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Research result: Top 10 Darjeeling black tea

While I was in India, I conducted this research about top 10 Darjeeling black tea estates. The research has involved Indian seven tea taster, Bangladeshi three tea taster, five top tea companies CEO, ten Indian Darjeeling tea lover, ten Bangladeshi Darjeeling tea lover, ten Indian retail tea shops owner, Ten Bangladeshi retail tea shops owner. I asked them couple of same questions( the whole process took almost two months, because I have my personal career not related with tea) but here I will just put the result of top ten Darjeeling tea estates names. I think people are more interested about the estates name rather then the whole research result. They selected the estates name from their minimum last ten years drinking, tasting, market demand etc. experiences- P.S. The result is based on the whole research process, my personal experience or choice has no effect on it. TOP 10 Darjeeling black tea estates name:

1) Castleton 2) Margaret's Hope 3) Kalej valley 4) Chamong 5) Pussimbing 6) Phoobsering 7) Puttabong 8) Sungma 9) Risheehat 10) Makaibari

I am working on the Assam one right now, if you are interested- I will post it soon. Ripon (Dhaka, Bangladesh)

Reply to
Ripon
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Interesting list. What, do you think, were the criteria? Was it perceived quality alone, or were things like consistency, sales volume and PQR (price/quality ratio), also in the mix? Was conforming to a particular style considered important?

I've tried both Castleton and Margaret's Hope a few times, and while they were well-made teas they did not stand out as exceptional to me. OTOH, I've had teas from Gopaldhara, Makaibari and Puttabong that I thought were absolutely phenomenal, and Gopaldhara did not even make the list.

Regards, Dean

Reply to
Dean Macinskas

Dean, Ripon, and all,

My experience with Darjeeling is pretty circumscribed, but I too was a bit surprised that Gopaldhara was not on the list. Good questions, Dean, BTW. I guess we need to take a peek at Ripon's original questions that generated the list.

Michael

Dean MacinskasGK8Rb.5292$ snipped-for-privacy@nwrdny01.gnilink.net1/26/04

08: snipped-for-privacy@junk.com

Reply to
Michael Plant

Dean/Michael:

Look at my P.S. "my personal experience or choices has no influence on this research."

Personally, I am a big fan of Gopaldhara. I have no idea eather why it didn't come to the list. But I do remember, I asked couple of people- what about Gopaldhara. I didn't get enough positive responce compare to the other estates. I am also surprised.

Ripon (Dhaka, Bangladesh)

Reply to
Ripon

Ripon, I understand that you tried to be personally neutral. What I was trying to ask is: how did your respondents choose which estates they thought the best? Their own personal taste? The amount of tea sold? The opinions of their customers? Ease of dealing with a particular estate, i.e., liked their business practices, prices or terms?

My point is: you asked a wide variety of people from many areas in the tea business, and each of them might have different standards. A tea shop owner might say "Castleton" because the tea has a good QPR and his customers love it. On the other hand, a wholesale buyer might choose them because his brother-in-law works for them and sells him tea at an attractive price. A tea taster, OTOH, might choose them because they consistently provide high-quality tea year after year.

Now, all the above reasons are valid from the individual perspectives of the individuals offering them. But as a tea consumer, I'm really only interested in the tea quality and its price (and maybe ethical issues, like Fair Trade). In my experience here in North America, Gopaldhara is at the upper end price-wise. Very high quality, very high price. So I'll bet that either they don't sell much relative to other estates, or they don't produce much. Maybe most of their tea is sold on the export market, where they can command and get their high prices. If true, they may not even appear on the "domestic" radar.

What do you think?

Regards, Dean

Reply to
Dean Macinskas

In my conversations with wholesalers in India, the bulk of domestic consumption is in CTC teas from Assam and Nilgiri (including the surrounding areas in Karnataka and Kerala). The average Indian consumer wants a tea with 'good color' that brew quickly. The Darjeelings are used in small amounts to add floral notes to the tea. On the low end you can even find packages boldly labeled 'dust and fannings'.

Reply to
Robert Klute

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