Kanchanjangha Estate Nepalese teas, review of Gold Tips and Green teas

Review of Nepal Gold Tips

This post is a follow-up to an earlier review of teas from samples sent by the Nepal Tea company.

This Gold Tips version is not exactly what I was expecting;  I was thinking it would be more along the lines of a Ceylon gold tips or Dian Hong (which aren't that similar), but it reminds me of  Chinese style black teas more.  I can't say for sure what cultivar it's made from, or place it relating to comparing it to another specific tea type.


I'll start with mentioning what the Nepal Tea vendor says about the tea:

Kumari Gold is a special black tea produced by Kanchanjangha Tea Estate, which is processed from the young tea bushes grown and carefully nurtured in the foothills of Mt. Kanchanjangha.... A medium to full bodied tea with caramel, and baked fruit flavors, and a long lasting finish. Bright golden liquor.

The smell is malty, a little sweet.  The initial taste has plenty of malt, and an earthy complexity  along with a bit of dryness.  The tea is nice, just a bit earthier in range than some of my favorite black teas.  I really like soft black teas with a lot of sweetness (and this one is soft, not astringent), with aspects  into fruit ranges the best, which is why I really loved a unique lapsang souchong I just reviewed that was heavy on orange citrus.


The flavors are relatively clean, with good complexity, a nice feel;  it's good tea.  Malt is joined by a bit of cocoa, but in a dry / earthy range, so edging a little towards peat.  That's not a bad thing, but it probably sounds better to compare it to something closer to a food, maybe tobacco.


A few infusions in (preparing the tea Gongfu style) the flavors soften and sweeten, become richer, but there never really was an astringency to dissipate.  The earthier flavors do transition to more of a fruit range but it's not pronounced enough to separate into a list of fruits, and it blends together with the diminished earthier aspects.  It's a good version of a tea in this aspect range, unique and positive.

Review of Nepal Premium Green Tea

I think this was the Ganesha Green from Kanchanjangha estate, listed here on the Nepal Tea website.  My description of the flavor aspects isn't a perfect match for that website listing--vegetal, but not as kelp and seaweed mentioned there--but the rest fits.  Variations in identifying aspects is normal, and changes in brewing parameters or water or other inputs does cause real flavors changes.

They mention using lower temperatures for brewing, which is quite standard for green teas, on the site advocating "temperature 65 to 71℃ (150 to 160℉)."  That's a little lower than some recommend for green teas, but then there are usually two sets of green tea temperature recommendations, one for Chinese-style pan-fried green teas and a lower range for Japanese-style steamed green teas.  As with everything it comes down to preference as well.  In general cooler than for other tea types is going to work better; as for specific temperature people can sort that out based on experimenting a little.  The Kanchanjangha estate website recommends "The finest green tea is brewed with water at the temperature of 80 to 90 degree Celsius."  I'd think around 75 might be more of a standard range (170 F), even lower than that for steamed green teas.

The scent of the dry tea is not what I expected,  a bit vegetal, quite complex, with a cocoa aspect, and fruit beyond that.

The brewed tea is complex too.  It reminds me of a Vietnamese green tea, without so much mineral, and some aspects range that doesn't match.  There's just a touch of smoke, not pronounced, but it stands out for being unusual.  The tea is vegetal, starting out as green beans, but that effect is subtle,  the background context.

I'm not picking up a lot of cocoa or fruit,  those aspects hinted at in the day scent, but the complexity that is there may relate, and could develop more in the next infusions.  I'm preparing this tea Western style this time, for what that's worth, and I'd expect it wouldn't differ that much brewed Gongfu style, but checking by trying would be the only way to know for sure.  Part of that difference is to experience the transition of tea aspects better, and this tea does vary as it brews; it's not at all one-dimensional.  There's not much astringency; the feel is nice, not as full as oolongs can be but not thin, with no bite to it.

The smoke actually picks up the next infusion; odd since  I was expecting it to drop out.  The vegetal nature tones down a little and mineral picks up so it's even more like a Vietnamese green tea.  For people not familiar with those, that's a good thing, to me.  They have a nice flavor profile and feel, typically clean and a bit structured, even for moderate quality versions.  Vietnamese people tend to use boiling point water and ruin them because they like astringency, but you can't blame the teas for that.  My judgment that very astringent green teas brewed using boiling point water and long steep times have been ruined is just a preference, perhaps relatively standard among Western tea enthusiasts, but still not necessarily more correct.

