Month: November 2017

Temi White Tea

Temi white tea is world renowned for its gentleness, pale colour and characteristic sweetness.
Plucked mostly in spring this tea gives a bright but delicate curl when made as bimudan. The curls are large and unfold/ed as full leaf on infusion.
Temi’s loamy soil is perfect for White tea — it’s unique weather allows a bimudan even during the summer season. Despite these two possible seasons the Temi white tea remains rare and very expensive because of the tender fine and meticulous hand plucking that goes in making it.

Temi white tea is rich in antioxidants . In fact has antioxidants in greater measures than the Temi green tea. This fabulous white tea is an excellent liquor for cardiovascular issues and also for lowering the cholesterol levels.
The infusion which one gets from the bimudan is useful in also removing the under eye-bags and rheumatic pains.

Combining the therapeutic value and the rarity around this world famed tea its thus reasoned that only a select few can afford the luxury called Temi White Tea.

Temi Fusing Flavours – Another Fusion Tale of Seers from Temi

Smile & Twinkle

Kiwi Guava Apple and Orange

The bliss hill they call the Temi Blorange …
Temi forays into the novel, heedful & venturous craft of blending tea with the addendum to its plate of multiplying surprises.

Kiwi, Guava, Apple & Orange ….
The great poet Douglas of yesteryears reminds us of a pied piper of a never-forgotten era of rolled up fusion

How deftly does the gardener blend
This rose and that
To bud a new creation,
More gorgeous and more beautiful
Than any parent portion,
And so,I trace within my warring blood
The tributary sources,
They potently commingle
And sweep With new-born forces!

Smile & Twinkle, Smile & Twinkle ….”

The story at Temi has a chapter added to it with precision & passion. Tea leaves that are lovingly and carefully handpicked, are harvested with the utmost care and attention to detail to ensure their separate flavours come through…. hear this out …. fact about tea that lends itself to the numerous options we have available is this: tea absorbs the flavour of almost anything. And tea blending is a common process that is used to keep our taste buds guessing at new flavours, and ensure we can recognize the old ones.

Tea blending was originally intended to mask inconsistencies in the flavour of batches of tea.

The story at Temi is startlingly different.

As the flavour of the final tea is so dependent elsewhere on the growing conditions of the plant, a batch of tea made from leaves picked on a sunny day can taste entirely different from a batch of tea made with leaves picked on a rainy day. Season to season, day to day, any changes in the climate or handling can result in big changes to flavour, and producers don’t want that. They want a tea that their customers can easily recognize, tea that is consistent in taste, colour and quality. So they turned to blend ….

Ah blending at Temi has its own original yarn – it’s like beading one rose with another the mole hills do become the mountains as it becomes a discovery with Temi Tea with its own originality maintaining its unique “Flag of Resurrection”.

Most people, when they hear of “tea blending,” assume that it is done to create flavoured teas like Chocolate Mint, or Apple Spice. Blending is where flavoured teas come from, but many a connoisseur fail to realise that the majority of black tea is also blended. To ensure that their teas will be consistent many producers mix a variety of black teas together, it helps to even out the taste and makes the tea more reliable.

At Temi the blending of Kiwi, Apple Guava & Orange are done by hand. It’s mixed in with the drying leaves.When tea at Temi is hand blended it results in beautiful creations of an unique flavour – reminds us of a Rose getting beaded to another rose while nature is garlanded with myriad experiences that’s futuristic perennial ….

Enjoy our new blends from Temi thus & we salute the distinct identity that always remains as a hall mark.

My ode while I sign off

The vast blue ranges dotted against the cherry blossoms during this time of year at Temi makes a different world- besides being an enduring metaphor for the ephemeral nature of living by the day

What when the world concurs that you weigh more or equal to your fill in kindness,
What when green leaves turn crimson at your blushes-

What when the garden-rain brings in chirps of the wasps who befriended the sweetest bird with a broken leg…..
We do cry out with Beatles “A day in the life” then ?

The Dalai Lama & his blessing smile – God’s calling Temi

Setting foot in Dharamsala was like entering a peaceful bubble. It felt like stepping back in time into a strange India-Tibet mix, where Tibetan-style houses stood next to local ones & then … my heart misses a beat … I meet his holiness the Dalai Lama – His holiness has his long ageless tryst with the state of Sikkim.

