Issue #18 of the Chai Bhai newsletter. February — and first flush is coming.
The Most Anticipated Tea in the World
Every year, in the foothills of the Himalayas above the town of Darjeeling in West Bengal, something remarkable happens. The dormant tea plants — rested through the cold months, conserving their energy since November — begin to wake. The first tiny leaves appear. And between the first day of March and roughly the 15th of April, first flush Darjeeling tea is plucked, processed, and auctioned at prices that make headlines in the global tea trade.
A kilogram of the finest first flush Darjeeling — a Jungpana or Castleton FTGFOP1 Special Grade — can command €500–€1,500 at auction. Serious tea collectors in Germany, Japan, and increasingly the UK begin placing advance orders with estates in January, months before the first leaf is plucked.
This is not chai. This is something else entirely.
What Makes Darjeeling First Flush Different
The cultivar: Darjeeling's finest teas are made from the China jat variety of Camellia sinensis — the same plant that produces the teas of Yunnan and Fujian in China. Most Indian tea (particularly Assam) uses the larger-leaved Assam jat. The China jat produces smaller leaves with more delicate flavour compounds.
The altitude: The best Darjeeling estates sit between 1,500 and 2,100 metres. The cold nights (sometimes near freezing even in March) and warm days create the diurnal temperature variation that produces complex flavour development in tea leaves — the same principle that makes high-altitude Burgundy wines and Himalayan apples exceptional.
The mist: Darjeeling's persistent cloud cover and high humidity produce a specific growing condition that promotes the formation of muscatel character — a complex, grape-like muscatel note that appears in the finest second flush Darjeeling and, less intensely, in exceptional first flush. The Darjeeling "muscatel" is arguably the most distinctive flavour note in the world of tea.
First flush timing: The leaves plucked in the first four to six weeks of the growing season are the tenderest and most complex of the year. They are processed as orthodox whole-leaf tea — hand-rolled or mechanically rolled to preserve cell structure, lightly oxidised, dried. The result is a pale amber liquor with a distinctly floral, springlike character.
How to Drink First Flush Darjeeling
This is not a masala chai question. First flush Darjeeling is drunk without milk — always — in small quantities — ideally in a glass cup to appreciate the colour — and at water temperatures below 90°C (the delicate aromatics degrade in boiling water).
Brewing guide:
- Water: filtered, at 85–88°C
- Leaf quantity: 2.5g per 150ml (approximately 1 heaped tsp)
- Steep time: 2.5–3 minutes (first steep); the same leaves can be re-steeped 2–3 times with increasing water temperature and steep time
The flavour profile: fresh, floral, slightly grassy, with a clean astringency and — in the best examples — a lingering stone-fruit note. It is nothing like Assam CTC. It is nothing like masala chai. It is one of the finest beverages produced anywhere in the world.
Where to Buy First Flush This Spring
UK: Postcard Teas (London), Lalani & Co (London), Darjeeling Tea Boutique US: In Pursuit of Tea, Harney & Sons (estate teas section), Thunderbolt Tea Direct from estates: Makaibari Estate, Jungpana Estate, Castleton Estate (all ship internationally with seasonal pre-order)
Prices for genuine first flush start at approximately £15–£25 per 100g for mid-grade estates and rise steeply. Be cautious of anything significantly cheaper claiming to be authentic first flush Darjeeling — the volume of fake "Darjeeling" sold internationally far exceeds actual production.
“The first flush is the only tea that has a genuine seasonal moment — a narrow window of weeks when something extraordinary is possible. In the rest of the year, you drink chai. In March, you might also drink spring.
See you in March — just as the first flushes are being plucked.
Chai piyo, zindagi jiyo.
— Chai Bhai