Grade: Organic FTGFOP1 Flowery (Finest Tippy Golden Flavory Orange Pekoe grade 1)

The ‘Flowery grade’ is rare, and it means that the tea has intense champagne almost orchid like flavour. The dried leaves exhibit the true new season look – curly, mottled, and tending greenish.

CUP CHARACTERISTICS: Smooth and full of Champagne notes.

Puttabong is located on the north side of Darjeeling town and is one of the oldest estates is Darjeeling. Besides producing stunning tea, Puttabong recently has become a tourist attraction because of the tremendous sweeping view of the Himalayas less than 50 miles to the north. The mountains are so high and big that they fill the horizon – it is difficult to imagine something so large and yet so far away. If you intend to visit, the best time is November when the probability of obscuring clouds is less.... or get up very early and catch the dawn light.

A little bit about Darjeeling:

The area is in northern India in the shade of Mt Everest and Mt Kanchenjunga and sandwiched between Nepal and the mysterious kingdom of Bhutan. Darjeeling state is basically all mountains and valleys – to get a flat piece of land longer than 1000 feet is a rarity. The area is home to about 2 million people with nearly 15% living on the estates (workers, dependents, and retired workers). More than 50% of the people living here get their primary source of income from tea and tea related activities.

Many of tea bushes can trace their lineage to a Scottish botanist, Robert Fortune who smuggled tea out of China in the 1840’s on a mission by the British East Indies Company to offset the stranglehold China had on Britain’s tea market, by planting tea in Darjeeling. The Champagne characteristic that is very evident on these Ultra First Flush teas comes from the Chinese sub genus of the Camellia Sinensis which thrived in the mountain soils and climate.

From November to March the bushes are dormant (meaning they are not growing new shoots) due to the altitude and northern latitude of the region. When the bushes do start growing again, the new shoots are sparse but simply full of ‘pent-up’ flavor. The new growth is called Ultra First Flush, meaning the best from the beginning of the growing season. In the first 2 weeks this estate only produces about 1000 kilos and there is a race by the luxury stores around the world to get it.