Tea is the most popular beverage in the world after water. Even though I mainly speak on world renowned Pure Ceylon Tea from Sri Lanka, I never hesitate to appreciate good teas from other origins all over the world. On 18th of July, I reported on “Darjeeling Tea’s Price Decline” due to various issues. Today, It’s my please to bring you details about award-wining Seeyok Estate’s first flush tea which is already sold by reputed London based firm “Jing Tea”

As Jing Tea had reported, The beautiful region of Darjeeling in North India has got over 150 years of tea making history, crafting some of the best teas in the world. JING founder, Ed Eisler, launched the JING Excellence at Origin Competition to discover the best Darjeeling First Flush tea for 2019. All together, seventeen teas participated the competition, all from Rainforest Alliance (RA)-certified or Fairtrade-certified (FLO) estates. To decide which tea would be announced as the best Darjeeling First Flush for 2019, Ed assembled a panel of experts to help him. They were:

• Edward Foster, Director of tea brokers Thompson Lloyd and Ewart
• Andrew Jefford, Co-director of the Decanter World Wine Awards
• Alfred Prasad, Michelin-starred Chef and Consultant
• Oliver Lloyd, Founder of Great British Chefs

Since there was a combination of tea masters, wine experts, chefs and food lover, there was a blend of palates and opinions, resulting in a more rounded taste test. All the tastings and evaluations were done blind, which meant no body knew which tea arrived from which estate. Following characteristics were rated by judges prior to actual tasting.

• Appearance of the dry leaf,
• Appearance of the tea infusion
• Aroma of the leaves and of the tea itself 

While tasting judges gave marks for mouthfeel, balance, clarity of flavour, freshness and whether the tea expressed typical Darjeeling character. In the end, Seeyok estate had the privilege of winning the competition !

A limited batch of award winning Darjeeling First Flush tea is now available to purchase from Jing Tea’s online shop

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References

1.Original Post: https://jingtea.com/blog/excellence-origin-competition-darjeeling