Buying Darjeeling Tea: Record Prices, Buyers and How to Spot the Real Thing

Castleton holds the best-known record. In 1992 its muscatel batch DJ-42, graded FTGFOP1, sold for Rs 13,001 a kilogram at the Calcutta auction, a world record at the time.

Spring teas can be just as prized. In March 2015 a UK importer judged a single 90 kg lot of Namring first flush the best among all 87 gardens’ first flush teas, and sold it in the UK for Rs 40 lakh (about Rs 4 million).

The gap between the best and the rest is wide. In early 2018, handcrafted Moonlight white lots opened at $290 to $300 a kilo, while ordinary teas gained only about $3 to $5 a kilo.

Germany is the largest importer of Darjeeling. The EU takes half of all Darjeeling exports, with Hamburg the main shipping and processing hub. Moonlight whites are most sought after in Japan, South Korea, Germany, France and the UK. In 2010 our founder noted Japanese sellers retailing Darjeeling bought at $100 a kilo for $550.

Buyers travel far for it. At Goomtee in 2015 we met a tearoom owner from Seoul who was choosing Goomtee and Jungpana first flush teas, and who later placed an order for about 9 kg of Jungpana’s second flush, then sent samples home to test before choosing.

For years, far more tea was sold around the world as “Darjeeling” than the hills could possibly grow, much of it blended or mislabeled. The oft-quoted figure in our 2017 guide was 10,000 tonnes made each year against 40,000 sold, and much of the blended “Darjeeling” was “a mix of machine-harvested Assam with Darjeeling broken grade leaf.” The GI tag and the logo exist to stop that.

1. Look for the logo. The round Darjeeling logo with a woman holding tea leaves is owned by the Tea Board of India and licensed only to genuine Darjeeling.
2. Look for an estate and a flush. “Margaret’s Hope, first flush” tells you exactly what you’re buying. A tea labeled only “Darjeeling” is usually a blend. For black teas, only first, second and autumn flushes are “pedigree”; monsoon, winter, in-between, “loose leaf” and “select” mean “you can do better.”
3. Look at the leaf. Good Darjeeling is whole or large broken leaf, often a mix of green, brown and silver. Fine dust in a tea bag is a sign of a low grade.
4. Be wary of a low price. With 20,000 hand-plucked shoots in every kilo of leaf, cheap Darjeeling rarely adds up.

Watch for Nepal tea. Blending Darjeeling with cheaper, slightly softer and woodier tea from eastern Nepal is an old practice, so a “Darjeeling” with no estate on the label may well contain some. See Nepal tea.

Is your Darjeeling tea fresh?Teabox Shorts

“One simple and firm rule for shopping for Darjeelings in a supermarket is: Don’t. The addendum is: Ever.”

How to read the grade

Labels also carry grades such as FTGFOP1, which describe the leaf’s size and how many tips it has, not the taste. There are over thirty grades, and SFTGFOP is the very highest; “orange” refers to the Dutch ruling house of Nassau Orange, from the days when the Dutch dominated the tea trade. Our guide to tea grades decodes them.