What is Darjeeling Tea? How to Make It, and a Journey Through the Himalayas | In Pursuit of Tea

The Darjeeling Hills climb 6,000 feet above the plains of West Bengal in northern India. These are some of the highest elevation tea gardens in the world, and the tea they produce is simply extraordinary. My name is Sebastian Beckwith. In 1999, I founded a company called In Pursuit of Tea with the mission of sharing spectacular teas from remote regions of the world. Two decades later, Darjeeling is still one of my favorite places to visit. To understand why, you need to see this ephemeral place in the springtime. British colonizers first conscripted indigenous people here in the mid-1800s to build a series of railroad hill stations and plantation-style estates in order to establish the first high-elevation tea gardens in India. So strong was the British thirst for tea that the empire had just fought a war with China over the drink, and British planters were eager to break the Chinese monopoly on the crop. Today, Darjeeling's gardens produce teas much like their predecessors 150 years ago. Hundreds of pluckers and factory workers live in subsidized housing on-site, and they continue to pick leaves by hand and process them with machines that are over a century old. The result is a tea of exceptional depth and quality, but produced at extraordinary cost. Many Darjeeling gardens are lucky to break even by the end of the year and operate at a loss outside of that profitable first and second flush season or harvest. Late March or early April marks the beginning of the annual harvest in Darjeeling. The tea bushes have lain dormant during the winter, and now they shoot up new buds, packed with months' worth of stored nutrients. These young leaves are tender and delicate and require a light touch to highlight their fresh, bright flavor. The first flush of leaves undergoes a hard wither indoors up to 12 hours in order to drive out moisture and allow for a minimal oxidation process. Then they're lightly rolled, dried in low-temperature ovens, and sorted according to leaf size. Unbroken leaves have the highest value. Smaller, crushed pieces steep quickly and easily turn bitter, and tiny fannings are used for tea bags. Most tea sellers label this first flush as a black tea, but in truth it is a category all its own, with the flavor and production method unlike any other. The second harvest, or flush, occurs in early to mid-May and is processed more like typical black tea, with deeper oxidation that showcases the mature leaves' more robust, nutty character. Up until the 1980s, all Darjeeling teas were made in this darker, second flush style. But when the Soviet Union, the garden's largest single customer, collapsed, Darjeeling producers had to change their methods to attract new buyers. Private tea sellers in Germany became an important market for Darjeeling growers, and to feed that nation's thirst for light, crisp drinks —think of a German Pilsner or a Riesling— tea production shifted to a more delicate profile. Our friend JP has been a consultant for the Darjeeling tea business for decades. At a gathering of tea industry professionals in Darjeeling in 2019, he explained how these historical changes in production affected the taste and quality of the resulting tea. The first Darjeeling first flush was just the normal type of tea, because in those days we didn't have much withering crops. Most of the withering was done on charnas, lofts. One thing that I miss in most Darjeeling factories, in all Darjeeling factories today, as compared to the past, is whenever I went into a factory, I got that very strong aroma which hit you. That doesn't happen anymore these days. If you ask me personally, today's first flush that we make is not my cup of tea. But it does give you access to the plant matter in a more efficient way than the second flush, because the second flush there's so much more conversion. So, for instance, in Heritage, you can really taste that it's an old plant. During the first flush harvest, we raced from garden to garden to taste as many as 40 invoices or batches of tea a day. You have to taste quickly, wait an hour to make a decision, and some other buyer may snag your favorite batch from under your nose. Every time I make the trip to Darjeeling, I wonder if it will be the last time. The estates make slim margins in the best of years, and growing political, economic, and climate pressures seem to make things harder for the gardens every year. Darjeeling is a beautiful, fascinating place. Nothing tastes like the tea that's grown here, but its future is precarious. For now, we continue to make the journey to seek out beautiful new teas to share with our fans and support the skilled workers who make these teas possible. To learn more about Darjeeling and to try these amazing teas for yourself, visit InPursuitOfTea.com.