Darjeeling + an Epic Tea Tasting

This is Part II of a recap of my trip to India. Read Part I here.

As I mentioned yesterday, part of our trip to India included a week-long vacation in the foothills of the Himalayas. Traveling with a group of 25 family members (ages 8 months to 80 years), the trip was part family vacay and part tourist trip, so I didn’t get to everything in the guidebook, but I did get some QT with my cousins.

We took the historic Darjeeling Mail train, which has been ferrying passengers from Kolkata to the Himalayas and back since 1878. Our first stop was Pelling, a small town nestled in the mountains. It’s known for its views of Mount Kangchenjunga, the third-highest peak in the world, and we were lucky enough to stay at a hotel where you could literally see the peaks from your bed. (Though that didn’t stop a group of us from waking up at 5 a.m. to stand outside in the bitter cold and take pictures of the sun rising over the mountains.)

After two days in Pelling we traveled to Darjeeling, which is well known both for its views of the Kangchenjunga and for its tea. Though we were in the tea-growing off-season, it was nice to visit a tea garden and see the tea plants up close. Fact: those tiered hills are pretty steep and may or may not have slipped twice …

But the standout moment of our Darjeeling trip, at least for blog purposes, was an impromptu tea tasting we held at Nathmull’s Tea Shop. Nathmull’s is famed as a tea seller, offering dozens of premium black, green and even white teas. Its Sunset Lounge includes a selection of premium teas for tasting, as well as great views of the Himalayas at sunset (duh).

We started with the Exotic Black Tea, the highest-quality black tea offered. It was delicate, earthy, subtly floral – immediately, we knew this was perfection. It has its price too – 5,000 rupees per kilo of tea leaves, aka $100. Obvi we only got a small pot of this, and shared it among 10 or so people – I ain’t that cray! We then tried a medium-quality black tea, to test out something that we could feasibly take home without breaking the bank. This was slightly less perfect, but still really, really good.

One note here: we were drinking all of these teas black, without any milk or sugar. Most of the tea I’ve had in India is masala chai, made with milk, sugar and spices (such as cardamom, ginger, cloves, etc.). Many were way too sweet, with copious amounts of sugar used to mask low-quality tea. But at Nathmull’s, the tea was such high quality that not only was it blasphemous to even suggest milk or sugar, the staff also gave precise steeping times and water temperatures, to make sure the tea was brewed exactly right. They also served the tea in wine glasses, champagne flutes and martini glasses – not exactly sure why (maybe it makes the tea taste better?) but it did make us feel super fance.

After enjoying the black tea, we got a little crazy. First, we ordered a premium white tea that was served in a champagne flute and tasted floral and grassy and oh-so-light. Then I noticed the yellow tea, which I had never even heard of before, and decided it was a must-try. It is processed similar to green tea, and tastes a bit like that, but was so smooth. At 15,000 rupees ($300) a kilo, it may be the most expensive thing I ever drink, but it was well worth it.

Food-wise, aside from the standard rice and dal, in both Pelling and Darjeeling there’s lots of noodles, momos and broth, sometimes all combined. There were so many momos (we happened to be in Pelling during a momo festival), and while I didn’t go to the festival, I did love the unique cheese momos (filled with spiced paneer) that my parents brought back. I also really liked thukpa, a warming noodle soup that was somehow hearty and light at the same time. In Darjeeling, we spent a ton of time at Glenary’s, a bakery / restaurant famed for their cakes, pastries and Kangchenjunga views.

We saw the Kangchenjunga so frequently that by the end of the trip, it was NBD. Oh, there’s the world’s third-highest peak just hanging out as I drink my tea. Whatevs. I don’t spend a lot of time in the great outdoors (unless you count Central Park), so I often forget how amazing nature can be. One morning changed that – watching the sun rise and its first rays falling on the Kangchenjunga while also seeing a full moon was literally breath-taking, though that may or may not be because my breath was frozen, along with the rest of me. (No seriously, it was physically painful to stand out in that cold.)

It’s been a week since we’ve been back from India, but it feels like a month has passed. (How quickly we fall back into daily routines!) The cold of Tiger Hill seems like a distant memory, even though it’s frigid in NYC. But somehow the picture of that mountain, peak a rosy red, is imprinted indelibly in my brain.