October 2024 Tea Subscription

  

Thank you for coming onboard Parchmen & Co and travel with us to savour our world in a cup!

We aim to bring tea drinkers into the world of extremely fine and exclusive teas. These teas used to be inaccessible to commoners in the past but today we are able to bring it to you via our extensive network of sources directly from tea farms owned by our friends in different countries.

In the month of October 2024, we are featuring two Darjeeling teas from the same tea estate and a black tea:

- 2023 Giddapahar Tea Estate First Flush SFTGFOP 1 CH 10g
- 2024 Giddapahar Tea Estate Second Flush SFTGFOP 1 CH Muscatel  10g
- 2017 Gao Jia Shan An Hua "Golden Flowers" brick black tea 高家山安化茯砖 10g

The first two teas are from the same estate - Giddapahar Tea Estate of the Darjeeling hills. From the plains of Siliguri at 200m to Darjeeling town at 2,045m, the climb of around 60km is along two main roads. The main highway from Siliguri to Darjeeling is National Highway 110, also known as Hill Cart Road. It is generally north-south orientation, passing through the towns of Kurseong, Ghoom and finally terminating at Darjeeling. The parallel road on its west is Mirik Road, extending from Siliguri to the town of Mirik, then changing name to become Rishi Road to continue northwards, where a 27km section of the road after Mirik forms the border between India and Nepal, before turning east to join Hill Cart Road at Ghoom town. 

Giddaphar Tea Estate is located at 1,500m on the gentle slopes of Kurseong Valley of the Darjeeling Hills. It was established in 1881 and has remained in the hands of the Shaw family till today. Covering a large area of over 100 ha of tea farms, the tea bushes are blanketed by the constant mist that gathers due to the low temperature of the high elevation. The name explains it, as Giddapahar translates to Eagle's Hill. Running it like a family business, it's currently in the capable hands of its 4th generation owner, Mr. Surendra Nath Singh and his brother. 

The tea estate is known for its century old tea bushes of the historical Chinese variety, known locally as the chinary tea plant. Our tea is made using exactly that, as designated by 'CH' which stands for China or chinary. How the China variety of tea became the mainstay of Darjeelling tea is intriguing. The current 'CH' stock in Darjeeling estates were seeded from earlier Chinese varieties smuggled out from China in 1849 and 1850 by Scottish Robert Fortune who managed to remain under cover and collect tea saplings from Zhejiang, Anhui and Fujian provinces - in no less unbelievable ways than in disguising his outlandish look and huge Scottish build in Qing dynasty attire complete with a pigtail. Beside smuggling teas - totalling about 10,000 stocks of saplings over the three years from their own records, Robert Fortune also smuggled out 18 tea farmers, some of whom were left behind in Sri Lanka on route to India, and the rest safely reached India and kickstarted the cultivation and processing of Chinese tea varieties in India. His years spent in the heartlands of China exposed the weak domestic situations of the Qing dynasty beyond its strong international image as a superpower. This rare insight offered by the letters sent by Robert Fortune out of China set the stage for the subsequent colonisation of China by the western powers.

In a bid to adapt tea making techniques to local conditions and equipment, the techniques of processing Indian tea evolved differently from the Chinese. In fact, even the nomenclatures are different, with the Indians calling it black teas and the Chinese revising that old name to call it a red tea.

In the Indian technique of making spring tea, the first flush fresh leaves are picked 1 bud 2 leaves, in a short picking season of about 4 weeks. They are left overnight to whither in the tea factory, where they are turned several times to allow even drying and to prevent heat accumulation from the accompanying natural reactions from withering. In the morning, the leaves are rolled and given their final shapes before an extremely short 5 to 10 mins of oxidation. Very little oxidation would take place in the leaves, given its tenderness and short period of growth. They are then dried in a mechanical dryer and packed for the market. Such a technique produces a tea of varying tones of colour - mix of green lightly oxidised smaller leaves and silver furry buds to heavily oxidised red and brown larger leaves. Its flavour reflects this spectrum of colours - fresh, light and bright like a green tea and yet with the aromas and sweetness of ripe fruits that come with heavier oxidation. 

The second flush aims to make a bolder and richer tea, made possible by the leaves that develop faster under the summer sun. The leaves are picked 1 bud 3 leaves, in a longer picking season of 4 - 5 weeks, with picking very 7 - 10 days. In the second flush, the processing style merges with the traditional Chinese style of red tea processing, allowing the leaves to oxidise heavily before sending them to the dryer. The result is a tea of darker shade, with occasional silver buds of low oxidation (by virtue of the lesser catechins in a young bud). 

First and second flush teas of the highest grade usually come with a string of designations. SFTGFOP 1 means Super Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekeo Grade 1. Essentially, it means the highest grade. Peculiar to each estate, the highest grade is a designation adopted since their respective inception, and thus, they do not differ in quality although the grade may look different. In other words, one estate may designate SFTGFOP 1 as their highest grade, while another equally reputable estate may designate FTGFOP as their highest grade. The 'muscatel' in its name denotes the main flavour characteristic representative of the second flush tea.

We are brewing the Giddapahar tea in our Parchmen Glass Gaiwan, at 3.5g to 130ml of 80°C water for 45 - 75 sec, shortening the time as we continue to rebrew.

First flush Giddapahar shines with its fresh flavours of spring - think fresh and sweet aromas of white flowers like jasmine and light fruits like pear and white grapes, accompanied with a smooth mouthfeel of low astringency. Colour is pale amber or maybe golden. We are gentle with the pouring of the brewing water to prevent over-extraction of bitter and astringent flavours. For the second or third brews, we used shorter times of 30 sec but at the same temperature.

