Be it the colour, notes or the refinement of champagne, Snigdha Manchanda introduces Shambavi Suri to a monsoon bouquet like no other
On a lazy Sunday afternoon, when the clouds hide the skies, leaving no traces of the sunshine, a hot masala tea tastes like heaven on earth. But it is possible that you’ve been drinking your tea the wrong way all this time. “One should never add milk to Darjeeling, Earl Grey, English Breakfast or any other orthodox black tea. It makes it unpalatable. Milk is a part of tray service, a colonial ritual, which many have interpreted to be for mandatory use”, said tea sommelier Snigdha Manchanda during a workshop at Foodhall. “It is okay to put milk in a cup of CTC (crushed, tear and curled) chai, which is the processed black tea that we get in the supermarkets but not with any other tea leaves,” she clarified.
And then she poured six different types of teas in my cup to acquaint me with the terroir of the tea estates of the Nilgiris, Darjeeling, Assam and Japan.
Starting out with the light, sublime and delicate floral notes with a hint of sweetness from the tea estates of Nilgiri, my palate was as happy as a garden in spring. The next cup was a light-yellow brew of the Gopaldhara Moondrops, also celebrated as the champagne of tea. “This tea was picked in the last two months. There are 65 tea estates in Darjeeling and Gopaldhara tea estate is at the highest altitude. The temperature and soil conditions impart a very distinct flavour and are not comparable to some of the other Darjeeling teas”, said Manchanda, swirling her cup. Giving a little background, she said, “just like wine, tea carries vintage. The first flush or harvest of the season took place in March. Tea plucked from the first harvest of the season is the most delicious and is celebrated as the champagne of teas around the world.” Giving the fragrance of lush green valleys after showers, the tea had a sweet aftertaste which wasn’t too sharp and left a leafy coat around the palate.
Pouring the third type of tea into a cup, Manchanda said, “Even though this tea is from Darjeeling’s Gopaldhara estate, it’s made using Chinese methodology of steaming tea leaves. Baicha, the name of this tea, is also a borrowed Chinese word.” As it brewed, the fragrance of freshly cut grass conquered our senses. A little stronger than the ones before, it had a hint of olives that sat on the palate with an aftertaste of a Mediterranean platter. “Baicha looks a lot greener after being brewed than the other teas because the steaming helps the tea retain its colour”, Manchanda told us.
From the estate gardens of Darjeeling, we were now being transported to Arunachal Pradesh, where people swear by the Mouling Oolong tea. The whole tea leaves looked like a safari print that incorporated yellow, light green and olive-green leaves, and had a fruity, raisin-like flavour. Sipping through the tea, it gave an earthy tinge on the palate. Combined with a tarty fruit such as a mango, it tasted like a match made in heaven. “The Mouling Oolong also increases saliva in your mouth. Just like dessert wines, teas that are fruity and increase saliva in your mouth can be had at the end of a meal,” added Manchanda.
For chocolate lovers, the Singbulli Clonal Black tea is the right choice. Known for its complex and rich flavours of chocolate and vanilla in their purest form, this tea promises to leave an earthy, intense and full-bodied flavour on your palate for a while. As Manchanda explained, “Singbulli is again a Darjeeling tea but does not give the traditional taste. The reason behind this is that the tea bushes in Singbulli are hybrid that tend to give more yield.” Although Singbulli is a black tea, the colour it releases is golden-yellow instead of amber or black.
We signed off with the tasting of the extremely trendy Matcha from Japan. Being a green tea, you wouldn’t expect it to be high on caffeine but it is. A cup of Matcha has the same amount of caffeine as a cup of coffee. Suggesting to switch to a cup of Matcha from coffee, Manchanda said, “After drinking coffee, people get an energetic surge that lasts for an hour or two. Matcha, on the other hand, gives you an energy surge that lasts up to six hours”. Agreed, it tasted a bit like spinach soup, except this one had bitter notes.
Having tasted the most valued six cups of tea, I felt like a connoisseur. Am sure to develop a taste for one of these.