Darjeeling second 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.

• Kurseong — 800–1700 metres

  How firm this is: Inferred from general knowledge of the district rather than measured or taken from a source that states it. Gardens straddle a long slope and individual estates span several hundred metres within themselves; the band is indicative.

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.

• P312 — Camellia sinensis var. sinensis

  Where AV2 is planted for first-flush aroma, P312 is planted for second-flush weight. Estates commonly grow both and pick them separately.

• B157 — Hybrid

  Planted widely across Darjeeling and valued for a fuller, rounder cup than the sharply aromatic AV2. Since almost all Darjeeling replanting is clonal, the district’s famous character is increasingly a property of a handful of selections rather than of the old seedling stands.

• BB35 — Hybrid

  Small-leaf hybrid stock suited to Darjeeling elevations, giving an aromatic, muscatel-capable second flush with better yield than seed-grown China bush.

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: Beta-damascenone, Theaflavins.

• 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

The muscatel character that defines the second flush was recognised commercially in the late nineteenth century, and the tea jassid infestation that produces it was for a long time treated as a pest to be sprayed before its role was understood.

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 · 90–95 °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

• Flash-chilled iced tea

  2.5–3.5 g/100 ml · 95–100 °C · 1 authored infusion

  Needs: Glass teapot

  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

Common mistakes

• Over-steeping, which pushes the astringency forward and buries the fruit
• Buying on the district name alone without a flush, which tells you almost nothing

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.

• Assam vs Darjeeling — Both are Indian black teas and the resemblance ends there. They are different plants grown in different climates at different altitudes, and the gap between them is wider than between many teas from different countries. Put the two side by side
• Black tea styles compared — Five black teas that share a processing route and almost nothing else. Anyone who has decided black tea is one flavour has met one of these and generalised from it. Put the two side by side
• 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 Ceylon — Two names that sound like origins and describe very different degrees of specificity. One is a small protected district; the other is a whole country. Put the two side by side
• Darjeeling vs Nepali tea — Neighbouring Himalayan estates growing the same cultivars at the same elevations, separated by a border and a great deal of reputation. 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.

• Adda and the Bengali tea stall — A word for unstructured, purposeless, extended conversation, a stall that exists to host it, tea in a clay cup or with lemon and black salt, and a city where the tea shop functions as a piece of public infrastructure.
• Afternoon tea — A structured mid-afternoon meal of tea, sandwiches, scones and cakes — now largely a hospitality product and an occasion rather than a domestic habit, and routinely confused with high tea.
• 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.
• Tea and the British Empire — How tea moved from a luxury import to an imperial commodity, and the trade, coercion and labour systems that accompanied it — a history TeaHQ records rather than decorates.

Journeys featuring this tea

• Starting with tea — Someone who drinks tea from bags and wants to know what else there is.
• Exploring black tea — Someone who drinks black tea daily and wants to know how wide the category is.
• I drink tea bags — Someone whose entire tea experience is a bag in a mug, wondering whether loose leaf is worth the trouble.
• Learning to taste tea — Someone who can tell they like one tea more than another and cannot say why, and would like to be able to.

Guides covering this tea

• What you are actually paying for
• Single origin, single estate, single garden, blend: a ladder of specificity, not of quality
• Why season and flush change the cup
• Invoice numbers, garden marks and elevation bands: reading an Indian or Sri Lankan lot
• When tea is harvested, country by country