The Land of Tea

I've been back in Pune for more than two weeks now, so this is a little late! Congratulations to Scott and Tatiana in London, and Sarah and Frank in Toronto. Both couples added a baby girl to their homes recently, and I am so excited to meet them when I return to Canada!

The main purpose for visiting Darjeeling was for the tea, which was lucky because there weren't any views of the mountains the whole time I was there. Good visibility meant seeing across the street. It was a welcome change from the heat of northern India. And tea is one of the reasons for my existence.









Everywhere in north West Bengal there are signs for the Gorkhaland movement for a separate Indian state. Right now the movement has achieved some autonomy. A separate state seems reasonable to me, since Gorkhaland has a different geography, economy, and ethnic group from the south.

I visited the Makaibari Tea Estate just south of Kurseong. I was unimpressed with the tour, especially since the guide didn't mention that Makaibari tea is organic, and that seems important. It was definitely cool to see the process of tea production: picking, drying, fermenting, drying, sorting, packaging. None of the fine Makaibari teas were available for sale, unfortunately.

In Darjeeling I bought a Castleton's Moonlight White, the unfurled tips of the tea bush, apparently picked by moonlight. I also bought a Castleton's Muscatel, a second flush. That's picked later than the first flush, uses the opened leaves lower on the bush, and is considered finer than the first flush. Got that straight? The Moonlight White is properly a "green" tea, which means unfermented (or unoxidized), while the Muscatel is a "black" tea, fully fermented (three days). When I was in Kathmandu, Nepal, I also added an Ilam first flush (black) and an Oolong (partially fermented) to my collection.

The main temple in Darjeeling, built on the site of the Dorje Ling monastery, is a fascinating mix of Hinduism and Buddhism, covered in Tibetan prayer flags, and images of Hindu gods. It's also covered in aggressive monkeys.


Another big draw in Darjeeling is the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. For the "joyride" to Ghum and back they still run the steam engine "toy train" on the 610 mm narrow gauge track (compared to the 1435 mm standard gauge). Nine kilometers takes 40 minutes, so taking a jeep by the road which runs alongside the tracks is much faster for long distances. The difference in elevation between Siliguri, the closest regular train station, and Darjeeling is about 2000 metres, so my airtight toiletry bottles all changed shape in the three-hour jeep ride.

From Darjeeling I put my name on the waitlist for a train out of Siliguri, and unfortunately failed to get a seat. Facing a lack of available trains, and a 24+ hour trip by train or bus to my next destination, I decided to fly back to Pune, which resulted in an interesting adventure trying to book a seat.