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First Flush Darjeeling Loose Leaf Black Tea

7 reviews
£11.99
£11.99
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37p per cup

Style

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.

Tasting Notes

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.

Cost Per Cup

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

Origin

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.

1 3

More infusion tips

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...

Shipping Information

UK Shipping Rates
FREE UK Tracked when you spend £30 or more
FREE UK Express - Next Day* when you spend £60 or more
UK Tracked - Two Day Tracked £3.99
UK Express - Next Day* Tracked £5.49
UK Express - Next Day* Courier from £8.49

USA Shipping Rates
FREE DHL Tracked/DHL Plus Tracked when you spend $30 or more
DHL Tracked/Plus Tracked from £4.99
USPS Priority from £8.99
FedEx Home Delivery from £16.99

Europe Shipping Rates
FREE Europe Tracked when you spend £50 or more
Europe Tracked Delivery from £4.99
Europe Express Courier from £21.99

Canadian Shipping Rates*
FREE DHL International Tracked when you spend $40 CAD or more
DHL International Tracked from £5.99
FedEx Courier Delivery from £34.99

Worldwide Shipping Rates
FREE Worldwide Tracked when you spend £50 or more
Worldwide Tracked Delivery from £5.99
ROW Express Courier from £20.49

*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.

IOSS for EU Orders

Rare Tea Company uses IOSS (Import One Stop Shop) for EU orders placed on the website.

How IOSS works and how it is applied on the website.

The IOSS scheme allows us to collect VAT during checkout on your behalf, meaning that no VAT is due when your order is assessed by your local authority.

  • If the combined value of the products in your cart are equal to or below €150 (excluding tax), VAT will be included at the point of sale and you should not be charged any fees when your order arrives.*
  • Once the €150 threshold is exceeded VAT will be removed from the items in your cart and from this point onwards when your order ships you will be liable for local VAT, duties and import fees.**

To avoid unnecessary import charges, keep your orders under €150 (excluding tax and shipping). Tax is included on all applicable products at Rare Tea - if your order is applicable for IOSS tax will be shown at the checkout.

Valid for IOSS

Not valid for IOSS

Your order confirmation and shipping confirmation emails will also confirm whether your order is valid for IOSS.

As with all complex shipping methods, the IOSS system isn't foolproof, and orders that are valid for IOSS are occasionally incorrectly charged VAT by customs.

If an order shipped via IOSS and that you have paid VAT on does get incorrectly assessed by customs, please don't worry. It's usually just a mistake that can be fixed by contacting customs and explaining that the order shipped via IOSS with VAT already paid.

If this does happen to you then we suggest the following:

  1. Please contact us before speaking to customs.
  2. We will double check that the order was valid for IOSS.
  3. We will provide a VAT receipt and a shipping label as evidence.
  4. Contact your local customs for assistance, using the shipping label as evidence.
  5. If all else fails we will attempt to get our shipping provider to investigate, but this process can take a while.

*Please note - this does not include any applicable duty charged when the item is cleared. Within the EU tea is free from duty, but your region might have a different rules for non-tea items such as tins and teaware. Any duty charged is payable by you, the customer before delivery via your local customs authority.
**In special cases where custom fees have been unexpected we have retroactively refunded these in select cases. As of the 15th February 2023 (the start of IOSS) we have discontinued this process.

What is IOSS?

The Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) is the electronic portal businesses can use since 1 July 2021 to comply with their VAT e-commerce obligations on distance sales of imported goods.

Up until the 1st July 2021, no import VAT has to be paid for commercial goods of a value up to EUR 22. New VAT eCommerce rules abolished this provision as of 1st July 2021. Thus, from 1 July 2021, all commercial goods imported into the EU from a third country or third territory is subject to VAT irrespective of their value.

What is IOSS for?

IOSS allows suppliers and electronic interfaces selling imported goods to buyers in the EU to collect, declare and pay the VAT to the tax authorities, instead of making the buyer pay the VAT at the moment the goods are imported into the EU as it was previously the case (for products over 22 EUR).

What are the advantages of IOSS?

IOSS facilitates the collection, declaration and payment of VAT for sellers making distance sales of imported goods to buyers in the EU. The IOSS also makes the process easier for the buyer, who is only charged at the time of purchase, and therefore does not face any surprise fees when the goods are delivered. If the seller is not registered in the IOSS, the buyer has to pay the VAT and usually a customs clearance fee charged by the transporter.

What countries does IOSS apply to?

IOSS applies to the EU member states of Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Republic of Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.

It does not apply to the EEA.

How much tax will I get charged?

Tax will be charged at the base VAT rate of the shipping country.

Full details of IOSS can be found on the European Comission website.

Any questions? Please get in touch!

Send us a message using the form below, or call +44 (0) 207 681 0115 (9am - 5pm GMT, Monday - Friday).

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