Day 13 of the ages ago india trip

Day 13. (April 2010)

When leaving a hotel in most of urban India, you find yourself deeply inhaling just before stepping out of the door. This is, presumably, your body and mind getting itself prepared for the onslaught on the senses. Because, WHAM, everything hits you at once-

BEEP, squark, brrrmmm, BEEP, woofgrrrr, sizzle, ShOUt, sweep, BANG, wake me up before you go-go, ShOUt BaCK, drrrrrrrrr, bleurghh, moooo, BEEP, BEEP, doink, PHLEGM, Prrrp, DISTORTED MuSiC, dzzzzzz, dzzzzzz, BEEEEEP, whoomph, brrrmm, on the ears.

Burning oil, shit, deep frying pakora, petrol, stagnant piss, incredible spices, rancid sweat, bubbling chai, vomit, George Michael, festering drains, smoking incense, hot engines, gas burners, fermenting bins, on the nose.

And all of the above plus more on the eyes.

And despite Darjeeling being one of the more civilised cities in India, things are still the same. Like you exit from your little safety bubble of a hotel into this crazy other world in which you need to hold on tight to your sanity, otherwise it may very well be lost and you will find yourself sucked into the chaos, becoming just another noise maker in the whole theatrical production - 'INDIA!', the stage show. In which you will play 'shouty beepy taxi driver 23'. It's a small role, but just as important as 'nice beardy Jalebi fryer', and 'inconveniently placed turding cow'.

That is how day 13 began, and it continued as a day of silly silly bureaucracy, wasted time and a feeling of being ready to move on.

We were planning to head to Sikkim. Sikkim is a state of India, North of Darjeeling. It borders Nepal, China (Tibet) and Bhutan, and is a little nubbin sticking out from the top of West Bengal. It is often described as being thumb shaped -



Wow, i was a nonbeliever, but having just made that to prove it is not thumb shaped, it turns out it actually is.

…..And it is a restricted area. Meaning you need a buggering form to enter (NB, not a form that permits you to bugger). The reasons for visiting were those of tea, mountains and serenity. As it turned out, only 1 of those actually came true.


To obtain this buggering form, you have to go to the foreigners registration office, wait, fill in a form, wait, stamp form, wait, get told to go to the permit office between the hours of 12.30 and 12.33 with 2 passport photos, your form, and your passport, get 2 passport photos made, hike to permit office....





wait, wait, wait, present form, wait....




...get passport signed and stamped, wait, receive back buggering form, get told to return to foreigners registration office, with passport and form, hike back to reg. office, wait, wait, wait, wait and get form finally stamped, with a begrudging, untrusting look on the stampers face. Fin.



The funny thing is that even though they tell you to get your photos done, the registration office and the permit office don't communicate, so the reg. office doesn't know that the permit office no longer needs the photos, and the permit office thinks that it's the reg. office that uses the photos, even though they don't. Either that, or they have a nice little thing going with the passport photo people...

It is amazing that everything still runs. During the whole form escapade, we saw maybe 30-40 people in various offices. The total number of people actually doing ANYTHING? - 2. And even then, it was with not much enthusiasm, gusto nor commitment. And my god, the piles of paper. Cartoony office piles, teetering, dusty and age stained. And drawers upon little drawers containing god knows what. Bloody brilliant!

So, with Sikkim trip on the schedule for the next few days, we tidied up our Darjeeling stay. Bought some tea (we were now rocking some 30 kilos) and 3 fabulous old pre-Raj coins (1850's), dined, said our goodbyes to various people we had met, played some poker, and went to bed early with the plan of catching the first jeep to Jorethang in the morning, via the Singtom Tea Estate.

For those stumbling across this rambling nonsense for tourist information reasons, please note, that however lengthy and tortuous the form obtaining is, it is worth it. And don't bother getting photos done, unless you want them as little gifts for strangers that take a liking to you.

GIFT PACKS

GIFT PACKS ONLINE GIFT PACKS ONLINE GIFT PACKS ONLINE GIFT PACKS ONLINE

and new reasonabler postage rates (we want it to be free, but the best we can do is free if you order 30 quids worth. That, is a lot of tea)

Screenshot!




(shipped by Friday)

Markets and the rest

Thankyou everyone who popped by to say howdy at the markets, it was a right pleasure to see you all. And thankyou to all new customers, for throwing caution into the wind and procuring some tea from 3 smiley fellows trying to look the part in aprons.



Our new labelling system was a success!...

{ -Here's a before n after, so you can see evolution in action-




Just so you know, we have had them lithographically done, on heat sensitive paper, and we print the black text using a direct thermal method for each and every tea. It's a time consuming business. But oh so satisfying. And infinitely better than our previous method.



