MERU TEA: FOR THE NOVICE, CASUAL CONNOISSEUR, WINE ENTHUSIAST, TEA MASTER
The 86 gardens in the Darjeeling region of India produce the world's best aromatic tea. A combination of primarily China and China-hybrid small-leaf plants with a sampling of broad-leaf Assam varietals thrive at altitudes from 100-2000 m (300-6000 ft). Slow growth at these altitudes makes the savoriest tea also the most exclusive, as the plants produce only half the yield of a lowland plantation.
The higher the elevation, the thinner the body and more concentrated
the flavor.
Yet slow growth is not the only factor in the limited amount of Darjeeling available each year. Steep mountain slopes — between forty-five and seventy degrees — ensure a hand-plucked harvest, as well as provide drainage and shelter from the wind for the tea plants during the monsoon season. The altitudes of the various teagardens vary greatly, and some such as Namring and Jungpana cultivate tea at multiple altitudes, distinguishing their teas as Upper (U) for the more exclusive high-grown harvest.
After a period of dormancy in winter months, Darjeeling's tea plants wake up in early March and begin putting forth the first new growth or "flush" of the year, delicate slender shoots with a glazed grey-green appearance. First Flush season often lasts into early May, though unseasonable rains sometimes render the whole crop a disaster. This crop's unique quality results from the leaf growing in intense sunshine but in the cold crystalline Himalayan air of early spring. These growing conditions make First Flush Darjeeling a puckery young tea, almost as light as any green but, unlike greens, flamboyantly aromatic. Infused leaf shows a pronounced lime greenish brightness. These are the Spring Teas, as they are also known, always amazingly fresh and flowery tasting. Amazingly astringent. So delicate is First Flush Darjeeling that it especially well repays using water about thirty degrees below boiling, as in preparing green tea.
The character and quality of Darjeeling tea varies dramatically over the course of each year as the texture and flavor of the tea leaf change continuously with the climate and season, exposure, soil quality and rainfall. Flavor alterations can occur rapidly, even morning to evening on a single day. Different sections from within each plantation can produce such different yields that each day's pluckings inside Darjeeling estates are processed within 24 hours of picking.
Darjeelings are always plucked in the early morning, when the tender young shoots are at their peak.
Typically, each bush is hand-plucked every
4-8 days throughout the growing season.
This "made tea" is then immediately sold at auction as a single lot and is generally available for public consumption within three weeks, making whole-leaf Estate Darjeeling tea truly the freshest tea available.
Although the annual production capacity of the Darjeeling region is just 10 million kg, nearly 40 million kg is sold each year from Sri Lanka and Kenya under the label "Darjeeling Tea" or "Pure Darjeeling". In an effort to stop this marketing, the Indian Government has assigned a logotype and specific legal text defining which areas and the products they produce are true Darjeelings. All MERU products identified as Darjeeling, Assam or Nilgiri are true products of those regions and their specific estates.
Darjeeling from outside India is not a new market, it is a false one. The lease contracts between the tea garden owners and the state government neither allow the garden owners to make new constructions within the prescribed area, nor use a section of it for purposes not mentioned in the contract (such as for expansion or for tourism purposes). So it is unlikely that Darjeeling will become any less exclusive a brew in the future.
There is nothing which surpasses the delicacy and purity of the white tea. Picked when the buds are tightly enclosed, these leaves undergo such little processing, they maintain the silky white hairs that denote new growth and give them their name. This was the favored tea of the Emperor Hui Tsung, who so preoccupied himself with the pursuit of the perfect tea, he lost his empire to the invading Mongols.
Although white tea has been produced as early as the 1100's, the commercial production of this rare brew emerged in the Qing Dynasty (c 1796).
Traditional white teas come from the Fujian province, although Hunan and Guangxi in south-central China also produce white tea. Experiments have been made to produce white teas outside of China, but the Indian and Sri Lankan varietals do not have the distinct character that is found in white teas from Northern Fujian (smaller leaves with longer tips) and cultivation has thus far proved cost prohibitive. White tea is only harvested as a first flush, and in order to make the Indian varietals produce the longer tips of their Northern cousins, they need to be pruned much heavier, rendering the plant useless for the remaining growing seasons as it requires too much time to recover and its total output is severely compromised.
We think you'll enjoy some of the teas listed below to familiarize yourself with the world of tea. If you're an adventurous sort, though, browse our entire selection of Meru Tea and see what other teas interest you.
