Steamed Darjeeling

Okay, this one comes with a couple of reservations. 1) I don’t much like regular Darjeeling, no matter which flush. As a region, it’s wildly overrated in my opinion. 2) This looks more like a black tea than a green tea to me. 3) I’ve had a green tea of this brand before and it was UNBELIEVABLY bitter no matter how low the temperature or short the steep. It may have been caused by the additives that it was flavoured with, but frankly that sort of thing leaves a scar on a person.

Having worked out recently that I tend to like greens a lot better in small steeps rather than western style, I’m giving it a shot now, but I’m going to warn you right here and now. If I don’t like it, I’m not going to get through more than one or two steeps. I refuse to work my way through a lot of unpleasantness on the off chance that it might become nicer later on.

Gosh, I sound a bit harsh today, don’t I?

Anyway, I tried a 20 second steep first, which, in spite of issue 2, does smell green, so okay, I’ll give it that point. The aroma is otherwise kind of sweet and rather grassy. Not vegetal-y fresh grass, but more like a grass clippings lying around a few days after the lawn was mowed. That’s not so good, because that’s the exact note that I dislike Darjeelings for. One can only hope that it comes out less here than it does in regular Darjeeling. At this point I’m trying very hard not to think about the fact that Darjeeling teas are often processed in a way that puts them fairly close to actually being green teas in and of themselves. Luna the cat seems to find it quite interesting though.

It may smell like a green tea, but it doesn’t taste like one. It tastes more like a generic oolong gone cold. Sort of wood-y and earth-y, but without the dislikable Darjeeling note of spicy grass clippings.

It’s very very difficult to try and say something worthwhile about something that tastes like something boring gone even more boring, so I’ll skip right along to the next steep and see if any further experimentation with this one is worth my time.

It isn’t.

Doubling the steep time, I know get a juicy, slightly tart element to the aroma which is fine. Unfortunately, I also get a brew that is unmistakably astringent and would have been very bitter indeed had it had just a few seconds more.

And this is at 40 seconds, 70°C.

You know what? Plock this. I’ll be getting rid of the remainder at first given opportunity.