Darjeeling tea and hill food: what to taste

Why Darjeeling tea is different

Tea came to these hills in the 1840s, when Archibald Campbell, the superintendent of Darjeeling, planted Chinese seed near his house. Within thirty years there were dozens of gardens, worked largely by labourers from Nepal. Today the Tea Board of India lists 87 gardens in the Darjeeling district whose tea can carry the name, spread over slopes from about 600 m to over 2,000 m. Many bushes are still the small-leaved China variety, mixed with clonal plants bred for the hills.

Darjeeling was registered as India's first geographical indication in 2004. Only tea grown and processed on those gardens can be sold as Darjeeling, and genuine packs carry the Tea Board's mark: a woman's profile holding two leaves and a bud. The hill climate, slow growth and orthodox processing give the tea its light colour and flowery or fruity flavour, very different from the strong, malty teas of Assam on the plains.

The four flushes

A flush is a season's growth of new shoots. Pickers, most of them women, pluck two leaves and a bud by hand. Each flush tastes different, and buyers pay very different prices for them. Know the flush and you know most of what is in the cup.

hill station · 2,045 mDarjeelinghill station · 1,482 mKurseong

Reading the grade and buying well

The letters on a packet describe the leaf, not the taste. FTGFOP1 stands for Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe, grade one: whole leaf with many tips, or buds. Orange pekoe has nothing to do with oranges. Broken grades, such as BOP, give a stronger, quicker cup and are cheaper. A good packet also shows the estate, the flush and the year, and specialist shops often list the invoice number, which identifies the batch.

Darjeeling has many tea shops, from old family businesses near Chowrasta and Nehru Road to estate outlets in Kurseong. The best will brew a small cup for you before you buy. Cheap loose tea in tourist stalls is often a blend or not from Darjeeling at all.

• Ask for the estate name, flush and year, and look for the Tea Board's Darjeeling mark.
• Taste first and second flush side by side before you choose.
• Buy small amounts of expensive tea; 50–100 g of a good first flush goes a long way.
• Store tea airtight, away from light and spices, and drink first flush within a year.

Visiting a tea garden

Happy Valley Tea Estate, about 3 km below Darjeeling town and planted in 1854, is the easiest garden to visit, with walks through the bushes and, when it is working, a look at the factory. Around Kurseong, estates such as Makaibari, Castleton and Ambootia cover the slopes, and Cochrane Place and Taj Chia Kutir both look over them. Some estates offer paid tours and tastings; access depends on the season and the day's work, so check current status before you travel.

In the factory you will see the orthodox process. Fresh leaf is spread in long troughs to wither, rolled to break the cells, left to oxidise, then dried and sorted by size into grades. Plucking runs from March to November; in winter the bushes are pruned and many factories are quiet. Walk only on paths, never pick leaves, and ask before photographing workers.

Brewing it at home

Darjeeling is easy to spoil with boiling water and a long brew. Use about 2–3 g, a heaped teaspoon, per cup. For first flush, water just off the boil, around 85–90 °C, and 2–3 minutes. For second and autumn flush, hotter water and 3–4 minutes. Taste before adding anything; most Darjeeling is drunk without milk or sugar. Good leaves can be brewed a second time.

Kalimpong, across the Teesta, is not tea country in the same way, but it has its own food gifts: cheese and lollipops that began with the Swiss Jesuit mission dairy, and ginger and cardamom from the farms below the ridge. Its haat on Wednesday and Saturday is the best place to see what the hills grow.

A tea day in Darjeeling and Kurseong

If tea is the reason you came, give it one full day. Start early at Happy Valley, when pickers are on the slopes in season and the light is soft on the bushes. Walk back up to town and spend the late morning at a tea shop that offers tastings: ask to compare one first flush and one second flush from the same estate, so you can taste the season rather than the garden. Most shops brew small cups at a counter, and good ones are happy to explain what you are tasting.

In the afternoon, take a shared jeep or car down the Hill Cart Road to Kurseong, about an hour away. The estates around the town spread below the road, and hotels such as Cochrane Place serve tea menus with notes on each garden. Stay the night if you can; the slopes are quieter in the evening and early morning. On the way back, stop at Ghum, where the toy train line reaches its highest point, for a cup at a roadside stall. It will be milky and sweet, made with cheaper leaf, and it is how most people in the hills actually drink tea every day.

Hill food to look for

The food of these hills is Nepali, Tibetan, Lepcha and Bengali at once. Momos, steamed or fried, filled with pork, chicken, vegetable or cheese, are everywhere, with a fiery tomato and chilli achar. Thukpa is noodle soup; thenthuk has flat torn noodles; shaphaley are fried pastries stuffed with meat. In Darjeeling's lanes you will also find laphing, cold mung bean noodles with chilli, from Tibetan street food.

Nepali home food is the heart of a homestay meal: rice, dal, a vegetable, saag and achar, with meat on good days. Gundruk, fermented and sun-dried leafy greens, makes a sour soup or pickle. Chhurpi comes soft, crumbled into curries and pickles, or hard, in small blocks chewed for hours. Sel roti, the ring-shaped rice bread, is fried for Dashain and Tihar and sold at stalls with aloo dum. Dalle khursani, a small round red chilli, is very hot; treat it with respect.

• Momos and thukpa in a local cafe: ₹80–180
• Sel roti and aloo dum at a stall: ₹40–100
• Full homestay meal: included with most village stays
• A pot of good first flush in a tea room: ₹150–500
• Tongba, warm millet beer sipped through a bamboo straw, in some village homes and bars