Darjeeling tea

What we could not miss in Darjeeling - with the fog or not - was its tea plantations. 84 gardens around the town produce one fourth of the country's tea output and Darjeeling tea prides itself in the premium quality. Tea bushes 40-50 sm high with dense and hard branches seem to grow just like that on the slopes.

So we visited Happy Tea Estate, renown not only for its tea, but also for the guided tours for the interested visitors. Quiet and deserted off-season, the place was not totally empty: a short smiling lady with the dark reddish curly hair greeted us and announced that we had got a super opportunity to learn how the good tea is grown, processed and made ready to indulge. A young Nepali boy took us around. The size of the plantation was hard to estimate: already the path we took down to the estate went along the slopes all covered by the tea bushes which continued to the right and to the left and down too... The old factory complex (arguably, from the British times), the firs with enormously high and straight stems and the tea bushes all around - all covered by fog - looked like a movie still ....

During the brief guided tour we got to know which part of the plant is picked up (3 upper leaves along with the flower added for the natural sweetness), how long the leaves are left for drying (24-48 hours), how labour is organized (women pick up the leaves and men work at the factory itself), when the best tea (1st flush) is picked (mid March-May). The people from the factory claimed that the equipment and the production process are still the ones from the British and that is what makes the tea from the Happy Valley so unique and sought after...

After the tour we were back to the lady who invited us to her house and declared her intention to make some tea for us - of course of the best tea leaves with a super-puper name "super fine tippy golden flowery orange picko one"! The father of the lady used to be in the tea business, so has been she. Originally from Nepal, she came to Darjeeling a few decades back and since that she had been working at the Happy Tea Estate. According to her she was 65 years old, yet she did not look older than 50. I asked her jokingly if the tea was the secret of her youthful look. She replied that longevity and well-being here in Darjeeling are naturally ensured by walking on the hills as a daily exercise... Plus she had been playing football for the female team of her garden (!) and even though she felt she may be quiting soon her team-mates did not want to let her go. "I am not very good, but I have got confidence", explained she. So she made us some tea: she put a handful of the tea-leaves in a pot of boiling water and after 2 seconds she poured the tea through a sieve... The tea is ready! I had no expectations indeed as at the different points of time I got to try some premium teas, yet the golden-orange in color drink we had without sugar, a "magic tea" as the lady called it, was a divine nectar indeed. Its very rich, very refreshing taste re-invented the notion of tea for me, who got so much into chai here in India. Without much doubts I got two pack of the tea leaves. Over the tea we spoke in lenghs about a fate of a Nepali woman in Darjeeling, her family, children, the developments that happened both back in Nepal and here in India over decades.. And she made us a second cup: just by pouring hot boiled water through the once used leaves. This time the taste of the magic tea was different, yet still great!..