Second flush Giddapahar, unlike the flowery first flush, shows bolder fruity notes. The dry leaves give the clear idea why it is called 'muscatel', because they unreservedly present notes of grapes against an undertone of fresh wood. In the brew, the medium light and smooth body carries with it notes of muscat or Kyoho grapes tapering to curious notes of ginger and chrysanthemum when slightly cooler. Surely, the colour is an enticing amber. The brewed leaves are forward on white peper, Kyoho grapes, blueberries, with a hint of white flowers. For the second or third brews, we used shorter times of 30 sec but at the same temperature.

Our last tea today is a black tea from An Hua. The first mention of a black tea was in a Ming dynasty tea chronicle discussing a tea from An Hua. It is no wonder that An Hua black tea is often touted as the symbol of Chinese black teas. The Chinese black tea is also known as a dark tea in the western world. Based on the colour change in tea processing, the standard Chinese tea nomenclature was based on the 1971 research paper of Prof Chen Chuan (陈椽, 《茶叶分类理论与实践》). The Western nomenclature arose from 200 years of tea trading between tea merchants and Western trading ships arriving at the southern Chinese ports, mainly Amoy (Xiamen today). Naturally, the local Fujian vernacular for teas with black leaves was adopted for the Fujian teas made that way - a red tea in today's nomenclature. The retention of this term in the Western tea vocabulary today underscores the deep impression that significant past history has made on the western collective memory.

In the pristine, remote hills of An Hua county, wild tea trees share the forest land with the other flora of the primary forest. Probably untouched for centuries, these tea trees were first discovered by villagers in 1950-60s after which tea picking and making started on an organised scale. Despite this good start, the nascent tea industry ground to a halt shortly under a confluence of factors - remoteness of the county, lack of supporting logistics and infrastructure out from the tea hills, poor market support and interest, and the national policy then to "return farmland to nature". It was not until the late 1970s that the market reform in China opened new doors for it. By then, the abandoned tea farms two decades ago have returned wild. With renewed interest in this lost tea art and its associated lost farmlands, Gao Jia Shan company was founded in 2007 and started making tea from such farmlands and other wild tea forests hidden deep within the hills of An Hua. Well rested for a few decades, these wild teas offer tremendous potential in becoming quality teas. The company's foresight has propelled itself to become one of the largest tea company in An Hua today, with a massive land area of 98 mu (亩 = 666.7m²). The founder was also awarded the honorary title of Black Tea Master 

The tea is from the natural wild tea forest of Five Dragon Mountain (五龙山). At 1,050m, the wild arbor tea trees grows slowly under an average temperature of 16.1°C and develops deep roots into the granite soil in search for water. The tea variety in An Hua are of smaller and medium sized leaves, as compared to the bigger leaf assamica variety in Yunnan pu'er. For a deeper and bolder flavour in An Hua black teas, older and thicker leaves are needed. A routine similar to green tea processing culminates in a fermentation stage. In the making of "golden flowers" tea, stems are included so as to allow aeration of the interior of the brick and promoting the formation of "golden flowers" during fermentation. Subsequently, the brick is loosely compressed to retain the "golden flowers", which also allow easy fragmenting for brewing. In fact, the 'golden flowers' are a form of yellow molds which are harmless and yet beneficial to human health. The unique moist and cool environment in An Hua promotes the propagation of this natural mold which builds a symbiotic relationship with the tea. Found in no other tea regions, the "golden flowers" are a unique feature in An Hua black teas. The lengthy fermentation mellows down the tea, such that there is no astringency even after long and repeated brewing. 

Noticeably different from the usual round shape of a pu'er black tea, Anhua black tea usually adopts the shape of a brick or a rod in specific multiples of 50g. (50g is denoted as 1 'liang (两), which is 10% of a 'jin' (斤).) The "golden flowers" often smell like a common Chinese herb called 'Fu Ling' (茯苓), which is a fungus called China root), hence this tea is traditionally termed a 'Fu' brick. Harvested in the spring of 2017 April, the leaves are third grade. 

We are brewing this tea without breaking it up (in compressed fragments) in a Parchmen Glass Gaiwan, at 3.5g to 130ml of 100°C water for 30 sec continuously for up to 6 brews. The brewed leaves smell clean, with a light woody undertone and a white floral and vanilla overtone. The brew colour is light golden on the initial brew and darkening to amber on the second brew as the fragments start to open up, then lightening to a pale yellow with more brews. Without breaking up the tea, the initial brew is impressively silky and smooth, with clean notes of China roots, in a interestingly monotonous way. It is very balanced, and there is no astringency or bitterness. The second brew is less silky when hot but becomes silky smooth like the initial brew when slightly cooler. The silkiness feels like cream coating the entire palate and the flavour notes open up to China root and white flowers. With more brews, the silkiness reduces slightly but the creamy sensation is still apparent. Curiously, notes of walnut and roasted coconuts come forward at the 4th brew, and the tea tastes sweeter from the 5th brew - there seem to be an acidic undertone that gives an impression of fruity sweetness. From the 6th brew onwards, the tea has diminished aroma but the creaminess and silkiness retain. Similar to the pu'er, this tea is good for digestion, and is perfect as an after-meal drink.

Enjoy your teas of October 2024!

Thank you for coming onboard Parchmen & Co and travel with us to savour our world in a cup!