It should be noted that Darjeeling isn’t particularly famous for its green teas. Darjeeling’s ‘black teas’ like the ‘Moonlight Ruby’ on this site are what put it under the spotlight on the world stage. Not that their green tea is bad at all, it just isn’t typical for the region. It’s not typical because to create a green tea that tastes like this — a green tea that evokes freshness and seems to capture that ‘new vitality’ aspect of the spring season is difficult to do, and there just isn’t that level of skill omnipresent in India like there is in Japan and China for green tea.

On the off chance that didn’t sound like a huge praise to this tea, sorry, it was supposed to be a huge praise. This is a seriously good green tea coming from India. Let’s cover the basics about it:

Why:
I love a good green tea, they genuinely make you feel like you’re absorbing the life force of nature. I’ve been spoiled working with Japan and China for so many years, with their incredible talent for creating products that keep me in awe and inspire poetic ramblings. I’ve grown to be somewhat cynical of what other countries are able to produce, after all… how could one compare? Well, sometimes I’m wrong about these things. Apparently, other countries can produce teas that capture that same essence of life. This tea is proof — it’s proof to me, and if you enjoy green teas, it can be proof to you too. I don’t know how often Rohini could ‘nail it’ as they did with EX-26, my belief is that it cant be a frequent thing though, because no one talks about Indian green tea, but surely they would if they always tasted like this.

Who:
Rishi Saria is the owner of Rohini Tea Garden (also the owner of Gopaldhara Tea Estate)

What:
Emerald Ruby is a FTGFOP1 Green tea. In the unregulated naming processes of Darjeeling different gardens will call teas by different ‘nick names’. At least at Rohini I have an understanding of their system. Emerald refers to green teas while Ruby refers to the teas overall quality and descends from Ruby to Diamond, Gold, and Silver. Beyond that, this tea is an EX-26, which is its invoice number.

Invoice numbers are important, they carry with them a lot of information about tea which is relevant to understanding why some teas taste as they do. They will be traced back to which areas of the plantation were picked, what cultivars the tea was picked from, the elevation, the picking criteria (if the garden changes that from tea to tea), and perhaps most importantly when the tea was picked. Lower invoice numbers mean earlier picking dates, and earlier picking dates mean higher quality tea (most of the time). Invoices start with EX1 (Exceptional Batch 1) teas and after a certain run of EX tea is made, the invoices switch to DJ1 (Darjeeling 1) from 1 again. EX teas are hard to get, and they are not always good. The sample of this tea was sent to me, I loved it, when I committed to buying it, it was already bought. These are the difficulties that we have as buyers who are not in India when the markets open in the tea season. It takes weeks to ship and try teas across the world before making decisions to buy them based on senses instead of guesswork. As much as I enjoyed this tea, I was only able to get 200g at the end of the day. I was able to buy the allocation leftover from ‘samples’. Lucky for us though, and whoever tries it. It’s very cool to see India dance toe to toe with China and Japan.

When: Picked and processed March 9th 2021

Where:
Darjeeling, West Bengal State of India. Rohini Tea Garden is adjacent to Makai Bari, slightly South East of Castleton, and South of Giddapahar and is found in Kurseong South valley. The tea is picked at an elevation of approximately 914m (3000ft) above sea level.

Lastly:
Darjeeling is one of the tea-producing areas of the world that often fails to live up to its hype/fame. If you’ve felt that way before, I hope you might give one of the Darjeeling tea’s on this site a chance. For what it’s worth — they’re very good to me, I wouldn’t sell them here otherwise. I believe I’ve done my due diligence to select only the absolute pinnacle of what was presented to me (and I have some deeply knowledgeable sources this year that provided me with a great spread to select from).