Blue Ridge Frost Tea
The Nilgiris are close enough to the equator to pick tea year-round — this six-week window is the one exception.
Most of South India’s Nilgiri hills sit close enough to the equator that tea grows and can be plucked in every month of the year — there is no real dormant season to define a “flush” the way Darjeeling’s winter does. The one exception is a short cold snap in December and January, when night temperatures near the higher gardens drop close to frost. Growth all but stops, and the leaf that does come through is denser and more aromatic than anything picked the rest of the year.
Blue Ridge holds this lot separately rather than blending it into the standard harvest, which is the only reason “frost tea” exists as a category buyers can actually ask for by name.
Standard orthodox black manufacture, but the leaf itself is denser from the cold — giving a brighter, more concentrated liquor for the same processing.