Darjeeling Maikaibari

Recently I had the time to make a visit to one of my favourite tea places, The Tea Centre in Sydney's Glasshouse.

I decided on the devonshire tea which features a tea of your choice from their huge range of teas plus a divine fresh scone (a very large fresh scone too!), strawberry jam and double cream...YUM!

I chose to try their Darjeeling Makaibari FTGFOP (Organic).  Makaibari is a tea plantation in the hills of India and it makes some delicious teas.  The letters in the name of the tea indicate the grade; in this case Finest Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe!  There's a mouthful.  This is the finest grade of tea and I am reliably informed by wikipedia that it also stands for "Far Too Good  For Ordinary People".  I can't say I agree.

Anyway, before diving into my delicious scone I took a deep whiff of the liquid gold.  It smelled smoky.  It also smelled strongly of cooked tomatos with a hint of fresh bread.  Perfect for a cool winters day!

I took a quick slurp to increase the flavour and it exploded in delicious savoury tomato and pepper flavours. 

I am always partial to tea with milk and sugar so I added a little of both.  The tomato flavour remained but now it had a soft sweetness.  The peppery flavours were dampened by the milk becoming a smooth woody taste.

It was like the taste of a lounge fireplace, with a beautiful roaring wood fire, a good book and a mohair blanket.  I daydreamed awhile before remembering my scone was getting cold.

Mmm....now to get lost in the creamy, crumbly scone...