Darjeeling, a refuge of perpetual change. Seven Essence Darjeeling Villanelle

Among those mountains where even the fogs seem to recognize themselves, always the same, the sun makes its way over the peaks of Darjeeling in that way that only northern India can do, with those sunsets stained with scarlet red as if a cup of tea had spilled in the skies.

Among the big brands, the massive and hypertrophic estates, it is hard to believe that there is a world of artists in constant ferment. In Darjeeling, breathing is instead punctuated by two incredibly deep breaths, one is that of tradition, the other is that of an unprecedented contemporaneity, creator of teas that have become a symbol of the new future: bold, powerful, and often, undeniably, modern.

Spring teas like Villanelle hold within them the extraordinary nature of spring, in its scents of dried magnolia, citrus, hydrangea and winter melon they seem to reconstruct the triumph of Rubens and Brueghel the Elder’s Eden, an explosion of renewed vegetation, an aromatic encyclopedia of the natural world accompanied by that body, that powerful carnal plasticity of the baroque season.

While teas like this one consecrate the cup as the theatre of the sublime, they remind us that in these lands it is not easy to emerge, that creative flair and freedom of expression are not common or taken for granted and that spring, despite its splendor, cannot erase the bitter aftertaste of this eternal struggle.

The sip has a good thickness, with an almost watery sweetness typical of melon that supports the weave of elderflower and orange blossom syrup, thickening in the aromas of taro mochi and acacia honey. It proves to be a vertical tea, ascending in its tension between freshness and maturity, it shows to be a path to follow, a turning point by placing a door in front of the past that must never be reopened.

In the past decades Darjeeling has been like a vagabond in the world, a terroir of extraordinary complexity and a potential only minimally explored, but it is as if the truth has continually escaped. But now tea and producers like these are establishing a new route, a new pact with their land, a hymn to the highest genius, to the craziest tea, refuge of perpetual change.