Our labelling knowledge has increased, and man, it is a confusing world. Thankyou to all those involved who spent hours chatting with us and showing the factory etc etc. We shall never look at another sticker again in the same way.}

...as were the gift tins, and special gift packs. So much so, that we sold out way faster than we ever thought possible. Consequently we have to have a major restock, which will take about 3- 4 days. The packs will be available online from tomorrow, (Monday the 13th) but we wont be able to send them til Friday. Delay after annoying delay. Those from the newcastle-y area who need one may obtain one from Olive and Bean (stock depending), Clayton Street opposite Poundlanddddddd. Those from elsewhere can order one online, and we promise it will get there before Chrimbob.

Check out the new Christmas look of our Cyber page! Isn't she festive? www.quilliambrothers.com

There are also a couple of extra hidden whotnots for you to discover.

Chai went down nicely as well, though a 10 second lapse in concentration every now and again meant numerous boiling over spillages onto our hard to tame hob. The accompanying ginger biscuit, lovingly baked by the Quilliam Sister, was well received also. So we throw our thanks to her.

Basically, THANKS TO EVERYONE! (apart from the lady who muttered 'Yes, I CAN read' when we were being friendly and explaining what was in the gift pack)


In tea house news -

We have submitted our plans for the new premises, and they are getting it costed (the ruin of a place has to be renovated to shell condition). Once that has happened, we can talk contracts... Hu-flipping-rray. The place is marvellous. And we know we will fit in wonderfully there.- Big beautiful victorian building, with warreny basement. Heaven.

Til next time, i pose this intriguing query-

Which brew are you going to choose?


P.S Vinyl Jacket at the Cluny in Newcastle on Wednesday 15th - 1 performing Quilliam Brother, no tea, but solid tunes a plenty...

Newcastle Christmas Markets and Gift Packs

Hello Tea Lovers/Haters/Nonchalanters!


FIRSTLY.

It's Sunday the 5th of December. We promised our gift packs by the 1st. But the bleeding snow has right royally fudged up our delivery of labels, which are, unfortunately, essential for the level of aesthetics we are after. We will, of course, happily write on the tins with a permanent marker if you want, but none of us are blessed with fine penmanship, and your granny wont be impressed with a tin apparently scribbled on by a 4 year old, no matter how delish the tea is.

We are hoping by the end of this week.

Until then, here's a pic of a cat nibbling on some holly, a really large cup and saucer, and a gift pack conveniently placed around this festive cuteness.




Like last year, we will be at the Newcastle Chrimbo markets. This time this Friday and Saturday, which is the 10th and 11th i believe. Hot chai, loads of tea to buy loose leaf, gift packs (Ha), lots of samples and general market cheer. Come and say hello!


Big love from us three.

Day 12

Christmas Tea Packs will be available to order online from Dec the 1st. Oh yes they will. Labels have been the primary cause of delay. We have never thought about product labels before. But now, we will think of nothing but. Labels Labels Labels Labels Labels.


Day 12.

Something crawled in the room during the night.

PORRIDGE. Lots of.

Felt slow and grumpy.

Fixed that by going to the ZOO.

Clouded leopards, snow leopards, red pandas, asiatic bear, YAK, amongst other great animals. Stupid idiotic shouty public, winding animals up. Livid.






I am not entirely sure why we aren't going into the wildlife photography business.

Wandered back into toon.

Via an uber spicy chowmein and belated momos.

Met with Ditya, a saxophone genius of about 12 years old that i met last time. lovely kid. And his family. Who always feed me and tea me to the nines. We did do saxophoney things.

Another tea tasting sesh. This time at an official (=expensive) tea shop. Would've been fine if it weren't for the upper-middle class brits on a tea tour being pompous, raucous, a touch rumbustious and highly cringeworthy. The Eastenders theme and scratched skippy Kenny G tune bizarrely alternated on repeat repeat repeat repeat on the jukebox. Not good listening at the best of times. Gibbering wrecks in 5 minutes. Possible ethically sound form of torture to please the human rights campaigners? Me thinks so.

Had about 9 teas in total. Some were mmmm, some were nyuh, none were bleurgh. Pat loves his 2nd flush muscatels. Sam loves his darjo whites.

Went to bazaar, bit more tea bartering, sample obtaining. Bought a big green bag to transport some of the excess tea in. It was of the finest quality.





Payed the WHOPPING hotel bill (Not really whopping). Played a spot of poker with our skilfully hand crafted paper chips. Pat wiped the floor.

Dined Tibetanly - was heavy and warming. Joined by yet another delightful German and a Delhi-an photographer. Karan and Madha were their name-o's. Bed. At 9 pm. Ha.

