The Nicest Cup of Tea in the World

For Americans, Darjeeling isn’t a place. It’s a kind of tea. For some, it’s not even a kind of tea. It is tea. And it’s pronounced “dar-jee’-ling”. In America that is.

But when I learned that it’s actually a town in the high foothills of the Himalayas and found out you can get there by Toy Train and saw that I was standing in that very Toy Train station – all I had left to learn was how to pronounce Darjeeling correctly.

“One-way ticket to Dar-jee’-ling please.”

“Dodge’-ling?”

“What?”

“Dodge’-ling?”

“What?”

“One-way, Dodge‘-ling?”

“Oh, ding! I get it. You are pronouncing Darjeeling differently than I do.” (See? Easy.)

Nine hours, one rock slide and a hitchhike later, I was warming myself at Golden Tips (established 1933) with a nice cup of tea. (“Nice” seems to be the official British adjective for any cup of tea.)

Mr. Hobson tells me this fun fact: Only ladies are allowed to pick the leaves. I saw many doing this myself. And if the slopes were any steeper, the ladies would need to wear window-washer belts.

Most connoisseurs prefer the light, fresh, “first flush” tea – so called as it’s made from the first leaves of spring – but “second flush” has more flavor. (The rest of the connoisseurs probably like that one.)

Rich people who were dropped on their head when they were young have been known to spend hundreds of dollars on a pound of Silver Tips Imperial tea from Darjeeling. But you and I only came to Golden Tips to see what a truly “nice” cup of tea tastes like, right? 

In most Indian tea shops or stands, a cup of tea costs about two-bits American. It’s good too, I’m told. But let’s hang the cost and go straight for the Nicest Cup of Tea in the World. 250 rupees (about three and a half bucks – same as a small Americano at Starbucks). A tea connoiseur brews it for you and brings it to your table in a crystal-clear glass teacup. I have to admit, it really was a nice cup of tea. ery, very, very, very (when you find the perfect adverb, it’s hard to let go) smooth.  

About now, you may be wondering if there’s more to Darjeeling than tea.

There is. There’s the grumpy red panda.  But that’s a subject for another post.

PS (I couldn’t find the roll of film that had my first Darjeeling trip on it so, except for the above shot and the one with me in it, I found all the rest on the internet where, whee! Everything is free!) (I hope.)