YABUKITA SPLEEN – 100 Gms

”Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes” – Walt Whitman

So, what do you do when you meet the exception -the exception to your rule, your conformity, your genre, your constraint, your taste, your reasoning…..? Well, the short answer is that you must now find accommodation and multitude – that is if you indeed hear the exception speak through the walls of rules and reasonings. The thing about exceptions is that they ask for space. Space we think we don’t have. Hard as it may be to believe we’re built with space and exceptions factored in; the very atoms that make us up are 99% space and that space is filled with probability and exceptions, mathematically or metaphorically. Most joys can be found like that – In accommodating exceptions and contradictions

This estival listing, with the words of Whitman, still adheres to its Baudelarian expressions and ‘Spleen’ roots, same as last year’s Yabukita Muscatel –  “Be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish. So as not to be the martyred slaves of time”- Charles Baudelaire

The Spleen begins with an unmistakable chocolate cake aroma of the dry leaves that goes well into the brew’s aroma. The body is slightly thicker with a little less ‘baritone’ of spice and a more rounded fruity Muscatel. (We swear, there is something contradicting the chocolate in its taste!! Something that stops just before crossing over to chocolate!) The brew, still sweet, itself is red-amber color, if somewhat lighter than last year. The mouthfeel and aftertaste are still great; still edgy and sweet but more refined, as if to reflect the kindness of summer. It, however, still feels like it will survive any summer onslaught and you will still find familiarity in its baritone expressions.

To put it very bluntly, not much of anything, in terms of flavors and aromas, survives Indian summers but when one indeed hears something speak through the maddening heat, deep-fried humidity and the chaotic noise, one really knows it’s the start of a very-very Baudelarian affair. At least, that’s how the affair began with last year’s Yabukita Muscatel, progressed this year to the Desiderata and now at the Yabukita Spleen.

We’ve always known Darjeeling to be very temperamental. (We’re sure there’s a Freudian joke somewhere, in what we have going with the teas!!) We’ve split hairs and we’ve pulled hairs over how quickly flavors and aromas succumb to seasons and temperatures but to witness (let alone explain!) it in the Spleen, felt like we needed to revisit our Rosetta stone!  As much as we’d like to tell you why, this isn’t exactly the same as last year’s Yabukita, we ourselves do not know! All we know for sure is that nothing changed, not the garden (not even the very bushes!), neither the processing nor the timing, except the 2024 summer was different from 2023.

However, there’s no denying the exceptional and unexpected joy in aroma, flavors and the distinct delivery of the Spleen and suspect that there may be more ‘multitudes’ to come!