The 5 Second Tea Lady's tasting room is filled with pink and green polyester rose pillows and various stuffed animals wearing baseball caps and sunglasses. On the lacy white tablecloth in front of us she lays out six small bowls of different tea leaves.
"Hold part in your hand like this and blow. Strong. Four or five times. Then smell. Put them in order best first - very easy to tell the quality."
The room is in a tiny building in the middle of the Happy Valley tea plantation, next to the factory. It's a small, steep plantation just below Darjeeling town and exports most of its tea to Harrods, London. It's apparently the highest altitude tea plantation in Darjeeling.
After ten minutes of us involuntarily ingesting tea leaves nasally, the lady beckons us over to her stove to show us the process of brwing the famous 5 second tea. She throws the leaves into boiling water and immediately strains the liquid through a holey, blackened filter into another pan. It produces a surprisingly vibrant golden tea. Banishing us back to the lounge she follows is out with a tray carrying two teacups and a tall teapot and pours us a cup of what we are assured is finest first flush Darjeeling orange flower pekoe.
I hold the cup to my nose and let the steam warm my upper lip. The tea has a slightly sweet smell and a rich golden colour. It's a light black tea - bitter and refreshing without the smoky flavour of the Assam tea used in most of the blends back home.
The 5 second tea lady displays a tea leaf to us and explains which ones are picked. "Only tippy, two and three leaf." She also shows us a tea flower, and shows us the difference in quality between first flush (first pick) and second flush tea. Then she slaps her thighs, her eyes twinkle, and she gets down to business.
"So - You want to buy some tea?"
I can tell Pete's been tempted since we walked in; lured by the glamour of the kitsch decor and the subtler Darjeeling taste. He goes for the white tea - it's the least processed and therefore the most expensive; we pay 600 rupees for 100 grams.
The lady explains to us that the workers on the plantation are given tea but aren't allowed to sell it. She claims to be making extra money for the workers. She makes a grand show of packaging it in front of us, weighing the tea out with a set of ancient iron hand scales and strapping a tea leaf and flower to the package. We give her a thousand rupee note and she stashes it in one of her rose cushions, digging around in it for change.
"In the factory don't tell them I sold you tea - tell them you bought it in town. We are not allowed to sell." We assure her that we are secret safe, sign her guestbook and head down to the factory for a factory tour.
The guide shows us through the production processes; withering, rolling, drying and grading, explaining how these processes differ for the different varieties. He asks us if we bought any tea from the lady further up the hill.
The bottom line is that it's all total bollocks; apparently there is no such thing as 5 second tea - the workers aren't given tea from the estate - it comes from a different estate further along the mountain. The lady is a tea hustler, selling lower quality teas to idiot tourists for extortionate amounts of money.
Who do we believe? Have we been tea hustled? I choose to believe that we have bought nothing but the highest grade first flush white flower orange pekoe, sold in Harrods, London, also for extortionate amounts of money to idiot tourists!
"Hold part in your hand like this and blow. Strong. Four or five times. Then smell. Put them in order best first - very easy to tell the quality."
The room is in a tiny building in the middle of the Happy Valley tea plantation, next to the factory. It's a small, steep plantation just below Darjeeling town and exports most of its tea to Harrods, London. It's apparently the highest altitude tea plantation in Darjeeling.
After ten minutes of us involuntarily ingesting tea leaves nasally, the lady beckons us over to her stove to show us the process of brwing the famous 5 second tea. She throws the leaves into boiling water and immediately strains the liquid through a holey, blackened filter into another pan. It produces a surprisingly vibrant golden tea. Banishing us back to the lounge she follows is out with a tray carrying two teacups and a tall teapot and pours us a cup of what we are assured is finest first flush Darjeeling orange flower pekoe.
I hold the cup to my nose and let the steam warm my upper lip. The tea has a slightly sweet smell and a rich golden colour. It's a light black tea - bitter and refreshing without the smoky flavour of the Assam tea used in most of the blends back home.
The 5 second tea lady displays a tea leaf to us and explains which ones are picked. "Only tippy, two and three leaf." She also shows us a tea flower, and shows us the difference in quality between first flush (first pick) and second flush tea. Then she slaps her thighs, her eyes twinkle, and she gets down to business.
"So - You want to buy some tea?"
I can tell Pete's been tempted since we walked in; lured by the glamour of the kitsch decor and the subtler Darjeeling taste. He goes for the white tea - it's the least processed and therefore the most expensive; we pay 600 rupees for 100 grams.
The lady explains to us that the workers on the plantation are given tea but aren't allowed to sell it. She claims to be making extra money for the workers. She makes a grand show of packaging it in front of us, weighing the tea out with a set of ancient iron hand scales and strapping a tea leaf and flower to the package. We give her a thousand rupee note and she stashes it in one of her rose cushions, digging around in it for change.
"In the factory don't tell them I sold you tea - tell them you bought it in town. We are not allowed to sell." We assure her that we are secret safe, sign her guestbook and head down to the factory for a factory tour.
The guide shows us through the production processes; withering, rolling, drying and grading, explaining how these processes differ for the different varieties. He asks us if we bought any tea from the lady further up the hill.
The bottom line is that it's all total bollocks; apparently there is no such thing as 5 second tea - the workers aren't given tea from the estate - it comes from a different estate further along the mountain. The lady is a tea hustler, selling lower quality teas to idiot tourists for extortionate amounts of money.
Who do we believe? Have we been tea hustled? I choose to believe that we have bought nothing but the highest grade first flush white flower orange pekoe, sold in Harrods, London, also for extortionate amounts of money to idiot tourists!
Ahhh! ^_________^ I cannot tell you how pleased I am that both of you are now are in India! I glad you had the chance to try some of the lady's tea.
ReplyDeleteI'm not at all surprised that you'll be confronted by these people. Could you post some photos of at least some of journey? (If you can!) Keep the post coming Lou!