Glenburn's Autumn Crescendo - The Embodiment Of A Fall Tea

It's fall here in Colorado, with the official start of winter just around the corner. The "winter" and "fall" harvests just wrapped up in many of the tea growing regions, such as Taiwan for Winter Oolongs and Darjeeling for the Autumn Encore teas. I already talked about this year's Long Feng Xia from the winter harvest that just came in - delicious, refined, clean. The opposite could be said for the fall teas from Darjeeling, including Glenburn Estate's Autumn Crescendo. I've brought this tea into the cafe going on three harvests now, and each time I am reminded why I love this tea. It is, if one understands the land, the environment, and what is happening to the tea plants, the embodiment of fall. Smoother and sweeter than the Second Flush teas, the Autumn harvest exhibits to me the perfect notes of what I would expect from a fall tea. As the nights cool and the sun dips lower on the horizon, the plants begin to pull back their life force into the main branches and roots, leaving behind the glucose and starch in the leaves. Plucking the leaves now, when the glucose, starches, carotenoids, and anthocyanins are more prevalent, while the polyphenols, chlorophyll, and amino acids are reduced results in a slightly sweeter, smoother, more mellow and robust tea, especially when the leaves are allowed to oxidize to around 50%(?) or so.

The Glenburn Estate gardens tumbling down the side of the mountain.

The Glenburn Estate is located on the northern edge of the Darjeeling Hills, backed up against the mighty Himalayas, which rise in the background. The cool air comes down from the Himalayas, pulling cold, moist air from the glaciers and blanketing the tea gardens in the fall.

Looking south at Glenburn, with the town of Darjeeling to the west, and the low, hot plains off in the horizon. The hot air on the plains holds back the colder air from the Himalayas, creating the micro-climate that results in the Darjeeling Hills ability to grow such amazing teas.

As Sanjay Sharma, Glenburn's Manager noted, "only in Autumn did I find those delicate floral notes with very mellow cups and basically fruity undertones - not like fresh fruit but moistened dried apricots, maybe raisins - and, in the dry leaf, hints of chocolate" (Koehler 2015, p. 181). These are the notes found in the Autumn Crescendo and that one would expect from a quality fall tea processed in such a way as to pull out the flavor profile that are being exhibited in the leaves by the plant during this time. Along with the Moonshine First Flush from Glenburn, the Autumn Crescendo might be my other favorite from the Estate.

No real whole leaves as one finds in the other flushes, most likely from the more fragile nature of the fall leaves.

As for my readings, which are starting to provide some interesting baseline data from which I can begin to pose questions and hypothesis from, I got the following numbers:

Water
TDS - 82ppm
PH - 7.41
Temp - 165

Brewed Tea
TDS - 373ppm
PH - 5.61
Temp - 158

Difference
TDS - 291ppm
PH - 1.8

Moonshine, Orchid Dew, Black Beauty

Moonshine First Flush Darjeeling

 I've been drinking a fair amount of teas from Darjeeling (and just over the border on either side - Nepal to the north and Assam to the south and east) recently, probably because I have been reading the book "Darjeeling: The Colorful History and Precarious Fate of the World's Greatest Tea" by Jeff Koehler. Published in 2015, this is a fun, slightly romantic, but also honest look at the history of tea in Darjeeling. I'll try and do a proper review when I am finished, but since I have been reading the book at lunch, my afternoon tea preference has migrated towards the Darjeelings. One of my favorites right now is the wonderful Moonshine First Flush tea from Glenburn Estate. Glenburn figures prominently in the book, and the characters and writing make me feel like I have a closer connection to this delicious tea. I also have another connection to this tea, as I regularly talk with several people from the Estate. I had ordered the Moonshine earlier this year, which was from clonal plants and instantly fell in love with it. This batch, which I re-ordered came from Chinese plants, not clonal plants, but was equally delicious. A touch more earthy then a true First Flush, the Moonshine for me has the perfect combination of floral and ethereal qualities while still maintaining some connection to hills from which the tea is produced.

The carefully dried leaves.

Second steeping.

Whole, China varietal leaves.

I have started to experiment with water - not just in temperature, but in the water itself. Water is perhaps the greatest overlooked component of tea brewing here in the United States, and for me it is a critical part of respecting the tea and the flavor profile crafted by the tea master. Not only is temperature critical for brewing the proper cup of tea - I prefer to brew around 190 degrees for most teas, with a slight cooling taking place over the drinking process of the water to around 185 degrees - but so are the PH and Total Dissolved Solids (TDS). I will write more on this in a separate post, but since I have started to record some of this information with each tea I drink, I'll post it here.

Orchid Dew Green Tea

I brought in a pound of this tea to try for the first time. Produced from a Japanese cultivar in China, this green tea is a fresh, lively green that combines tea growing and processing techniques from Japan and China. Air dried, slightly steamed, and then partially rolled this green was a pleasant surprise, and one that I would certainly buy again. It reminds me of a hearty Mao Feng (as oppossed to the lighter Mao Fengs one often encounters) but with a touch more sweetness and vibrancy. With only a pound, I'm sure it will go fast. At a 20 second steep, I got 402 TDS!

So green and vibrant.

Floating in a sea of green.

Perfect leaves.

Black Beauty Orthodox Assam

Jumping back from China to India, the Black Beauty Orthodox Assam is the final tea in this post. I'm working on doing a tea tasting with several different teas from Assam to reflect the different terroir found up and down the Brahmaputra River Valley. Some of the Assams I've been tasting include ones from Halmari Estate, Mokalbari Estate, Hathikuli Estate, Heritage Tea Estate, Mangalam Estate, and others. The "Black Beauty" from Heritage Tea Estate is the latest that I've had. An orthodox tea (like most we carry from Assam, simply meaning whole leaf as opposed to CTC - cut, tear, curl), the Black Beauty was remarkably sweet, with a light maltiness and rich body. A gold-tips tea, I was surprised by its sweetness, which was more honey like than sugar or malty sweetness, and because it did not have nearly as many gold-tips as the Gold Tip Mangalam which we also have. At a 20 second steep I got 394 TDS and a PH of 5.72! To compare, for Mangalam I get 372 TDS for the same time.

No whole leaves, mostly because of the machine rolling.

Now, for some depressing news, but first, a cool painting I found by Sun Wei from the Tang Dynasty depicting a liesurly day in the country enjoying tea. The painting is supposed to be of royals during the Jin (265-420) and Wei (220-265) dynasties in China. Here it is obvious that tea is still consumed more as a soup or broth than as tea like we know of it today.

OK, so for the depressing news. I can't comment really on the situation since I am not there and do not know the particulars. Rather, or me this stresses the importance of knowing your sources, knowing your teas, and knowing whom to buy from. We currently do not carry any teas from Duncan-owned Estates, and I have no plans on doing so in the future. As the tea world continues to shrink and buyers source directly from growers or Estates, human rights issues, the use of pesticides, and greater transparency will continue to be emphasized. I hope the situation rights itself.