Brewing Darjeeling Black Tea

[Tead Off]

Ahhh, thanks, I see. It's true, I never paid much attention to teas from Darjeeling. I thought they were usually on the high end of the oxidation scale. Good to know it's otherwise!

I"m a little surprised you weren't familiar with Darjeelings. They are some of the best teas!

[Drax]

Ahhh, thanks, I see. It's true, I never paid much attention to teas from Darjeeling. I thought they were usually on the high end of the oxidation scale. Good to know it's otherwise!

I"m a little surprised you weren't familiar with Darjeelings. They are some of the best teas!

Definitely a misconception on my part... and from the sounds of it, one that will a pleasure to rectify!

[laraz]

I heard once that first flush Darjeelings are really not blacks, as they're semi-oxidized (looking at the ones i just bought I can confirm that they look greenish), and that doing them gong-fu (or chinese style) would give really nice results. Autumn Darjeelings are more robust and closer to your usual black tea, so I assume gong fu would bring out a lot of astringency and bitterness. I will try gong fu on my new spring darjeeling and report back.
I also bought an autumn Nepali black (Jun Chiyabari) that also looked semi-oxidized, and after preparing it western and loving it, I looked up their website, and they actually recommended chinese style. Nepali teas are usually closer to Darjeeling, but this particular garden are setting themselves apart.