Darjeeling Tea

First & second flush — muscatel, GI-protected

Darjeeling is grown at 600 to 2,000 metres on the Himalayan foothills of West Bengal, from China-variety and hybrid bushes rather than the Assamica plant used in the plains, and the cup is unlike any other Indian tea — light-bodied, floral and astringent, with the distinctive muscatel note that second-flush lots are prized for. The year divides into flushes and they are effectively different products. First flush, picked from March, is pale, brisk and green-floral. Second flush, from late May, is the classic: amber, rounder and carrying muscatel, a grape-like character associated with leaf that has been fed on by the jassid insect. Monsoon teas are plainer and cheaper, and autumnal lots from October have a mellow coppery character of their own. Manufacture is orthodox throughout, graded on the FTGFOP ladder, with garden name carrying real weight in the market.

The commercial fact that matters most is scale. Darjeeling's total annual crop is small — on the order of eight to nine million kilograms from 87 registered gardens — and far more tea is sold worldwide as Darjeeling than Darjeeling produces. It carries a Geographical Indication and a certification mark administered by the Tea Board of India precisely because of that, and a buyer sourcing on price alone will be offered blends and lookalikes. Buy it for premium loose-leaf retail, speciality and hotel programmes, and gifting where the name and the garden are the product. Do not buy it for a blend where the delicacy will be lost, or for milk tea, where Darjeeling is simply the wrong tea. CBIL brokers Darjeeling against garden mark, flush, invoice, grade and taster assessment, with GI documentation, on FOB Kolkata, CFR and CIF terms.