This tea has good complexity.  It's hard to pick out aspects beyond those pronounced mineral and vegetal ranges (a little into kale instead of beans on the second infusion), because those are so pronounced.  There might well be a bit of cocoa; there's definitely a nice sweetness, and the flavors presentation is quite clean.  In the last infusions both the vegetal and mineral aspects ease up and it moves towards a neutral but full, rich flavor, in the range of dried hay, the kind of range that could be interpreted different ways (like mild wood-tone, or a sweeter version of fresh mushroom).  There's enough complexity and depth more probably is really going on than I've described but judgement about what that is would likely vary, and brewing variations could help draw other aspects out.

I don't always love green tea but this one is nice.  That might partly relate to not drinking many green teas this year, making it easier to appreciate them.  Or maybe after the last pu'er I'm liking that the tea is straightforward, with good complexity, but not a mix of different levels of aspects that takes sorting out.  Of course it comes across as fresh too, which is nice; it's green tea.

Rambling on section

These are good teas.  It's interesting how "good" is so relative, and how good a tea seems to someone relates to preference as much as some abstract, objective quality level.  For more standard types trueness to type is also an issue, a tea tasting just like that particular type should, or in the normal range is more how that goes.  Related to teas from Nepal the producers seem to have freedom to develop styles as they like, not so constrained by a past history of standard versions.

Related to my own preference, although I typically like black tea more than green tea of these two examples somehow the green version clicked a little more.  I didn't get the impression that related to flaws in the black tea, more to me preferring certain styles within the scope of black tea more than this tea's style.  I might have even liked their more standard black better, which seemed more like a Darjeeling, just not exactly like one.  This black tea was still a good tea, and I'd be happy to drink more of it, but in general I like softer, fruitier, sweeter black teas, and this one was definitely on the softer side but with more malt and earthier in nature from there.  Others could easily have the opposite experience, based on having different preferences.

Comparing the green tea to a Vietnamese green tea could be read as a quality-level assessment by some, but I don't see it that way.  It does seem true to me that even many ordinary examples of Vietnamese green teas can provide good results, if brewed properly, but I didn't intend that as an implication in the other direction, that this compares to more commercial versions of teas from Vietnam.  The character was different anyway; it only had some aspects in common, for example a mineral and vegetal nature, but even these aspects weren't exactly the same.  In my experience--which of course is still limited--Vietnamese green teas tend to tip the balance of aspects towards more mineral with vegetal characteristics second to those.  Here's an earlier review of one, but my reviews were a bit thin two years ago, maybe a better balance would be in the middle, shorter than this one.  Longjing is my favorite green tea, for what that's worth, but how that maps out related to these isn't so clear.

Obviously enough I'm trying to balance just describing aspects in these teas, providing a narrow objective assessment, with including some of my own opinion about them, even related to my own preferences.  I appreciate your patience as I try to learn to communicate clearly if not simply.

Black and oolong teas from Nepal

After reviewing a couple of really nice teas from Nepal a friend passed on (a Himalayan Orange most recently, and a Shangrila White prior) I was happy when a vendor passed on some samples of tea from there, from the Nepal Tea company.  Those other two teas had been completely unique, different in style than other's I'd tried, so I was hoping for more of the same.  On to some reviews!

Black tea (probably this one, Kanchanjangha Noir premium black):

The dry tea look didn't give too much away, just showing off some varied colors, a bit different.  The dry tea smell was already unique, sweet, with a bit of muscatel, even a touch of smoke.  The taste I didn't expect, malty with a bit of the Sri Lankan briskness but with flavors tied to those in the Darjeeling range.  There was a lot going on to unpack; not so pronounced muscatel as the smell had hinted, but it was there.  Plenty of malt, raisin or date filled in more fruit, with a touch of citrus, along with just a little dark chocolate, and some of that base of flavors in the floral range.

The malt and astringency would make or break the tea, depending on preference.  It didn't have much bite to it, not "brisk" as some black teas can be, not extending to dryness, but plenty of that feel and structure.  It seemed definitely closest to a Darjeeling but not exactly the same.  There is something cool about the effect of the tea, which is usually not how black teas go, typically generally basic stuff, with exceptions like good versions of Dian Hong.  It's not like that, exactly, but there is a nice juiciness to the feel.  After the malt and that astringency structure and fruit rolls over your palate some sweetness and fruit aspects remains.  

Maybe that run of pu'er tasting has me overdoing it with trying to feel teas and examine aftertaste but it's interesting the way the sweetness and fruit, along with a light mineral edge, remain on the sides in the rear of your mouth.  It's not like an oolong taste profile lingering, where a close version of the same profile remains, since it strips the experience down to some related aspects, which lasts for another couple of minutes.  I'm really a fan of Chinese black teas, which cover a totally different range, but this also works.