There's weren't many visuals on the youngest and middle-est of us in this episode. So here's some footage of them waiting at a jeep rank.

A short one

Hello all.

Our christmas packs are nearly ready!

I have been given special clearance to inform you that the packs will consist of 3 wonderful teas in gorgeous little 50 gram tins, beautifully presented in a windowed cardboard case, with an infuser and a sample, and a pretty bow.

We have the tea, the boxes, the tins, the ribbon and the infusers. All we need are the sticky labels. Not long now... we bloody hope.

On with the delayed blog...

Day 11.

There was an interruption from a cacophony of trumpety noises at 3 am-ish. We never did get to the bottom of that noise. Me and Chubs breakfasted early whilst Sam slept more.

Chowrasta is the name of the main square in Darjeeling. Spend any time there with a nice steaming glass of chai and you will see the Darjeeling people being themselves, buddhist monks in flocks, wealthy indian tourists on ponies, many a stray dog, cheeky monkeys, a naff 'dress-as-a-nepalese-person' photo booth, and possibly an incredible view to Kanchenjunga (3rd highest mountain in the world - cloud dependant). A few metres off this square, down the busy pedestrian street, a marvellous institution mothers Western tourists in Darjeeling. Glenary's. A bakery and cafe and internet cafe and bar and posh restaurant and club all in one. And they serve the closest thing to fry up's you could wish for (including 'bacon' - a square of a bizarre salty meat-esque substance). And they play a Boyzone album on repeat. Which is just ideal.



Patrick was wearing his dark rimmed glasses with a nice trim beard and a lumberjack shirt, thus -




(artists interpretation)


And then another westerner walked in WITH EXACTLY THE SAME BEARD, GLASSES AND LUMBERJACK SHIRT.





Which was great……….



THEN ANOTHER ONE WALKED IN WHO LOOKED EXACTLY THE SAME. There were 3 clones. Quite simply one of the best mornings of my life.





Not much tea activity. So i will summarise.

Cheapy Darjo tea with fry up. They put it in a pot and give you a really small cup, so it ends up over stewing if you don't drink it fast. Very silly. Much needed laundry done by lovely hoteliers. Put black spots in particularly conspicuous places to signify washed garments. Very silly. Big money change. Tibetan cuisine. MOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMOMO. First visuals on a fluffy vest (see note 1), Sam misses his bird, Tried to purchase a fluffy vest for 103 rupees- they were having none of it. Pat and Sam saw some robed Tibetan Monks in a mall on a big electronic weighing machine, picture that if you will.

We then rendezvoused for a tea tasting at the Goodricke's (see note 2) Darjeeling outpost, which is just a small tea vending area as their big scary HQ is in Calcutta.

We sampled their Margaret's Hope 2nd flush, their Castleton muscatel and their Castleton China special and their Thurbo FF and their Badamton Autumnal. We did a little test to see how good our tasting was getting. I failed where as Sam and Pat nailed it. All were delish.

Went to natter with some tea brokers at the bazaar (lower darjeeling) about BIZNISS. Lots of bull-excrement to wade through (literal and metaphorical). Wow, they could talk. But got somewhere in the end, and obtained some great samploids.




Night was bloody nice, as we were joined by the deeeeelightful Germans from Makaibari and 2 uber nice Americans we met at dinner. Merriment was had. 2 beers were enough to get us tiddled, so we sauntered home past a great variety of dogs.

Until next time....


Note 1. Fluffy vests.

First witnessed on previous India voyage. Would love to have some photographic evidence, but alas, there is none. Basically, a sleeveless garment, which is usually fluorescent coloured, and very fluffy, like an unsheared sheep. The young, hip lads wear them. Usually paired with flared jeans adorned with every possible mod imaginable (extra pockets, sewn on badges, complex embroidery, rivets, dangly bits etc etc). Boy does it look groovy.

Note 2. Goodrickes Group.

Own many many tea plantations. The largest producers/distributors of Darjeeling tea. Many of the high profile tea estates are owned by Goodrickes. Yes they are.

Day 10

With the help of our friendly neighbourhood cockerel, we woke early. From the balcony bit of our digs, the cliff side was also waking. Buddhist prayer bells, twittering birds, the flip flop of passing flip-flops as determined men with baskets three times their size containing foliage climbed the steep road, gentle chattering between neighbours, the endless one armed sweeping, a little 5ish year old nepalese boy clumsily found his way to the little shack shop to buy cigarettes for his dad, received a note in change, rolled it up as he walked, paused, looked around to see if anyone was watching then pretended to smoke it, men wearing fantastic vests and towels around their waists sat on their doorsteps with their morning chai, another small nepalese kid confidently came and talked to us-

Us - Hello
Him - Hello
Us - What is your name?
Him - Fine thankyou
Us - Oh, how are you?
Him - Fine thankyou
Us - How old are you?
Him - Fine thankyou. Ok, good bye.

and off he skiddadled.