On his announcement as the 14th holy soul, Sikkim & it’s archives provide a chronological and detailed account of the planning and sourcing of gifts, articulated concerns and queries about culture, customs, and protocol, and vivid travel descriptions of the journey from Gangtok (Sikkim) to Lhasa (Tibet), for the infant Tenzing Gyatso’s official enthronement as His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Recognized as the official reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama in 1939, his enthronement ceremony as the next Dalai Lama was scheduled for February 22, 1940, in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. In Sikkim (which had close relations with Tibet, spiritually, culturally, economically, and familial), officials were deciding what gifts to send to Lhasa for the occasion, and who would represent the Sikkim State at this auspicious and once-in-a-lifetime ceremony.

Sikkim’s 11th Chogyal, Tashi Wangyal Namgyal (r.1914-1963), chose to send his eldest son, Crown Prince Kunzang Paljor Namgyal (1921-1941), and the British decided to send Basil Gould (Political Officer, Sikkim), who would have been more familiar with the cultures of the region.

Come 2017 & as God privileged Temi Tea, Sikkim was blessed by his holiness yesterday with no qualms attached – our gift to him encore was a packet of tea & his gift to us was all the blessings we are carrying back.

We are carrying back blessings along with the commitments-

Commitments to the promotion of human values such as compassion, forgiveness, tolerance, contentment and self-discipline. His holiness says that as human beings we are all the same. We all want happiness and do not want suffering. His Holiness refers to such human values as secular ethics or universal values. Temi Tea & Temi Estate promises to carry the baton.

Mind massage

Temi is a small village situated in South-East Sikkim. The Himalayan Ranges covered with green and thick rain-forests and varied coloured flowers and birds makes this place a heaven on Earth. The wonderful Temi Tea garden adds to the splendour.

The Estate is located in South East Sikkim, adjacent to Rabongla, a place which is not an unusual attraction for foreigners and travellers from around the world. This place has a geographical advantage of the Soulful view of the inexplicable Mount Kanchenjunga. An open corridor between the Mountain and Temi makes a clear and picturesque view possible. Temi is also the perfect place to view the entire Himalayan Range of Sikkim from various viewpoints.

The gravel roads and the mystique thoroughfare not much wider than a pathway, smoothly runs ahead. You could even mistake it for a grey river with slow currents had the orange and yellow fallen leaves of autumn not remained static on it. Lined by trees in fall colours, just like the old advertisement of the Lakme winter care lotion, where a woman from one car makes faces at a child in another, the road leads to the Blue Mountains in the distance.

This had been my dream destination since childhood and I had imagined, painted and written stories about living in such a locale. Part of this dream (the Blue Mountains) came true during the six-month-long stay in Temi. The hills that form the South Sikkim belt changes their pattern, height, colour and even texture with the changing moods of the clouds and mist that often creates barriers between us. This was pretty amusing especially when you are living in a town that does not offer much variation in your life.
If you had the patience you could actually see the rains pour down from the grey clouds in the distance during monsoon, from the balconies of the homestays that are beads around the Estate. The greenery around, the mountains, the forests & the Estate literally suck away the pollution that gets formed at the town-centres elsewhere, (literally, a km or a little more in circumference).

If you are a momo lover, you will not complain if you are here. The Estate is all about glory with its ivy Tea to boast and the bliss it offers with eyes and hearts yearning for mote & more.

The World that’s never lost

Located in South Sikkim, the Temi Tea Garden in Ravangla was established in 1969 by the Government of Sikkim. The grading of tea from Temi Tea Garden is of top quality tea, generating huge demand in the international market. The British traditions of making and taking tea have little relevance in Sikkim as tea plantations here are a post-independence affair.
It may be succinctly observed that unlike the British cup of tea, tea in Sikkim is not served in a set where the leaves are steeped separately. Rather, tea here is consumed with both milk and sugar and the tea leaves are not prepared separately by being steeped. Instead, the tea leaves are boiled along with additions and then boiled again after the addition of milk, sugar and spices like cardamom and cinnamon.

There are many other popular variations of Sikkim tea depending on regional affiliations. Like in Hee Gaon (an indigenous village in West Sikkim), popular tea are brewed with Seremna (an intensive cardamom seed found only in Hee Gaon).

The floral composition of Temi in Sikkim is also exclusive as it consists of broad leaf vegetation comprising Uttis, Kattusand Malata. Temi Tea estate’s surroundings and approach road have also been made more scenic by planting pine, prunes and cherry trees.

Its not surprising that Temi Tea is sold in the international market at prices that go up to Rs 7,500 per kg (US$ 120 per kg). That’s the international scenario, coming back to tea-drinkers like us, let me tell you that Temi tea is indeed unique for its quality and its vigour can be best felt with an infusion of cardamom & cinnamon. Behold and Devour, our five senses do meet its desired destination once you are at Temi.