The Harney & Sons Guide to Tea - Michael Harney [39]
Okayti is a nostalgic favorite of mine. Situated on a lovely corner of a road through the Mirik Valley, it is a stunningly beautiful garden. When my mentor, Bernd Wulf, died, his ashes were scattered here. Whenever we are in the area, a visit is mandatory.
Queen Victoria also found teas from this garden enjoyable. Legend credits her for the name: After trying it, she pronounced that it was indeed “okay tea.”
NILGIRI BLACK TEAS
1. Kairbetta FTGFOP Frost Tea
Nilgiri means “Blue Mountain” ; part of the Western Ghats mountain range in southern India, the Nilgiris are also the most scenic tea region in India—which is saying a lot, considering Darjeeling’s stunning mountain scenery and the enchanting tea carpet of Assam. Found in Tamil Nadu, bordering Kerala, the Nilgiris combine beautiful mountains with an abundance of blooming flowers. The British established the first tea plantation here in 1854. After experiencing the heat of the plains, I can understand the attraction of the cooler highlands where the tea is grown. The region grew to become a major producer with several hundred tea estates. After India’s independence, the Nilgiris became a volume producer of CTC teas rather than a source of quality Orthodox teas. Unfortunately, this trend predominates today, which is why this section is so short. Kairbetta is a tea made in the cold months of December and January. Its aromas are delightful enough that I thought the tea merited its own section.
KAIRBETTA FTGFOP FROST TEA Kairbetta Fancy Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe Frost Tea
Kairbetta is a garden located in southern India, in the tea district called the Nilgiris (“Blue Mountains”). Kairbetta is called a “frost tea” because it is made during the cold, dry months from December to February. In the southern Indian winter, the tea plants do not go dormant, but the leaves do grow more slowly, concentrating the tea’s aromatic compounds. The cold weather also allows the factories to wither and oxidize the teas more slowly as well, further developing the aroma compounds to draw out their attractive fruit, floral, and spice notes. With its lovely aromas but dark color, Kairbetta falls somewhere between a First Flush and Second Flush Darjeeling.
ASSAM BLACK TEAS
1. Golden Tip Assam
2. Mangalam FTGFOP OR 815
3. Mangalam FTGBOP Special OR 555
4. Boisahabi CTC PF 642
The twirling brown leaves and golden tips of the world’s greatest Assam black teas yield lovely honey and malty flavors, a little like the maltiness of a good beer. Assams are also among the most assertive and brisk of the black teas. It’s no accident: The more quickly a tea is made, the brisker its body. And everything about Assam tea is fast.
Assam is India’s tea basket, a hothouse region that generates astonishing quantities of tea in just six weeks. Assam teas derive from Camellia sinensis var. assamica, a large-leafed variety of tea discovered only in the 1830s by British botanist-adventurer Charles Bruce. As in Darjeeling, the British were quick to establish massive tea plantations, which today grow many different clones of the wild original. (Assam also has a very large field of natural gas, so in an awkward—though safe—arrangement, today the tea plantations alternate with gas refineries.)
In Assam’s subtropical conditions, the plants suffer for nothing, least of all water: Assam is one of the wettest places on the planet. The mighty Brahmaputra River cuts right down the Y-shaped northeastern region, brimming with melted Himalayan snows and the region’s rains. The weather is fairly consistent: It either pours down rain or it is sunny and steamy. In the tropical moisture, the tea bushes draw from the rich, alluvial soil to generate thick, big leaves from May through June. In the humid air, tea makers have to rush to process the tea.
Assam makers both wither and oxidize these leaves in less time than for just about every other good tea. In contrast with oolong leaves, which benefit from multistage withering, or Darjeelings, which