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First Flush Darjeeling Loose Leaf Black Tea

7 reviews
$23.00
$23.00
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37p per cup

Style
ⓘYour precious tea really needs to be kept airtight and away from light once you open it - we'd strongly recommend one of our tins to keep it safe.
Do you need a tin to store your tea?

A bright, fresh tea plucked during the April Buddha Jayanti full moon.

Grown and crafted by the Small Growers Cooperative - a group of 60 families working together to control their own destiny, and produce some of the best tea in the world.

This Himalayan tea is an early pluck, straight after the dormant winter, rich in stored sweetness. Highly fragrant and floral it is light and elegant as a green tea whilst combining the satisfying malty, chocolate notes that will be more pronounced in the Second Flush. Best enjoyed without milk.

37p per cup based on 2.5g of tea per 150ml of water and 3 infusions.

Mirik Valley, Darjeeling, India

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Recommended Infusion Guide

  • Quantity

    Use 2.5g of tea per 150ml of water.

  • Temperature

    For the optimum infusion use 80°C water.

  • Time

    Infuse for 90 seconds, tasting regularly.

  • Infusions

    You can infuse this tea at least three times. With each careful infusion, different subtleties of flavour are revealed.

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How to infuse your tea is very personal, and these are just our recommendations based on experience. Please experiment with these variables to your heart's delight. These are our recommendations, not hard and fast rules. The most delicious tea is the one you love.

Our guide uses a standard tea cup size (150ml/5.5 oz) as a measure, please adjust the quantity of leaf accordingly for less or more water. Our whole loose leaves are of such a high quality that you can infuse our teas at least twice, and the second infusion is often better than the first, with different flavours revealed as the leaf softens. If you prefer your tea stronger, add more leaf, don’t leave it for longer (this will just make it bitter).

Buddha Jayanti full moon

This Darjeeling first flush tea was plucked during a 2023 Buddha Jayanti full moon.

The Small Growers Society use traditional farming methods without any chemical pesticides and herbicides. Even before the popularity of organic tea, the land was kept untouched by chemicals, in part due to the high costs, and an unwillingness to become dependent on products they could not produce themselves.

Many varieties of herbs, fruits and vegetables are grown alongside the teas to ensure rich biodiversity.

Before the cooperative the growers had no direct route to market and so their leaves were sold to larger tea companies. They had no control over the price they would be paid nor the end quality of the tea.

By purchasing their own tea processing equipment they now have control over the end product, allowing them to craft higher quality loose leaf Darjeeling tea and retain the value of their leaves and craft.

SMALL TEA GROWERS SOCIETY

Yanki & Allan Rai

The Small Tea Growers Society was founded by Yankhu Tamang (Yanki) & her son Allan Rai.

Yanki founded the society to look after her fellow local tea farmers and not be forced to supply giant agribusiness who showed no concern for the local community or the land.

Her son Allan Rai is an experimental tea maker who focuses on the crafting of their precious leaf into truly extraordinary tea.

Darjeeling is an area high in the Eastern Himalayas with Nepal to the West, Bhutan to the east, Sikkim to the north and tibet and West Bengal to the south.

Bunkulung village in the Mirik valley is a secret, hidden jewel on the western edge of Darjeeling. It is thought to be one of the first places tea was cultivated in India in the 1840s. This magnificent, unspoilt terroir is surrounded by subalpine forests, orange groves and sits above the Balason river basin.

The Small Growers Society is spread across the valley ranging from 1000 to 1980m elevation above Mirik Lake.

Shipping, delivery & more...

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*Subject to next day cutoff and postcode location. Availability of rates depends on location and order weight. For a complete overview of our shipping rates please see our delivery page.

All prices quoted in GBP and will be converted to your local currency if available.

The Rare Tea Lady believes that our teas are some of the greatest in the world, and that our range and service are second to none.

In the isolated case that you are not completely satisfied with any tea or teaware you purchase from our website, please get in contact with our customer services team to discuss returning your order.*

In most instances we will give you a full refund of the item’s cost excluding postage. We may ask you to return the item to us. Customers in the European Union have a statutory cooling-off period of fourteen days that is not affected by this guarantee, but any tea pouches much remained sealed for this to be in effect.

*We only accept returns/refunds for tea within two months of receipt, because it is impossible for us to know if the tea has been stored correctly.

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