Arya Ruby: Darjeeling 1st Flush 2008
Black tea, Tea reviews
I roll on with my week-long exploration of Darjeeling teas. If you enjoy this post and want to track along on my virtual tour of Darjeeling, may I suggest subscribing to the blog?
Next up in this week-long Darjeeling festival: Arya Estate’s Ruby 2008 1st flush. This is among the most visually appealing teas I have ever had the privilege of enjoying.
In its dry state, the Ruby is a blend of earthy browns and cream-coloured buds. Once steeped, the leaves unfurl into large, mostly unbroken leaves – testifying to the pain-staking effort and finesse of the tea workers at Arya Estate.
A tea cannot, of course, be judged only on looks. But the Arya Ruby qualifies its stunning appearance with a captivating flavour profile.
Again, I have Jo from Ya-ya Teahouse to thank for this wonderful tea. As with the Puttabong Clonal Exclusive I wrote about yesterday, his brewing recommendations were on the generous side: 4.5 teaspoons per 500 mil, infused for 3.5 minutes. That’s a high tea-to-water ratio, but it works splendidly. The tea brews quickly into a sharp, copper-coloured soup (to borrow a term from Hobbes).
Rich and velvety smooth, the Arya Ruby is very easy to enjoy while rewarding closer examination. It took me a few tastes before I caught the sudden burst of citrus at the tail-end, leaving the mouth with a pleasant tangy note. Like the Puttabong, the Arya Ruby is savoury with a touch of astringency, though it’s less astringent than the former.
At $54.80 NZD for 100 grams (from Ya-ya Teahouse), this isn’t a cheap tea. But it really sets the bar in terms of first flush Darjeeling teas. If you’re after the best of the best, go no further.
Jo wrote on March 26th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Eric,
a short note to the “high tea to water ratio” for this tea (or any tea for that matter). The tea to water ratio is generally about 5-6g of tea for 500ml of water. This holds true for most teas if brewed “English style” (i.e. not gong fu). Since most people don’t have a scale at home that can measure sub-gram quantities, volumetric guidelines (i.e. teaspoons) are generally easier to follow.
Because the Arya Ruby is a very large leaf tea (for Darjeeling at least), you need more teaspoons to get 6g than with a small leaf variety like many Assam teas, which pack much more densely. As you can see, you’re actually not changing the leaf/water ratio at all, you’re just compensating for the larger leaf size.
Here’s some more information to put the price mark into perspective: as you have stated, this tea really is the standard that other Darjeelings have to be compared to. Arya Estate produces a range of different first flush teas, all of them much cheaper than their flagship, the Ruby. The production of this tea is very small (~200kg per year, not tens to hundreds of tons as most other teas). If this tea was a bottle of wine of equally high quality and extremely limited production, you’d quickly have to pay absurd prices for it.
And this is what the beauty of tea is: even very expensive teas (to put it into perspective, there are teas out there that cost easily 5-10 times as much) are affordable. 100g of Arya Ruby makes you about 60 cups of tea. If you just infuse the leaves once (I often re-infuse them quite successfully), a cup will cost you less than NZ$1! If you think about what your average mediocre cup of coffee costs at the cafe, I’d say that Arya Ruby’s luxury is an absolute bargain…
Eric wrote on March 26th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
Thanks for the comment Jo. I wondered whether the leaf size was why you suggested more teaspoons – also noticed another large leaf tea you sent me where you recommended quite a few teaspoons. I’ll make a note of this in the review.
Also, you make an interesting point regarding the price of the tea. I think it comes down to what you’re accustomed to paying. A year ago, I would have gasped at the thought of paying $50 for 100 grams of tea; now, not really. As you say, compare it to the price of wine to put it into perspective (especially considering a bottle of wine only affords a few glasses).
Jo wrote on March 27th, 2009 at 2:10 am
“… especially considering a bottle of wine only affords a few glasses”
… and you pretty much have to drink the wine in one session, too!
John wrote on July 2nd, 2009 at 6:05 am
Nice review…..I think you should try the Castleton Moonlight 2nd Flush 2009 at http://www.teaemporium.net,its a great tea that will create a new quality mark for high quality Darjeeling teas