Nilgiri Glendale 1710

Sometimes the way a tea makes you feel
and the way it tastes,
the associations it evokes
and the things you’re reading about or thinking about or listening to while sipping
and the weather

all align in a moment so harmonious that all you can muster for a note is

wow.

word: drink it grandpa, leaf it heavy, deal with the floaters. they’re all floaters.

Something I will be looking out for next season. Thanks so much, Leafhopper :)

This is the last tea in the Indian taster kit I picked up earlier this year. I’ve heard good things about the Glendale Estate, and honestly, it was this tea that convinced me to get the sampler. These gorgeous fuzzy white needles sold out quickly and the description is no longer on the website. I went with the steeping instructions for the Nilgiri white tea that’s currently available, though 167F seems a bit low to me. Nonetheless, I steeped three teaspoons of leaf in a 120 ml vessel at 167F for 30, 20, 40, 60, 90, 120, and 240 seconds, plus a few untimed steeps at the end of the session.

The aroma of the wet tea leaves is a mix of hay and stonefruit, possibly apricot. The first steep has notes of hay, banana, honey, linen, and herbs, with a sugarcane sweetness in the aftertaste. The liquor also tastes fuzzy, either from the trichomes or from the power of suggestion. In short, it’s a high-quality version of a generic white tea. Upping the temperature to 175F in the next couple steeps introduces a faint grassy note, but leaves the rest of the flavour profile pretty much unchanged. Subtle hints of apricot show up here and there, but I really have to look for them. The tea fades slowly, acquiring a sharper, more herbaceous astringency but changing very little.

I had perhaps too high expectations for this tea, and while it’s solid, I didn’t think it was remarkable or distinctive. Maybe I’m using the wrong instructions, or maybe it’s better Western steeped. I’ll continue to play with the 15 or so grams I have left.