Soom Gunpowder Darjeeling

I've only tried Darjeeling tea once before, and was severely underwhelmed.  It has a reputation as the "Champagne of teas," but my prior experience with Darjeeling was a bit less than exciting.  Gunpowder Darjeeling from the Soom tea estate is a completely different, and has really opened up a whole new world of teas for me to try.  This was the first tea of five that I tried from the Culinary Teas "Darjeeling Sampler," leaving me with four more Darjeeling estates to sample and write about.

Darjeeling tea comes from a very specific region of India, and is a highly sought after tea.  The relative scarcity as well as the high quality makes Darjeeling rather expensive, and apparently often counterfeited (look for the official Darjeeling Tea association logo).  Darjeeling tea is usually lightly colored and flavored with floral, fruit, and spice notes.  First flush is the first harvest of the season, and has lighter flavors and less astringency, then the second flush, which is typified by stronger muscatel flavors.  There are also Monsoon and Autumnal flushes, which have less strong flavors and are not as often exported, but often show up in blends and bags.  Darjeeling is sold as a black tea, but can technically be considered as an Oolong, since the leaves are only about 90% oxidized.  More confusingly, actual Oolong, green, and white Darjeeling are now becoming available as well.

The Gunpowder Soom Darjeeling is "BPS" grade, or Broken Pekoe Souchong.  Tea grading is confusing at best, and I must admit, I had to look this up, but it's simply an Indian tea grade classification for Broken Orange Pekoe, basically meaning "broken tea leaves."  Gunpowder, as with green tea, means that in the processing, the leaves are tightly rolled into balls (sometimes referred to as "pearls") that unfurl when brewed.  Soom, it turns out, is a well known tea estate in Darjeeling.  Their tea grows on mountain sides, about 5200 feel above sea level, sometimes on slopes approaching 45 degrees, and is actually moved from field to factory by mountain pony!  Some of Soom's tea bushes are estimated to be over 130 years old, yet still producing tea.  The quality is further highlighted by a modernized factory with brand new equipment, the happy result of an unfortunate fire in 1995.

Darjeeling can be more finicky to brew than bolder, sturdier teas.  The leaves are more fragile, and sometimes require a shorter steeping time, though this one in particular brews for about three or four minutes at a full, rolling boil.  Like greens and whites, milk and sweetener would destroy the fragile body and taste of this type of tea; thus, it's best drank by itself, letting the delicate tea speak on its own.

And it does speak!  My first sip of Soom Gunpowder Darjeeling is an unexpected pleasure.  The flavors are mellow, and not as bold as say an Assam, but I find several different delicate and balanced notes that go together very well.  The initial note is a mild natural smokiness.  This is not a smoke dried tea like Lapsang Souchong, but instead, has a naturally dry and smoky characteristic that I find very appealing.  The smoke is balanced with a slight toasted or nutty flavor that I have found in Oolongs, and further back on the tongue, restrained fruit and peppery spices.  All of these flavor notes mingle and complement each other very well.  You can almost feel different aspects of the taste hitting different flavor receptors on the tongue.

Darjeeling tends to have a lighter body, and can have a fair bit of astringency.  These show up in Soom Gunpowder Darjeeling as a light texture and a very refreshing and crisp mouthfeel.  The finish is short, but leaves my mouth feeling clean and reminiscent of the Gunpowder green I had a few months back.

My overall impression of Soom Gunpowder Darjeeling is excellent.  Based on a bad impression a few years back, I've been ignoring Darjeeling, but now I have a whole new world to high quality tea to explore.  Score:  95 (A)