YABUKITA SPLEEN – 100 Gms

In the preface to Paris Spleen Baudelaire described his work as an Ouroboros – a serpent eating its own tail; a work in prose where everything is both head and tail. Full of multitudes and contradictions Spleen in Baudelaire’s work refers to melancholy with no apparent reason, while in the Summer Yabukita, Spleen refers to a decadent Baudelarian appeal – to assuage melancholy – “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”.

Loud, Edgy, racy, intense and passionate, the Yabukita Spleen is an aromatic assault that floods your senses with vivid imagery of Crusty, burnt cake layered with Spice and Cocoa – It is absolutely overwhelming! If, in last year’s leaves you did find something contradicting the chocolate – something that didn’t quite completely cross over, then this year the Spleen intensifies those contradictions. Syrupy sweetness with an edge and spice for friction best describe the taste and aftertaste. The dry leaves are most reminiscent of fresh Cake batter. Fully oxidized the Yabukita leaves brew into a slightly deeper amber color compared to last year’s yield. This is one estival listing, that will adhere to its Baudelairian expressions through any onslaught of weather.

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 and the ‘deep-fried’ humidity, one really knows it’s the start of a very-very Baudelarian affair. At least, that’s how the affair began with the 2023 Yabukita Muscatel, progressed into 2024 with the Flaneur and Autumn Augury and finally into this year with Green Chartreuse and Ouroboros.

We’ve always known Darjeeling to be very temperamental. We’ve split and 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 – that was the beginning of accommodating exceptions, which then became the rule – How different it is from the 2023 Yabukita muscatel when they both come from the very same bushes is still unanswered! Thankfully enough, the Yabukita expressions have been consistent enough to be parallelly relished since then. The first of the Summer Yabukitas, ‘Spleen’ arrives bearing the same familiarity and surpasses expectation.

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