No. 71 Darjeeling Chamong FTGFOP1

Backlogging a bit…

On one of my all-to-regular Monday visits to Smith HQ, I had the pleasure of trying this. It was my first Darjeeling of the 2012 batch, and – boy – was it different. Where most first flushes taste like spring leaves and spices, this had an added toasty element I didn’t quite expect. With the spicy-grape and leafy underpinning, this was a more-than-pleasant intro to the new Darjeeling crop.

I’m slowly, but steadily catching up on my reviews. This past week was an absolute killer for me. I have been put in a position where I am forced to put in extra hours at work, and to top it off, I have been dealing with an absolutely brutal heat wave that has rocked this area. It wouldn’t be such a big deal for me if I weren’t very sensitive to both light and heat, or if I worked a job where I did not have to spend so much time outside. I spent Friday on a mandatory outing with my vocational rehabilitation clients that required me to spend more than four consecutive hours outdoors in direct sunlight. The temperature was a little over 90 F, but with a high UV index and high humidity, it felt more like 111 F. Needless to say, I came home sick and exhausted. Saturday was about as bad. I already wasn’t in the best shape from the day before, but when I went out into 89 F heat that felt like 108 F to do my weekend errands, my body decided it had enough after only a couple of hours. I spent the rest of my Saturday curled up in bed, fighting off persistent nausea, stomach cramps, and an unbearable headache. Times like these make me wish I could move back to Canada, or at least a little farther north in the U.S.

Okay, so I got all of that out of the way. The conditions above have kept me from drinking much tea lately, and on the occasions I do allow myself the opportunity, I haven’t had much time or energy to write reviews. Just one more to go after this one though, and I will be caught up for the past week. I prepared this tea using a one step Western infusion. I steeped 1 teaspoon of this tea in 8 ounces of 212 F water for 5 minutes.

In the glass, this tea showed a brilliant gold. Mild aromas of straw, herbs, toast, malt, lemon zest, and Muscat grape were present on the nose. In the mouth, I detected well-integrated notes of honey, malt, cream, toast, herbs, straw, lemon zest, and Muscat grape. The finish was delicate and mildly astringent, offering lingering impressions of herbs, malt, lemon zest, and Muscat grape.

This is a nice, straight-forward Darjeeling. It is a little fruitier and maltier than I was expecting. I typically tend to associate first flush Darjeelings with grassy, spicy, herbal, and straw-like aromas and flavors, but this one is balanced and offers a somewhat greater Muscat presence than I was anticipating. As far as I’m concerned, this is another respectable offering from Steven Smith Teamaker.