Castleton Estate First Flush Darjeeling 2014

First steep was too grassy, acidic, and bitter for my taste. The second steep has lost the bitterness, and has been replaced by a mild apricot sweetness. Not a tea I would reach for again, but it’s nice to taste once. I was surprised that it is a black tea, I would describe it as a green.

Dry leaf has scents of fresh picked garden vegetables, tomato, basil. There are a large spectrum of greens in the twisty chopped leaves.
Wet leaf is a nice “oak leaf green” color,,, scent is very unique,,,I had to really think about this one,,where have I smelled this? I think I am detecting mild yellow tomato and some sweet herbal.
Liquor is a dark golden, still clear color. Scent is the yellow tomato, dried apricot, sweet date sugar.
Flavor – rich, thick mouthfeel, tomato, basil, pickle, bitter note (if you have ever eaten bitter melon, it has a small note of that so it is a sweet bitter),,,,I finally placed the flavor,,it is those Moroccan oil-cured olives. I had to taste and smell a lot to bring back my memory of where I had tasted or smelled this scent before.
This tea is fantastic for a tasting bc the complexity is stumping big time!!! You have to really involve your senses and it’s a flavor trip!!! Definitely an interesting tea,,,thank you Steepster for placing that one into the Select box!!!
I am glad I chose after lunch to try this tea,,,,this is definitely for tasting in the afternoon.

From the Steepster Select box; May, 2014

I am by no means an experience Darjeeling connoisseur. My first impressions of this tea was its particularly grassy notes and mineral flavors. I only later realized how bitter, almost bittersweet, it was. Behind the bitterness was a pleasant creamy flavor.
I expected it to be more of a black tea, but I do think I brewed the tea slightly too strong.

OK, I have no idea what I’m doing with this tea. Darjeeling is foreign to me so I definitely need to take a class or two. Did my prerequisite reading but there is so much it confuses rather than directs. It seems mostly brewed western style but that didn’t stop me from doing a gongfu session with the two packets from the box courtesy of Steepster. I don’t know why I resist western brewing so much, probably has to do with my impatient nature not wanting to go the whole 4 minutes in order to taste my tea.
I thought that the two packets looked like a lot of tea for 160 ml pot, and I was right, the first steep was way powerful after 20 seconds. I did 15 sec for the 2nd and 3rd steeps and back up to 20 for the 4th. The 4th was the best of the lot, nice muscatel, apricot, flowery, spiced tea with a pronounce bitter aftertaste which was not cringe worthy but seemed like it was meant to be there. The energy was more than I like but I need to awake for the evening “get out of town” for the weekend. This reminded me of oolong more than black, guess I will wait for now and read more reviews of Darjeeling before adding to my cupboard. If anyone knows of a good resource please pass it on.

I’d recommend this for Darjeeling lovers. But tastewise it’s really more like a cross between a black and a green tea. It’s nicely balanced, with vegetal notes and a bit of sweetness. Low acidity. Nice, but not overly compelling. I brewed according to the Steepster Select brewing instructions.