Darjeeling Autumn Flush Teas, Estate by Estate

Estates such as Goomtee and Thurbo are known for fine autumn flush teas, and Thurbo has also made an autumn oolong. We once suggested Thurbo’s Special Autumn Oolong as an indulgent morning cup.

In 2021 our team sampled fresh autumn teas from Goomtee, Jungpana, Giddapahar, Singbulli and Oaks in Darjeeling, and from Bermiok in Sikkim. Several of those gardens are close to our tasting room in Siliguri: Jungpana is 42.1 km away and Singbulli 43.4 km, so a lot can be picked, made and in our hands within days.

Margaret’s Hope makes autumn teas too. When our writer visited in December 2015, the factory poured an autumn clonal she could “smell flowers almost instantly” from, “an FTGFOP1 clonal we produced just a few weeks back,” and a Chinary autumnal that was “mellow, smooth and tasted like a flower valley.” As Arun Gurung of the garden told her, “With a good chinary you never know what to expect.”

More on the region in Darjeeling tea.

Giddapahar Autumn Chinary

Giddapahar’s autumnal comes from century-old China bushes in the Kurseong valley: “a medium-bodied masterpiece with velvety texture,” with warm stone fruit, subtle musky undertones and hints of caramel.

Our product notes add “toasty-woody accents,” a hint of “unripe tree fruit” and “light nutty tones,” and describe an orange-amber cup. The 2025 lot was picked on 24 and 25 November and ready to ship on 27 November. Shop Giddapahar Autumn Chinary.

Jungpana Autumn Chinary

Jungpana’s is “medium-bodied, richly layered, and alive with vibrant fruity notes.” Our product notes describe a “vibrant stone-fruity” cup with peach, chestnuts and cedar.

Jungpana’s autumn tea has been a regular for us for more than a decade. In 2012 we listed a “Jungpana Organic Muscatel” autumnal with “the classic autumnal characteristics” and “a strong sweet musk smell,” and a Jungpana clonal autumnal with “a lot of sweetness that is normally not found in autumnal teas.” Shop Jungpana Autumn Chinary.

Okayti Autumn Chinary

Okayti is the latest of the three: the 2025 lot was picked on 11 and 12 December, just before the gardens closed for winter. Our notes describe “nutty-woody notes and subtle hints of fruit,” which our tasting table reads as nectarine, chestnut, a touch of cedar and gentle musk in a dark amber cup. Shop Okayti Autumn Chinary.

These lots are no longer on sale, but our tasting notes for them are a good map of what Darjeeling autumn can do:

• Goomtee, 2021: apricot, warm nutty notes and a cedar-like finish, in an orange-amber cup.
• Selimbong, 2023: heavy-bodied, with dried drupes, chestnuts, oaky notes and red berries, in a dark amber cup.
• Singell, 2023: stone-fruity and warm-nutty, oaky, with light spicy accents.
• Seeyok, 2023: peachy notes, muscat-grapey flavors, cedar-like tones and a musky edge.
• Singbulli Autumn Clonal, 2023: honeysuckle, muskmelon and a sweet, grapey character, unusual for the season.

Our first autumn listings, 2012

Our oldest autumn copy, from 2012, already describes the season’s range. The Giddapahar autumnal had “jet black dry leaf” that “is sweet with a strong hazelnut mix.” A Gopaldhara autumn tea, sold as Thunder, was “satisfyingly full of tannins but without noticeable bitterness.”

A taster’s score

Frank Miller, who had spent 30 years in tea when he wrote for us, scored a Gopaldhara Autumn Clonal Black 7.5 to 8 on his 10-point scale. He found its dry leaf “malty and peppery,” with “scattered golden tips,” and its cup carried tart green apple, a touch of roses, wildflowers and Muscat grape. He called it a “self-drinker,” a tea that needs no blending. His full method is in The Secrets of Tea-Tasting.

Most autumnals trade the Muscat grape of summer for stone fruit, nuts and cedar. Our product notes say autumn teas come without “the muscatel sharpness of Second Flush.”

The exceptions are real, though. Our 2012 Jungpana autumnal was sold as a “Jungpana Organic Muscatel,” with “suggestions of muscatel and slight floweriness.” Seeyok’s 2023 autumnal had “muscat-grapey flavors,” and Frank Miller found Muscat grape in a Gopaldhara autumn clonal.

The writer Jeff Koehler, talking to us in 2015, put the two seasons side by side: “I love the springy zip of first flush and also that roundly mellow complexity of autumn flush: a tea bush’s first offers and its last.” For the summer character itself, see Second flush tea and muscatel.

Our 2023 training deck sums up the season in four words, “Mellow, Fruity-woody notes,” and uses “woody” as praise, “evocative of freshly cut timber.” Our tasters also call autumnals “self-drinking teas,” the most readily palatable of all Darjeeling teas.

The trade glossary our quality team works from uses some of the same words as faults:

• Woody: “a sawdust-like character evident in some teas having been manufactured very late in the Autumnal period.”
• Hay: the glossary links this note to teas “approaching the Autumnal period.”
• Winey: the glossary uses this word, and “wild,” for autumnals that are past their prime.
• Coppery: praise, for an infusion seen “particularly during the Second Flush or Autumnal periods.”

So when a label calls an autumn tea woody, it means the fresh-timber sense; a cup that tastes of sawdust is a tea made too late.