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Western teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

• Gongfu brewing (gaiwan)

  4–5 g/100 ml · 90–95 °C · 5 authored infusions

  Needs: Gaiwan

  Open in the brew assistant

• Mug infuser brewing

  1–1.5 g/100 ml · 85–92 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Mug infuser basket

  Open in the brew assistant

• Cold brew tea

  1.2–2 g/100 ml · 4–10 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Glass teapot

  Open in the brew assistant

Common mistakes

• Using boiling water, which strips the aromatics
• Adding milk, which buries everything distinctive about it
• Expecting muscatel character, which develops in the summer picking instead

When the cup goes wrong

Written against black tea as a category rather than against this tea in particular, and worked back from the symptom to the likely causes in order. 19 apply to the category; the first 6 are shown.

• My chai catches on the pan or boils over — A scorched note runs through the finished drink, or the pan foams over the moment your back is turned.
• My chai is harsh and drying rather than rich — The drink is strong enough but unpleasant with it: a rough, drying grip on the tongue and a flat cooked note, rather than the round sweetness a good chai has.
• My chai tastes of hot spiced milk rather than tea — The drink is pleasant and sweet and the tea is nowhere in it — no colour to speak of, no briskness, and nothing that would tell you tea had been involved.
• My iced tea has gone cloudy — Tea that was clear when hot turns hazy or milky once chilled.
• My iced tea tastes watery once the ice melts — The tea is good for the first mouthful and thin by the bottom of the glass.
• My milk curdles or separates in the tea — Flecks or threads appear when the milk goes in, or the surface breaks into small islands, and the drink looks grainy rather than smooth.

Every diagnosed brewing problem

If you like this

Grouped by why they were suggested, strongest reason first. Nothing here is a blended score — a suggestion appears under the best reason that exists for it, and never under a weaker one as well.

Compare this tea with another

Written comparisons

Where TeaHQ has set this tea against another in full, rather than deriving the comparison. Each one is a written page with the points of difference argued out.

• Darjeeling first vs second flush — The same bushes on the same slopes, picked eight weeks apart, producing teas that share little beyond a name and a district. Put the two side by side
• Darjeeling first, second and autumn flush — One district, three pickings, and three teas so different that a drinker who liked one may well dislike the next. The third gets the least attention and is the one most likely to suit someone who found the other two thin. Put the two side by side
• Darjeeling vs oolong — Darjeeling first flush is so lightly oxidised that the category boundary is worth questioning, and comparing it with an oolong shows why. Put the two side by side

Where this tea is drunk

Documented practices that name this tea. Each page describes what is done and by whom, and separates what is recorded from what is repeated.

• Assam and Darjeeling garden heritage — The plantation and garden system that produced India's two best-known tea regions, its auction and grading structures, and the labour history that sits underneath both.

Guides covering this tea

• Rainfall, temperature and the dormant season
• How long tea keeps, by category — as ranges and as what changes
• Harvest date against best-before date, and why only one of them is about the tea
• Why season and flush change the cup
• The tea clippers, and why the races stopped
• What earns a quality premium, and why most tea never will
• Geographical indications as an economic instrument
• Invoice numbers, garden marks and elevation bands: reading an Indian or Sri Lankan lot
• How Darjeeling became a protected name
• Why the same tea differs from year to year
• When tea is harvested, country by country