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The district of Darjeeling in India’s north has a total area of approximately 3,000 square kilometres stretching across the foothills of the Himalayas – one of 16 districts that together make up the federal state of West Bengal.
In the north the rivers Teesta and Rangit mark Darjeeling’s frontier with Sikkim, in the west it borders Nepal, and in the east the kingdom of Bhutan.
As late as the middle of the 19th century, the town of Darjeeling, which has given its name to a variety
of tea that is world-famous today, was hardly a speck on the map; the army used it as a hill base camp and only a few peasant farmers lived there.
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After Dr. Campbell planted the first tea bushes at Beechwood in 1847 and established the first economically viable tea gardens in 1852 – Tukvar, Steinthal and Aloobari – the number of tea gardens continued to grow until there were no less than 113 of them by the year 1874. Today, during the high season and depending on the weather, up to 65,000 workers produce an average of 10 – 11 million kilos of Darjeeling tea from 86 tea gardens in an area of approximately 19,000 hectares.
Darjeeling is quite justifiably referred to as the champagne of teas. This is not just because only tea from this region is allowed to bear the name, but also because at its altitude of up to 2,000 metres above sea level the tea grows only very slowly, enabling it to produce its especially fine aroma.
The first flush is picked from March to April and is fresh and tangy; the very first pickings are eagerly awaited and sent to Germany by plane.
In between teas are produced in the period April to May and include both the freshness of the first pickings as well as a foretaste of....
...the second flush, which is produced from mid-May to June, has a soft, aromatic character with an exquisite hint of muscatel and commands premium prices on world markets.
Just before the break in the harvest, the autumnals become available; there is of course no comparison with earlier pickings, but they still have a distinctively aromatic character.
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