Hi,
some hours back my schnotz went on yet another strike, so this is about a DJ FF I had the pleasure to sample two days ago. Mr.R.who gave me the sample has an excellent knowledge of DJ teas, I learned a darn lot from this guy. His samples are always pretty generous, in the 20g range, and he carefully packs and seals them in special aluminized sample bags - that little detail makes a big difference to me. When I came to see him on Sunday he handed me over one more of those bags: "Here, try this; this is a GOODDD tea from an "unknown" (his old game) garden". However, whenever this guy says "gooddd" (high-pitched, Nepali style) he means it and so I smiled, expressed my thanks and went straight back to the hotel to give it a shot.
Appearance: Heck, what's that - a first flush ? Can't be. The palette is that of an high-class autumnal flush, nothing reminds of a FF here. Interesting from the start.
Dry blow: warm balanced profile, again reminding me more of the collected autumnals in my stash box. A few single ethereal herbal peaks shining through, slight notes of grass.
Time to steep them up. With enough leaves at hand I grabbed a 5oz gaiwan, prewarmed it, poured it out and added 2.0g of those uncommon FF leaves.
Moist sniff: Almost the same aroma as in the dry blow, the herbal peaks slightly shifted along the spectrum.
Time for the flooding, "Kingfisher" at 95 Deg C.
1st steep - 2'30" - cup: pale naples yellow a delicate fruity cup with notes of ripe pears2nd steep - 3'00" - pale medium naples yellow some delicate adstringency here AND what's that ? A beautifully selected, expressive arrangement of ripe fruits. In order of dominance: pear ... shhhlrp, shhhhlrp ... passion fruit, just a moment, some water, sllrrrrp, shhhhhhhhhlRp, banana with lots more to discover in the background. All enframed by autumnal, woody peaks. And yet another sign of good leaves. The aftertaste is there to stay. The aroma over the cup is a bit weak, here I'm somehow not too surprised. But the cup, haha ...
3rd steep - 3.30 - darker, with some amber added again no surprise here, adstringency kicking in with a moderate vengeance, now woody autumnal notes dominate, the fruits retire behind the moist exotic trees, and a complex aftertaste lingers on. Pretty delicate autumnal aroma hovering above the tasting cup. A sniff of the cold leaves speaks of nothing but warm, moist autumnal notes, dominating notes of exotic wood. Tsk, tsk, what sort of a FF might that be ?Answer: Next morning I asked my moodily tea guru about that tea and he told me that this kind of FF results from "mid-skiffing" the tea bushes in late autumn, as opposed to the more commonly practised, less radical pruning. A technique someone introduced some 10 years ago. He knows that guy fairly well :-)
Bottom line: A lovely, "GOODDD" tea for sure, 70/100 points on my rubber scale, and
2 more pounds of tea making it into my already overloaded backpack, couldn't help it ...PS: Impressions of the Makaibari follow as soon as my sniffing unit is back on track.
Greetings from the hills, Karsten / Darjeeling