Thés primeurs 2024: spring flavours in your teapot

Our long-awaited 2024 teas have arrived! This is a unique opportunity to taste fresh, delicate teas bursting with spring flavors.

Primeurs d'Inde: enjoy black teas with incomparable fruity and floral notes

Between March and May, every year, the young shoots of the tea bushes light up the many gardens that dot the region. Filled with their rich aromatic substances, slowly accumulated over the winter, they are used to make the first new teas of the year. These teas are distinguished by their freshness and lively attack, with delicious fruity and floral accents. These delicate, airy flavors stand out from the rounder, more mature notes of the year's other harvests, making these black teas an enchantment for the palate.

The 2024 vintage was full of surprises, highlighting the specific characteristics of each tea garden and the expertise of our Indian partners.

A highly aromatic 2024 harvest, but limited quantities

This year's harvest was exceptionally late, so much so that we were unable to present our Darjeeling blends at our spring open house as we do every year. The reason for this delay is the extremely late arrival of the rains and a particularly dry winter. Every year, climate change becomes an increasingly tangible reality to which we have to adapt.

The spring rains that the tea bushes receive just before the first harvest are always eagerly awaited. They have a direct impact on harvest quality.

Fortunately, they were present this year, but only delayed the plucking of the tea leaves.

Quantities harvested were low because of the weather conditions, but also because of the demanding selection of buds for quality. As the tea bushes grew more slowly, the teas from the 2024 vintage are particularly concentrated in aroma, and this can be felt on tasting.

The characteristics of each terroir are particularly well highlighted, and lovers of our primeurs will find the "signature" of each garden.

Our favorites among the 2024 Indian teas:

• TN214 Tara's offering SFTGFOP1 FF (Samabeong garden)
• TN207 Potong FTGFOP1 FF (Potong cooperative)
• TN223 Singell Heritage Handmade Special FF (Singell garden)

Demeter primeurs

Biodynamics celebrates its 100th anniversary this year! Early produce from gardens that have chosen this form of agriculture, represented by the "Demeter" logo, delighted our palates as they do every year. More than any other form of agriculture, biodynamic viticulture, with its strict, protective specifications, brings out the very qualities of each terroir. Subtle aspects such as planetary influences are taken into account, as it's a question of having an overall vision of the environment in which the tea bushes grow, and favorably orienting all that the environment can offer, notably with mineral- and plant-based preparations. This year, our Full Moon Spirit (Selimbong), harvested under the influence of the moon, highlights its influence in this pioneering biodynamic garden.

Mingqian de Chine 2024: invite the finest Chinese green teas into your cup

Rare primers reserved almost exclusively for the Chinese market, mingqian(明前) represent the quintessence of green teas. Made exclusively from small buds, they are harvested in the spring from late March to early April before the Qingming Festival (April 4, 2024). The daily quantity harvested entirely by hand is minimal, and it takes 4 kg of fresh leaves to obtain one kilo of finished tea!

It's with great pleasure that we offer you these great vintages from these intimate harvests. Their softness and particularly sweet, fruity aromas make them very gourmet teas. With their rich aromas, they symbolize the awakening of spring after a long period of dormancy.

Spring grand crus rich in aromas and flavours, for a special tasting experience

This year, snow, freezing rain and very low temperatures marked the start of spring, delaying the harvest by between 7 and 10 days in the various tea-growing provinces we work with. The tea bushes, like last year, grew more slowly than usual and there were fewer young spring shoots, but these were able to develop complex flavours over a longer period of time.

Their spring sap, loaded with many nutrients drawn from the soil after the winter rest period, is therefore more concentrated in aromatic principles. This 2024 vintage embodies the quintessence of Chinese spring teas, with its rich yet particularly sweet and fruity flavours.

Our favorite teas from China 2024:

• TB716 Aiguilles d'argent de Fuding - Silver Needles- 福鼎银针
• TV458 Long Jing 龙井

Fuding Silver Needles: the irresistible freshness of a prestigious white tea..

As soon as the thermometer starts to climb, the freshness of a white tea becomes irresistible! And when it's a "mingqian" from the prestigious local Da Bai and Da Hao cultivars, as is the case with our Fuding Silver Needle, you can expect a real feast for the palate!

Hand-picked in the tea gardens of Fuding in Fujian province, this grand cru is made exclusively from tender, plump buds with naturally silky, silvery down.

Unlike green tea, this white tea has not been fired or rolled. The buds have simply been plucked very selectively, wilted to release their water and then dried in the sun, giving these "silver needles" a very fresh, natural feel.

Having been very lightly processed, they require hotter water and a longer infusion time than green teas. The result is a lovely liqueur with orange reflections, distilling succulent marzipan flavors and hints of licorice wood that linger on the palate.

Shincha du Japon 2024: enjoy the freshness of Japanese green teas

Produced between the sea and the mountains, Japanese teas are increasingly attracting green tea lovers, seduced by the freshness, bright color and fruity, herbal flavors of these fine needles. Our shincha 2024 vintage comes from Uji (the historic cradle of green tea), Shizuoka (renowned for its mountain teas) and Kagoshima (renowned for its mild climate and volcanic soils).

Like last year, we're lucky enough to be offered a superb Kama-Iri cha. This green tea, much sought-after by Japanese green tea lovers, is a true rarity. Unlike other steamed Japanese green teas, this tea comes from an ancient traditional hot-plate cooking method (hon gama) similar to the Chinese method. The fruity, gourmet flavors of this tea are pleasantly underscored by light roasted notes.

An excellent vintage 2024 thanks to ideal climatic conditions

Like last year, 2024 proved to be a good vintage for Japanese spring green teas. With mild temperatures and timely rainfall, all the lights were on in the four shincha-producing regions. According to our partners, the 2024 vintage is excellent and highly aromatic. Harvest conditions were also ideal. We're delighted to be able to offer you these terroir shinchas, which are characterized by dense, aromatic and, above all, gourmet liqueurs!

Our shincha from the Morimoto family in Miyasaki (Kyushu): a well-balanced green tea!

Shigeru Morimoto and his wife Haruyo have been growing organic tea for several decades in Kawaminami, a village in Miyasaki prefecture on Kyushu island, the southernmost of the archipelago.

The garden's history began in 1935, when Shigeru's grandfather and father planted the first tea bush seeds in Miyasaki and founded the Morimoto Tea Garden. The garden is divided into a dozen small plots with 9 different cultivars used to make only green tea: Yukata Midori, Saki Midori, Yabukita, Minami Syoka, Oku Midori, Oku Yutaka, Kanaya Midori, Benifuuki and Sunrouge.

This diversity of cultivars not only provides greater protection against the vagaries of climate and insect attack, but also opens up a wide range of possibilities for blending and balancing flavors. One example is the Morimoto shincha we started selling last year, made up of 2/3 Yukata Midori ombré and 1/3 Saki Midori. These two early cultivars, hence the name midori (soft spring green), complement each other perfectly. Yukata Midori has the particularity of withstanding heat well, and is therefore naturally widespread on the island of Kyushu, where it was developed. It adds structure to this shincha with its natural astringency and vegetal character, softened by a short period of shade. Saki midori brings its natural sweetness and fruitiness to the whole.

Our favorite teas from Japan 2024:

• TJ080 Shincha Shizuoka
• TJ088 Shincha Miyazaki