Puttabong Darjeeling FTGFOP1

Tea: Puttabong Darjeeling FTGFOP1
Vendor: Dragonwater Tea
Price: $28.00 / 4 0z.
Source: Darjeeling, India
Vendor Description: Puttabong Darjeeling FTGFOP1 Tea. High grade first flush Darjeeling from the revered Puttabong estate in India. FTGFOP1 (Full-leaf, Tippy, Golden, Flowery, Orange, Pekoe, Grade 1).

Leaf: The leaf for this tea looked nothing like the image on the Dragonwater website. The tea on the website was very golden in color, where this looked much darker in color. The leaf was uniform in shape, and evenly distributed color.

1st Infusion: The first infusion had a light characteristic Darjeeling aroma. It was not as strong as the first flush Darjeeling from Lupicia or the Badamtam Darjeeling. There was a growing sense of bitterness though, that build up very evenly from a very mild taste up to a strong sense of bitterness. This finished though with a long lingering flavor. The tea was very full boded which was paired with a medium sense of astringency. This tea has a very good and solid Darjeeling flavor though.

2nd Infusion: The second infusion had a sharper bitterness to it, the bitterness was so sharp though that it was too strong and masked the Darjeeling flavor.

Rating: 7/10

Conclusion: While this is a good Darjeeling tea, it did not stand up well to multiple infusions and was quite pricey. A Darjeeling such as this should easily handle two infusions.