Glendale Estate Twirl Nilgiri

Backlogged review from Friday. I’ve been so busy this weekend I just now had time to finish writing it up from my notes (herein lies the reason why I don’t do gong fu much!)

It’s the first day of a mini 5-day staycation I’m having, and my friend Todd from the Bay Area is flying in today to see my condo and my rescue kitty! His flight doesn’t come in until later and I have to get the house ready, but this morning I decided to start the day with a gong fu session, since I didn’t have to just throw something in a travel mug and head out the door to work. This is a sample I got from the Discovery Traveling Teabox, so thank you to Skysamurai for organizing and to all those involved in that box for sharing their teas! I had a 1.5g sample and prepared it in my baby sized gaiwan.

1.47g / 40ml (gaiwan) / 205F / 15s|20s|25s|30s|35s|40s|45s|50s

On the initial steep the tea was a pale amber color and had an aroma of autumn leaves, rose petals, sap, and honey. The leaf in the cup was dark, twisty, and smelled of malt, wet leaf pile, molasses, and a bit like a burnt piece of toast smothered in floral honey. The flavor of the initial infusion was quite weak, with some slight notes of autumn leaf and floral dew; the color was much darker on the second infusion, with a citrus flavor of mandarin and pithy orange peel and a strong rose florality coming forward. The tea became a bit bitter on the tongue, with a bite on the back of the tongue and some astringency left after the sip. The bitterness thankfully smoothed out during the third and fourth infusions and was gone in later infusions; a strong rose aroma and taste remained throughout most of the session. Citrus notes were also quite strong, though the third infusion the citrus presented more as a lemony note and less as pithy orange. Malt notes started coming out in the third and fourth infusions with a light toast flavor, with the fifth infusion presenting the maltiest flavor of the session. The tea had lost most of its flavor and gone quite weak by the eighth infusion, which is when I decided to wrap things up.

Since I really enjoy rose/floral notes, I enjoyed this one a lot, as I found that a very forward flavor note. It held up rather well for being a (assumingly) older tea from a teabox and I appreciate the chance to try it!

To be honest, I had this a few days ago and don’t really remember it. It is pretty light tasting, which isn’t usually a black tea I can remember anyway. The leaves were larger, making the flavor even less strong than I’d want in a black tea. I CAN say the tea was probably better than this tasting note!

Another tea from the TTB 2018

This is a really nice black tea with some darker fruity flavour. It reminds me a bit of raisins or dried date (but not sweet).

This is a really flavourful bold black that is not overly bitter. The fruity flavour is nice, but more of an afterthought that a prominent note. It is fairly smooth but I don’t taste any malt. I don’t have experience with Nilgiri teas, but I think the wiki description of “dark, intensely aromatic, fragrant and flavoured” is very accurate.

Another review with pretty close notes to what I get: Butter, Fruity, Malt, and White Raisins. It also had the usual dry basil smell and taste that I associate with Darjeelings. I got two solid cups, and one third lighter cup western starting out at two minutes fifteen seconds, 6 oz of water, one medium teaspoon. I loved that this was a lighter black. Thanks Evol!

This actually came to me from the last GCTTB. Nilgiri isn’t a tea I often see sold as a single estate tea, it’s a type of tea that, like Ceylon, is usually fairly unremarkable and used more often as a base for flavoured teas than as something to be enjoyed plain. But this tea is quite interesting, its flavour reminds me distinctly of a Darjeeling with the drying astringency. It has those grape-y, wine likes notes that I usually get from an offering from Margaret’s Hope estates thousands if a miles to the north.

This is from a sample Christina sent to me. It didn’t look like the type of tea I would choose but I gave it a try this morning.

This tea surprised me. Long dark spindly leaves. The dry leaves had a slight fruity , raisin smell to them. Brewed 2 min at 95C. Pulled out the infuser and what? Green leaves from black tea? Yep, the leaves when infused turned green.

This is not a bold black but it has loads of flavour. Very fruity with a bit of malt. There a slight buttery base in it too. It’s a little like the moonlight teas. It’s just so mild and tasty. So much fruity flavour!

I don’t often reach for blacks. I have to be in the mood for them but this one is one of those blacks that seems to be a bit of a crossover from the lighter teas. I really love this one! I see it’s from Capital Teas and I’ve never ordered from them before. That means Capital Teas may be on my order lists in the future (once I’ve sipped down my teas to a reasonable level.)

Thanks Christina for this one!

Another tea sent to me by Christina. Thank you!

I was really surprised by this tea, and kind of regret leaving it out on the counter during fruit fly season.

I steeped 2 minutes at 195, and I used the WHOLE SAMPLE in my giant mug. :) Initially I was rather concerned because it smelled a little like steamed greens. However, as it cooled it was really quite tasty. Not sharp or “cold” at all like some of the other large leafed nilgiri teas I’ve tried. Almost… fruity? I’m not really sure how to describe it, but I did enjoy it.

Edit: Ok, I was right. It’s a Canadian company! Definitely a place I need to order from in the future. :)

GCTTB
This tea confuses me. I’m a big bold chocolatety Chinese black tea kind of girl. I don’t normally like the lighter style blacks, and I really don’t like Indian teas. So why do I like this so much?
It’s light, it’s fruity, grapey, winey, sweet, a little astringent – but in this one I find the little astringency balances the sweetness. I’m putting the rest back in the box, but this makes me wonder if I should watch for other teas from this estate.

A very well-made tea that brews up into a quite pleasant cup. It is similar in its characteristics to a Darjeeling First Flush, though less robustly so. Would make a good tea, I think, for those those like their Darjeelings on the lighter side.

First infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz water, 90 deg., 3:30 min.

Second infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz. water, 90 deg., 6:30 min.

Third infusion – 3 g. per 8 oz. water, 90 deg., 10:00 min.

Backlog from a few days ago.

The leaves on this are quite fluffy, which means that I underleafed this when I brewed it a few days ago. It was really weak tasting. Considering how well this tasted when I had a sample back in September, I was really sad!

I’ll have to be a bit more generous with the leaf on this one.