Glenburn Estate Darjeeling

This tea is awesome. I’ve been searching for my perfect cup of Darjeeling, and this is the closest I’ve found yet.

The only things I could wish for are more aggressive tannins and a stronger floral finish. (I want a Darjeeling that can stand up to a curry dish!) Maybe I’ll try brewing this one for a bit longer next time to see how it does.

Sipdown of a sample from the wonderful Terri!
I’m just back from a week in Berlin, and it seems that I have brought winter back with me: it is finally cold and rainy in Tel Aviv. When I say cold, I of course mean relatively cold – it’s 14 degrees outside. Nevertheless, I took the opportunity to drink three cups of tea this evening. This is the final cup, a delicate golden yellow Darjeeling, with fine, long, greyish green leaves that become a peaceful olive green when married with hot water.
You nose is greeted with a gentle citrus scent, and you expect great things from this tea.
And then you are disappointed. This tea is not astringent, but when brewed as recommended turns bitter, and bites you back. It can’t take milk, so I resorted to sugar to ease down the taste.
It does not sparkle as a good Darj does, and the lovely, sweet and elusive muscatel of a really good Darjeeling is nowhere to be found. It tastes more like a green tea, than a beautiful Darj, and so it went down sorely disappointing.
Terri – I completely agree with your Haiku – not a favourite, to say the least.

In the world of favorite second flushes and higher rated estates that is my tea cabinet, I had completely forgotten about Glenburn. I slightly over steeped it as I was washing a couple dishes to pass an entire three minutes and I think that was actually a great mistake. The Glenburn remained smooth but with what could be a stronger flavor. It’s both fruity and vegetal.

I had earmarked it for an upcoming swapbox but I may have to keep this one.

Sipdown! 229/400.

This is so much better now I’ve been steeping it at a lower temperature. I’m almost sad to see it go! But the last of this is being sent out to fellow tea friends who might appreciate the chance to try it. It’s so good when you get it spot on, but it’s a very temperamental tea and I’ve struggled to hit that sweet spot with it reliably, so even though it’s one of the best first flush Darjeelings I’ve tried, I wouldn’t actively seek out a new harvest. If I were already placing an order somewhere and saw that they also stocked this tea, I might be tempted to pick up a small amount to compare harvests though. That’s kind of high praise for someone as ambivalent about Darjeelings as I am.

Today was two day of my pancake experiment. Somehow, I hadn’t made them before now. But this time was blue corn. Sans pinons. Since the batter was too wet, I tried added a little more flour. When I was just trying to make the pancakes too big. After using a smaller measuring method, they turned out fine. And I still say blue corn tastes different.

I’m down to my last few cups of this tea. It smells nicely sweet and floral. There is a bit of a honey scent in the brew. The flavour was lightly sweet and somewhat floral.
Nice for this sunny Autumn day.

This brewed up lighter than I expected for a black tea. The first sips taste like the usual harsh black tea to me. After several sips, it softens up. I think I am getting floral notes.

https://instagram.com/p/7DRjRQpnkM3oXW-8IP-C2yqv-lBc7IAXECYM80/?taken-by=kkpeltzer

I’m in the mood for something black or dark after dinner so I chose this tea.

The leaves are a beautiful combination of silver, red, and brown shades in little cute, squiggly pieces. Dry and wooden in scent.

This tastes as dry and wooden as it smells, but at the same time it’s slightly sour and slightly floral without being sweet. It’s not too thick in strength which makes it rather refreshing. The after taste is sour and wooden but it lightens to leave a musty, earth tone.

It’s quite nice but not one of my favourites in terms of Darjeeling, nice for every day but not for special occasions. At least not for me. May try this iced shortly and see what the difference is.

This was one I received in the Butiki mystery box! This note won’t be a long one… I sipped this one a couple days ago. The flavor was very light for a Darjeeling but tasty. It didn’t have much of that Darjeeling muscatel but it was VERY fruity, though I can’t say which type of fruit exactly. I’d say this one tastes only fruity to me. Maybe it was grown around fruit trees? It doesn’t really get very astringent. The description instructions say to use one tablespoon but the package instructions say to use 1 1/2 teaspoons… so I went with two teaspoons! I wish I had more to say on this one. It’s definitely a likeable light Darjeeling.
Steep #1 // 2 tsps. // 25 minutes after boiling // 3 min steep
Steep #2 // 20 min a.b. // 3-4 min

This was the first Darjeeling I’ve ever tried and I definitely don’t regret it! This tea is very sweet tasting. It had notes of peach and honey. It’s very smooth and the flavors were fairly mellow, but not in a bad way. I’m kind of sad I didn’t order more of it before Butiki closed.

This is very tasty tea. Bought a one ounce sample of this tea with my final Butiki order. This tea is not malty. It is only very mildly astringent. It has a nice sweet taste that I don’t know exactly how to describe.

I brewed this once in an 18oz teapot with 3 tsp leaf and boiling water for 3 min.