As the afternoon sun bathes the countryside in a hazy glow, a suited butler pours out a measure of lightly steaming tea into intentionally mismatched fine china, a plate of lightly spiced sugar cookies sitting beside it, before retreating with a nod and a small smile. The only thing missing from this quintessentially British scene was the milk. And, for that matter, Britain itself.
From an elevation of a thousand metres above sea level, we sip our tea as the clouds play a game of tug-of-war above our heads, partially concealing Mount Kangchenjunga in front of us. The tea in question is a mild shade of golden yellow, a far cry from the burnt umber waters of PG Tips or Yorkshire Tea, while the suit of the aforementioned butler is a crisp kurta and trousers set, rather than a classic three-piece.
Now, I will do a lot for a good cup of tea, but flying to the remote reaches of India and braving the nauseatingly serpentine drive—not to mention a landslide or two—into the foothills of the eastern Himalayas for afternoon tea quite likely takes the cake. However, Darjeeling tea, named for the town in which it grows, isn’t just tea. Widely considered the Champagne of tea, first flush Darjeeling tea is produced in limited qualities and is famed for its delicate floral and muscatel notes, routinely fetching upwards of $1000AUD/kg. While the likes of PG Tips or Yorkshire Tea get their robust, full-bodied flavour from teas from neighbouring Assam, as well as Ceylon and Kenya, and are typically served with milk, Darjeeling tea is designed to be consumed in its unadulterated form.
Whether it’s the grace of a matcha ceremony in Japan, the green gunpowder and spearmint tea omnipresent in Morocco, or the strong, sweet black çay consumed in Turkey, tea, or Camellia sinensis, is ubiquitous in almost every culture. Although Indian tea culture is inextricably associated with masala chai, Darjeeling is the tea revered by both domestic and international connoisseurs (though predominantly the latter). Much like Champagne, it enjoys a legally protected geographical designation status, recognising its unique quality and characteristics; with only tea produced in the Darjeeling region able to be sold as “Darjeeling tea.”
Tea came to Darjeeling in the mid 19th century, with the East India Company seeking to break China’s monopoly on tea. While a second variety of Camellia sinensis was discovered in Assam, Archibald Campbell—an employee of the East India Company—experimented by planting seeds smuggled from China near his home in Darjeeling, with several others following suit. While the more robust Camellia sinensis var. assamica thrived in the warmer climate of Assam and resulted in strong black teas, the more delicate Camellia sinensis var. sinensis which originated in China preferred the cool climate, higher elevation, and nutrient-rich loamy soil of Darjeeling.
Tucked between Nepal and Bhutan with Tibet to the north, Darjeeling is a small region located at the foothills of the Himalayas in the state of West Bengal. Despite its relatively minute size, Darjeeling is home to 87 tea estates and produces around 11,000 tonnes of tea a year. While that may seem significant, the neighbouring region of Assam produces around 700,000 tonnes of tea annually, with authentic Darjeeling tea relatively scarce.
To delve further into the intricacies of Camellia sinensis, I tapped leisure design company and Indian subcontinent specialists Anecdotes to curate an immersive, tea-centred journey through Darjeeling and nearby Sikkim.
Our first stop is a stomach-churning four-hour drive from Bagdogra airport, though our driver Buddha is more than adept at tackling the sinuous route through the plains of West Bengal. He later proves himself to be aptly named when, on the even more precarious mountain roads on the way to Sikkim, he remains unperturbed in the face of a landslide that sees the cliff face above give way and tumble onto the road mere centimetres in front of us.
Founded by a Scottish tea company in 1859, Glenburn Tea Estate is now owned by one of India’s pioneering tea planting families, the Prakashes, now in their third and fourth generations. While several of Darjeeling’s tea estates have responded to the increased interest in the region by converting bungalows into tourist lodgings, Glenburn Tea Estate’s offering is undoubtedly the most luxurious. Comprising both the original restored Burra Bungalow and the newer Water Lily Bungalow, Glenburn Tea Estate sees its eight suites decorated in a colonial-chic style, each following its own distinct theme.
Our Singalila Suite is in the Water Lily Bungalow, with the new build boasting a period-correct aesthetic while accommodating spacious bathrooms with free-standing antique clawfoot bathtubs and bay windows that take in the Singalila Range, with Mount Kangchenjunga visible on rare clear days. It’s from here we enjoy our first of many pots of mellow first flush Darjeeling tea. We soon find that teatime is a round the clock affair at Glenburn, beginning with a pot of hot ‘bed tea’ with biscuits delivered sheetside every morning and culminating with an after-dinner pot.
With our visit taking place in late July during monsoon season, we’re able to try both the Glenburn Tea Estate’s annual first and second flush teas. Despite the hefty prices the former commands, both styles—as well as monsoon tea—are available on tap for guests, with staff brewing endless pots—and even iced teas—on demand. Naturally, we went through the estate’s first flush like water.
