Darjeeling—Just My Cup Of Tea

Darjeeling is in the foothills of the Himalayas and on a clear day you can view Mount Everest. This city is my favorite of all the places I’ve visited in India:Mumbai comes in second.

The hillsides are covered with tea bushes and we visited an estate that processes organic teas.

The bush is the “mother plant” and the leaves have five harvest seasons: spring, summer, monsoon, autumn and winter.

The new spring leaves are picked, rolled and dried to make the most premium white tea. The summer leaves are picked, rolled, steamed and dried to make green tea. White and green tea are high in anti-oxidants because they are not permitted to oxidise.

All other teas are called black tea because the leaves are picked, rolled, crushed, set out to oxidise and dried. The leaves turn dark the due to the same oxidisation that happens to an apple slice.

Each estate has a seasoned professional who evaluates the drying leaves to determine exact time to stop the oxidation process. We had a tasting and got to sample all the teas produced at Happy Valley:

We were scheduled to get up at 3:30 am to see the sun rise and Mount Everest but the weather did not cooperate.

We did get to go for a ride on a “real live” coal fed steam engine train. This railway opened in the 1800’s and is still puffing away today. It is more of a tourist attraction but still provide transportation to the citizens of Darjeeling:

This is a selfie of Rachel, my Irish travel buddy and me have a good time riding the train:

The ride through the mountains to get to Darjeeling is “scary” and probably the only drawback–if I could get in by helicopter it would be perfect:

The food shops around town just add to the charm:

I had a lovely lunch at a famous, long standing restaurant that even served wine (finding any kind of alcohol in India is almost impossible). Roasted chicken with gravy and potatoes. It looked to good to pass the opportunity by: