Ya-Ya's Tea Board

Today has been a very exciting day. Our shipment of organic Arya Ruby (in a wooden tea chest!) was waiting at the airport to be picked up.
Big deal, I bet you receive new tea shipments quite often, I hear some people mutter. While this is true, we don’t receive teas like the Ruby everyday; but I think I have to explain that a little bit more.

It is no secret that I have a longstanding love for Darjeeling teas, especially the lighter First Flush teas from the first harvest of the year after winter. These light, floral infusions never cease to enchant me. When we first secured some of the Arya Ruby a few years back, it was a huge success with our customers. Due to the small production of this tea, it is not easy to get your hands on an order and I didn’t manage for the last couple of years. But you can imagine how excited I was when I managed to secure some for Ya-Ya this year. Our customers seem to be as excited as me, since half of our order pre-sold in the first 6 hours after I informed some of the usual suspects of the planned order (I think it may have helped that the tea is much cheaper this time than in 2008). You guys rock!

Update 1 July: Less than 24 hours after my post, there are only about 1.5kg of the Arya Ruby left. If you want to secure some of this tea, I suggest you might want to get in touch soon.

Amongst Darjeeling teas, some teas from Arya’s Estate have a very special position. The Ruby is part of Arya’s so-called Jewel Range of teas – teas of outstanding quality, handmade in very small batches. The Ruby is much darker than the usual teas from Darjeeling’s first flush and has a much bolder body. While it is still closer to a dark oolong then to a black tea (from Assam, for example), it is much less green. The dominant flavours here are chocolate (in a very forthcoming way) and a hint of citrus fruit. It is amazingly fragrant and invites you to close your eyes and travel to far-away lands.

Arya is an organic and fair trade tea estate at an elevation of about 1650m. The workers live with their families for free on the estate in small villages, where a school for their children is supplied. They extend the organic practices into their own gardens, where they grow vegetables and produce eggs and honey for the local market. A profit-share scheme guarantees workers a 16% share in the profits of the tea garden and retirement payments are part of the employment contract. When a family member retires, another family member is employed as part of Arya’s “permanent job for life” scheme.

While men are involved in producing the tea, only women are allowed to pick the fresh leaves from the bushes due to their alleged ability for a more delicate harvest. They usually bring in their day’s harvest around 4 p.m. and the leaves are left to wither for 8-12 hours. In the early hours of the morning, the processing begins and the finished tea is usually ready by noon the following day. Arya does produce more mainstream black teas, but it is the Jewel Range teas that have founded its exceptional reputation.

There’s something nostalgic about receiving a wooden tea chest. Darjeeling is probably the only tea producing region, that still ships in these chests. While vacuum-sealed bags are ultimately more practical and better for the tea, they are definitely not “sexy”. I don’t know about you, but I find a chest has way more style.

If this has spurred your curiosity about the organic Arya Ruby, you can place an order through our ordering page. The price is $39.30 per 100g (as a comparison, our 2008 Arya Ruby was $54.80, mainly due to a poorer exchange rate).

Postscript

It is pretty weird to receive a large chest like this and instantly go about packaging the pre-orders, only to find the chest semi-empty a short while later. For all of you who have placed a pre-order on this tea, you will receive your package in the next few days. Just for fun, I’ve written a “limited edition serial number” on your bag, so you can see that you’ve got something special. I hope you’ll enjoy the tea.

[techtags: Darjeeling, Arya Ruby, black tea, organic]