I eased up a little on the temperature and time for the second infusion, brewing a relatively soft and light version as black teas go, and that astringency backed way off, with lots of flavor remaining.  The tea is closer to a Darjeeling made this way, and it comes across less like a conventional black tea, just as those tend to fall in their own category.  The scent of the brewed tea leaves covered a slightly different aspects range than the tea itself, towards stone fruit, but maybe closer to butternut squash, and I may have just been missing that in first infusion tasting.

The tea has good complexity.  Some aspects incline towards that mineral intensive Ceylon range and the fruit is like Darjeeling.  Even after an infusion or two (using a modified Western style) brewed tea tastes are still primarily muscatel and that citrus element, with the raisin / date / chocolate fading a little.

Oolong review  (this tea, a Shangrila oolong)

A bit odd to put two tea reviews in one post, but this sort of works into a larger story, and I wanted to compare aspects somewhat directly (although this wasn't a side by side tasting).

The dry tea scent is similar to a second flush Darjeeling,  with muscatel and malt, just a bit softer.  Brewed the tea looks like a black tea, on the reddish side.  Tasting it some differences emerge.

There is some muscatel, and malt, and the earthy mineral tones common to black teas, but with a soft feel to the tea.  The limited astringency that is present is in the range of feel for a black tea, a slight dryness, but there isn't much.  There are also citrus tones, and a rich flavor aspect out towards sweet potato.  Still sounds like a black tea, doesn't it?  Just not exactly.

I wouldn't be surprised if it was processed like a black tea, just backed off a little during the oxidation step.  It's still in that range of being fully oxidized, maybe 80%, so right around the cutoff.  How would I know that?  I don't really, just a guess.  But I've been drinking a number of Oriental Beauty / Bai Hao versions this year, said to be oxidized at least 70% in some sources, so I'm going with my impression of those as a baseline.  Either way this tea is close to a black tea.


The tea is nice,  it all works, just not in the same way conventional oolongs do.  I'd expect that lots of Darjeeling sold as black tea is less oxidized, but then I tend to comment that's odd too, teas that aren't fully oxidized being categorized as black,  but so those can go.

a tea flavor wheel!  (photo credit)

On the next infusion a mineral component picks up that's interesting, not so easy to describe.  When someone describes a "mineral" aspect in Taiwanese oolongs or Wuyi Yancha they mean completely different things, two separate ranges, and this has almost no overlap with either.






It reminds me a little of the flavor aspects that seem to naturally pair with tannins in red wine, that rusty nail effect that can be found in French Cabernets, or also present in a softer, more pleasant form in Burgundies.  But the tea is not astringent, quite soft, so it only relates to part of the flavors profile in those wines, mineral-tone aspects that naturally seem to join with wines with those feels, not so much the feel.  I could have just said it tastes a little like red wine, but only that one part.  It's hard to drag it back to the range of tastes tea is usually described as, but lets try.

what granite is, on the left (photo credit)

Per this prior tea flavor wheel minerals are described as volcanic, chalk, and granite.  That really doesn't help with Alishan oolong or Da Hong Pao; they taste like neither.  This is closest to granite.  It's odd saying for sure that it doesn't taste just like that rock, but I think it doesn't.  Then again, granite varies, doesn't it?


Of course it does; granite is a general category of rocks comprised of orthoclase feldspar, quartz, plagioclase feldspar, micas, and amphibole.  Of course I looked that up, and I really don't know what those smell or taste like.  This was already plenty of tangent but one more interesting aside from that same reference source about what granite really is:



In the commercial stone industry, a "granite" is a rock with visible grains that is harder than a marble. Under this definition, gabbro, basalt, pegmatite, schist, gneiss, syenite, monzonite, anorthosite, granodiorite, diabase, diorite, and many other rocks will be called "granite."


Cool!  Would be nice to scratch and sniff all those rocks sometime.  Where was I going with this again?

oolong brewed leaves

Right, describing a Nepalese oolong, that tastes like a black tea, and a little like stones.  I'd need to re-taste the black tea and oolong again to see if the mineral aspect is the same, but it must be comparable.  I had the impression the aftertaste that a mineral tone was evident as a part of was quite different for both, and that the teas had a much different feel to them.  As a black tea drinker I love the oolong, but as an oolong drinker it's not what I expected.  Both teas are nice, and unique.  I think they share some common ground with the Himalayan Orange I reviewed not so long ago, but as always direct comparison tasting would help clarify that.


These have been a great start into exploring some new tea range from Nepal.  I think it will get more interesting from here, on to white teas, and a "golden" version.  I'm getting the impression that it's typical for teas from Nepal to challenge preconceptions related to typical styles, and it will be interesting to see how those different changes sync up with my own preferences.