OK, I have no idea what I’m doing with this tea. Darjeeling is foreign to me so I definitely need to take a class or two. Did my prerequisite reading but there is so much it confuses rather than directs. It seems mostly brewed western style but that didn’t stop me from doing a gongfu session with the two packets from the box courtesy of Steepster. I don’t know why I resist western brewing so much, probably has to do with my impatient nature not wanting to go the whole 4 minutes in order to taste my tea.
I thought that the two packets looked like a lot of tea for 160 ml pot, and I was right, the first steep was way powerful after 20 seconds. I did 15 sec for the 2nd and 3rd steeps and back up to 20 for the 4th. The 4th was the best of the lot, nice muscatel, apricot, flowery, spiced tea with a pronounce bitter aftertaste which was not cringe worthy but seemed like it was meant to be there. The energy was more than I like but I need to awake for the evening “get out of town” for the weekend. This reminded me of oolong more than black, guess I will wait for now and read more reviews of Darjeeling before adding to my cupboard. If anyone knows of a good resource please pass it on.
Flavors: Apricot, Cedar, Cloves, Flowers, Mineral
FF I usually make at 190F 2,5-3 min western. Im not an expert. Read excelsior ( I hope I spelled it right. He is. He orders FF fr Mariage Freases every year. Ask him ?? He is very passionate abt Darj