Hi,
TGIF, the shops have opened and I went to see my dealer to put an end
to that guessing game. So after some hesitation, and a discussion with
his wife again he looked around and then whispered the name into my
ear: Rangmuk T.E.

A few notes on that tea:
Appearance: as green as a FF gets, quite a few silver tips, some more
oxidised
leaves, and far less broken leaves and fannings than in the first
sample I got from that dealer

Dry blow: very aromatic, warm spices, some sweeter notes nicely
embedded, interesting profile.

Prewarmed my 180ml/6 oz Gaiwan, poured out the water, added 2.3g of
leaves.

1st sniff of moistened leaves: grassy, with heavy balsamic clouds
wafting up, rounded up by
notes of tangerine peel. Promising indeed.

Added 180ml of Kingfisher Mineral Water, ~93 Deg C.

1. steeping - 2'15" - light indian yellow:
- light cup, min. adstringent, rounded aromatic profile with notes of
riper grass and lighter notes of citronella

2. steeping - 2'45" - medium indian yellow (a lovely color, haven't
seen that in any FF before)
- adstringency slightly picking up, a light cup, now some other fruity
and spicy notes come into play, fairly complex at this time, couldn't
identify any of the peaks, the profile (not the flavour) reminds me of
a well blended masala

3. steeping - 3'15" - denser indian yellow
- adstringency didn't pick up as much as expected, now the flavour is
dominated by some heavy balsamic notes, the base spectrum is that of
warm spices in a bed of hayish notes completed by some autumnal woody
notes.

A sniff of the cold leaves showed a pretty sharp profile, hints of
menthol, stronger notes of mint in a bouquet of herbal notes with
single protruding bitter peaks, as you would find in an older sample of
"Herbs de Provence".

Bottom line:
A nice little tea, truly enjoyable, but nothing too great. I'm
desperately waiting for more samples, but right now I'd give it 60-65
out of 100 points. This tea too benefits from a wee bit of added sugar.


As always I tried to guess the retail price and got it right this time.
The FF of the better known estates will sell for 3-5 times that price
over here; god knows what you have to pay in the US for 100g of a
decent FF DJ this year. Since that chap only had a small amount
available I took the plunge and grabbed two pounds for my friends back
home.

Best,
Karsten / Darjeeling

Ha, got a phonecall about 20 mins ago. A tiger has been sighted at
Makhaibari TE, moving through the tea bushes and scaring the living ...
out of the locals. The special wildlife squad (carrying narcotic guns)
has been informed and I guess the hunt is on. As it's already perfectly
dark outside I wouldn't be to keen on joining those guys down there.

BTW: Managed to snatch a ~3g sample of that fresh Puttabong and now
it's back to the hotel for another sampling session. The price is 6
times that of the Rangmuk mentioned before, let's see how that
translates into the cup.

Karsten / Darjeeling

writes:

> [...giving the Rangmuk a gaiwan workout...]
> 2. steeping - 2'45" - medium indian yellow (a lovely color, haven't
> seen that in any FF before)
> - adstringency slightly picking up, a light cup, now some other fruity
> and spicy notes come into play, fairly complex at this time, couldn't
> identify any of the peaks, the profile (not the flavour) reminds me of
> a well blended masala

Hey Karsten: You're a careful writer, so when I see you distinguishing
"profile" and "flavor" I'm sure you mean something specific. Could
you explain, please?

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html

Lewis Perin wrote:
> Hey Karsten: You're a careful writer, so when I see you distinguishing
> "profile" and "flavor" I'm sure you mean something specific. Could
> you explain, please?

Hey Lew.. not speaking for her, but I took it to mean the aroma
profile. Similar to smelling a fine wine and comparing the profile to
another similar wine. That was how I read it... but we'll have to wait
out Karsten's response.

Oh Lew,
all that techno-speak (spectrum, peaks, ...) comes from my weird
engineering/scientific background. I always try to perceive tea with
all available (deteroriated) senses and e.g. while sniffing or slurping
teas I get all kinds of visuals on my internal screen, sometimes
accompanied by physical perceptions. Then I usually convert them onto a
2-dimensional plane and interpret them as a 2d spectrum to make them
more communicable. There must be a hidden database somewhere that
allows me to automatically compare those spectrums with that of other
substances. Of course this is highly subjective, but working with other
folks in the past has shown that there's at least a bit of an
intersubjective consensus. For example blind testing of homeopathic or
Bach remedies by taking them into your hand and letting them "tell
their stories" (takes between 5 seconds and 3 minutes). I and others
could do it for hours without one wrong guessing.

Back to your question, take for example the frequency-over-time
spectrums of music, from low-freq bass notes up to overtones (a
Schubert piano piece vs. full-spectrum electronic music) and try to
see or analyse, say the aroma or flavor of tea that way. If I think of
the masala I mentioned (a masala - nothing to defined but again one of
those files in my database <g>) I perceive a synergistic
multi-dimensional projection (pls forgive me) of it's aroma/flavor that
matches my perception of that tea at that moment (and later on) pretty
much like spectrums of different pieces of music can be pretty similar
in appearance.
I can't help it, it just happens, I just hope it makes a bit sense to
those who waste their valuable time reading those lines .
As Namkhai Norbu, a Dzogchen master, used to say, looking all over the
seminar room: "This all dream".

Karsten / Darjeeling