India Darjeeling 2nd Flush Gopaldhara 'Wonder Muscatel Gold' Black Tea

Drank the 2016 version, which was significantly more enjoyable to me than the 2015. Really nice second flush Darjeeling with pronounced muscatel notes and the perfect amount of offsetting tannic notes. Lovely cup of tea

I wish I had an Xbone, yes, my steadfast devotion to the 360 is reaching its end, because Minecraft of course. See, I have been playing on the same seed for a couple years (pre-tea blogging days I wrote about this seed, good old Ramble) I started out as a survival world, dying a LOT as I learned how to play, and then I wanted to go all out with building and switched to creative. The only problem is it is small, and old, so when the biome updates come out I don’t get them and it screws up the biomes already there, example is my plains biome turned into a tundra…so much for my epic castle moat. You can transfer your seed to the Xbone making it huge and getting new biomes, and I want that! I want to expand, I have so many ideas and I don’t want my world to be too cramped. So yeah, I am going to eventually break down and upgrade….I wonder how much a used one is costing these days?

I believe the day of the week is Wednesday, I admit it is hard to keep track when you are nocturnal! For my weekly What-Cha installment, I am revisiting a favorite tea estate with the India Darjeeling 2nd Flush Gopaldhara ‘Wonder Muscatel Gold’ Black Tea, and since it is autumn, a warm second flush feels perfect on the first night of the year that I broke down and turned on the heat. The leaves are quite pretty, a mix of dark autumnal colors and a few tips with curling gold fuzz, my love of trichomes is never ending. The aroma of said leaves is rather true to its name, it is like I am sniffing a pile of raisins, blend in notes of gentle pepper, very distant flowers, and a sweet finish of malt and cocoa. This is a fantastically sweet Darjeeling, which makes for a happy nose.

Into ye ol’ steeping apparatus the tea goes. Lately I have been asked where this thing came from and what it is…junk store find and it is part of a double boiler, it is the PERFECT size for leaves to expand and to make a cup of tea, plus I can see the tea which is epic. The aroma of the steeped leaves is very sweet, honey and raisins with a robust malt and rich cocoa note, at the very tail end there is a note of oak wood, giving it a slightly tannic touch. The liquid is quite sweet with a gentle spiciness, like nutmeg and a touch of pepper, with raisins and a nice warm cocoa and malt finish.

Tasting time! It starts smooth and malty, warm and sweet, the mouthfeel is smooth with a tiny hint of tannic dryness at the finish. The majority of the taste is muscatel, strong notes of raisins and honey, with cocoa and nutmeg. It is surprisingly mellow while also being full of flavor, not so much a breakfast tea but more of an afternoon relaxation cup, one of those curling up with a book on a rainy day kinda teas. It is sweet enough where it really does not need anything to increase the sweet, and the muscatel notes linger for a while. Gopaldhara Estate, you do not disappoint!

Blog and photos: http://ramblingbutterflythoughts.blogspot.com/2015/10/what-cha-india-darjeeling-2nd-flush.html