Before dinnertime, we get our steps in with a guided walk through the tea gardens. The sprawling estate spans 1600 acres, with around a quarter of that planted with Camellia sinensis bushes. As we weave through the evergreen shrubs, our guide Rikesh tells us that it’s solely women who work in the tea fields, with their dexterous fingers able to quickly pick the top two leaves and a bud from each plant, resulting in high-quality tea.
Historically, there have been concerns surrounding the welfare of tea pickers due to labour models inherited from the colonial era, however Glenburn has worked to combat this through a welfare program which includes onsite medical and childcare centres for workers, as well as the sponsorship of local schools. Still, there’s no denying it’s tedious work, with every cup of loose leaf tea we sip representing the handpicked labour of the early rising women who dot the fields, their colourful headscarves standing out against the endless plains of malachite leaves.
The famous first flush tea is plucked at the beginning of the annual harvest in early April after lying dormant during winter, with the first delicate young buds laden with polyphenols and boasting a fresh flavour. The second flush occurs some three weeks after the first flush, when new buds have regenerated; these leaves are considered more mature and yield a complex cup with deep fruity, musky, and often spicy notes. While the rains of the monsoon season results in the rapid growth of new tea leaves, the yield here is more woody and less complex than the first and second flush, resulting in brews more suited to blending than savouring.
Later, during a visit to the onsite tea factory, manager Usha takes us through the tea making process, with the hand-plucked green leaves undergoing a process of withering with heated air to remove moisture before being rolled, fermented, dried, and sorted into grades. It’s the fermentation process that sees the green leaves turn black and brings out the fruity, muscatel notes Darjeeling tea is known for. The estate also produces green tea from the same Camellia sinensis leaves; here, the fermentation is foregone in favour of steaming to halt the process of oxidisation and preserve its verdant hue and fresh, vegetal flavour.
The grading of the tea is a particularly important step. Only the finest leaf grade, the rather wordy Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe (FTGFOP1), which contains the unbroken buds and leaves (and has nothing to do with oranges), commands the aforementioned high price range. That said, even the broken leaves (TGBOP) produce a more than serviceable infusion, while fannings—the smallest particles—are reserved for use in teabags.
We sample an array of the estate’s teas, which takes on a tone not dissimilar to a wine tasting. A lineup of bowls with infused leaves are first inspected for colour and nosed before any sipping occurs. The liquid is then sloshed around the mouth before either being swallowed or spat out into a provided receptacle (we opt for the former, though a particularly bitey autumn tea has us feeling almost drunk). A unique offering is Silver Needle, an exquisitely delicate Chinese white tea made from whole young buds, while the astringency and muscatel strength of the second flush tea appealed to our English Breakfast-accustomed tastebuds.
Although the lure of daily bed tea and a continually roving menu of regional specialties for lunch and dinner (think Nepalese thalies, Tibetan momos, and a Bengali feast) make it easy to wile away the time at Glenburn, we did manage to tear ourselves away from the estate to explore the hill station. The Chowrasta, or public square, at the heart of the town is home to several tea shops; both Mayukh Tea and Nathmulls are well worth a look in. The Tibetan influence on the region is evident in the handmade jewellery, woollen carpets, shawls, and wood carvings on offer, while the Ghoom Monastery, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery to be built in the Darjeeling region, is also a short drive away.
Heading further north into Sikkim, a protected state that sits just south of Tibet, the roads grow worse and the Buddhist influence grows stronger. Travel in India is often defined by its intensity; a cacophony of colour, noise, and flavour. Here, the country provides a rare chance to slow down — not least due to the landslides threatening to block the singular road in and out of the state at any given point.
In contrast to the abundance of tea estates in Darjeeling, Sikkim is home to just one. Temi Tea Garden is an organic, state-run enterprise in the Namchi district, known for paying its workers a liveable wage. The day after checking into the no-frills lodgings on the edge of the tea plantations, we went for what we thought was a brisk early morning walk, only to find the tea pickers already in the middle of their first shift. While their nimble fingers remained fast at work, several of the women were more than happy to chat to a stranger, with one showing me how to pick the tea leaves (my first try was accompanied by a stem and I was kindly advised not to attempt a second).
Sipping the efforts of our new friends’ labour on the porch of the Temi Tea Bungalow that afternoon, we discover that it’s rather more astringent and robust than that of Darjeeling. There’s some muscatel character, but it’s spicier and more full-bodied than its neighbour, with a hint of a tanninic quality that places it somewhere between Darjeeling and Assam tea.
Later, during a brief stopover in Delhi, I attempted to put my learnings regarding the infinite nuances that differentiate first flush from second and one tea estate from the next to the test over an espresso-sized terracotta kulhad cup of piping hot masala chai. “What kind of tea is this?” I asked the chaiwalla, unable to discern anything beneath the concoction of cardamom, ginger, cloves, and pepper at play. “It’s chai,” he said definitively, his expression making it clear that this was a patently obtuse question. Quite.
Albert Review travelled as a guest of Anecdotes, with thanks to Glenburn Tea Estate and Temi Tea Bungalow.
Words by T. Angel