Through all of this delightful morning-ness, every now and again, from a source unknown, there would be the sound of a cheap toy playing 'We wish you a merry christmas'.

We had the morning in the factory, processing the first flush teas. With the help of the fetching hygiene hats.



Withering had been done the night before. Again, in long trays that blow hot/cold air through the leaves to reduce moisture content so the leaves don't turn to slush when rolled.



So the withered leaves are then thrown into the rolling machines, for around half an hour. This bruises them, which in turn begins oxidation and develops the flavour.











There is a man at Makaibari. This man is essential for Makaibari brew makering. Using only the acute power of his unassuming nose, he knows exactly when the tea has peaked in flavour. To correctly estimate the time to stop oxidation, most mortals rely on science...




...but not this man.

Irreplaceable and mysterious.

He is known simply as 'THE BLOODHOUND'.



A formidable man.


In usual black tea processing, the leaves are then moved to fermentation trays, to allow further oxidation to take place. Darjeeling first flush teas, however, despite being classed as black, are actually more oolong by definition. Semi fermented.



The tea is moved to fermentation trays, but only for sorting and transportation.

Here we are getting knots out of the rolled leaves....







And here we are earning our keep...



Straight into the dryers, and out the other end as the finished article.

These dried tea leaves, the Makaibari Organic First Flush, make an incredible brew. Brew it gently, in not quite boiling water, for a couple of minutes, and you will be rewarded with a light, refreshing, flowery, uplifting concoction that will forever be your yardstick first flush tea.

We finished the tea day with a walk out to the plantation to say hello to the pickers. We just caught the end of their shift, and got some photos. They were very friendly again, just like at Behora.
















After the walk back up the hill, we sweatily went to the offices to organise our tea purchases. That done, we gave our thankyou gift to Mr Banerjee and headed to get our bags. One last meal with our lovely Kurseong family, Photos and good byes.




Took a taxi to Kurseong train station, to catch the famous toy train to Darjeeling.





There are 2 journey options when getting the toy train. You can take it from Siligiri, where we got the shared jeep 2 days previously. Or you can get it from Kurseong, when you are already half way up the mountainside. To get to Darjeeling from Siligiri takes about 12-14 hours. From Kurseong it takes a mere 3. And the scenery only gets truly wonderful after Kurseong. So, my advice is don't do the full whack. You may regret it. Plus it only uses a steam locomotive from Kurseong. A bloody beautiful train it is too. One of my favourite things to do in the world. It costs a whopping 10 rupees each to get to Darjo. That's 12 pence to us Sterling users. And they give you lovely stamped chunky cardboard tickets, like the olden days.



Unfortunately the younger of us had successfully contracted a little bug that was playing havoc with his digestive system. And a VERY SLOW train is not the best place to have such a problem. There was a look of intense concentration on his fizog for most of the journey, which was a shame as he was putting all of his energy into self control and had little left to enjoy the experience. There are numerous stops heading up the mountain. Chai stops, water refill stops, broken train stops, passenger stops and some inexplicable stops (none of which have toilet facilities, i hasten to add). So you can get off, have a wander. Pat even purchased a nice pair of velcro shoes on one of the stops. One stop, the daughter of the momo/chai stand came and sat down, and had a cute factor of 93.



Some over affectionate lads squeeeeezed into the seats next to us, and we had our knees squeezed and our egos inflated as they insisted repeatedly that they 'really, really liked us'. It got awkward, after a while.



The sun was setting as we approached darjeeling. The train whistled past the waving snotty kids and nonchalant shop keepers, whilst jubilance set in on my part to be back in Darjeeling. Even with the sooty nose hairs.

Getting off the train and walking through the steamy, sooty chaos in the misty twilight of Darjeeling, then clambering steeply upwards, past the very british looking post office, past the numerous candlelit warm clothing vendors, past the Big Bazaar, we made our way to Hotel Prestige. A favourite of mine, run by the most lovely family, that guarantees a good level of hygiene for a very respectable price.
The leccy was off in Darjo, so we were guided to our room by a candle, and had 2 candles in the room. We lay in the flickering semi darkness playing 'I went to the stupid things americans say shop' (…and bought some aluminum some basil some cilantro and a douchebag) until we felt hungry enough to venture outside to feast on Tibetan fare. We were joined for this atmospheric candlelit meal by 2 lovely people from Finland and America.
Momos and thukpas consumed, we headed to Joey's. A little slice of english pubbery in India. It was closed. So we went to bed. With our ridiculously thick duvets. And mountainy fatigue.