KVAMLI RKALI DILA ✦ IMERETI · Georgian Vine-Smoked Red Tea

კვამლი რქალი დილა — KVAMLI RKALI DILA

Georgian Vine-Smoked Red Tea · IMERETI

Pronunciation: [KVAM-li r-KA-li DI-la]

The Only Vine-Smoked Tea in the World

Every smoked tea on the global market is smoked over wood — pine in Lapsang Souchong, oak in some Russian traditions, hickory in Western experiments. KVAMLI RKALI DILA is smoked over grapevine. The grapevine is Georgia. The country invented winemaking 8,000 years ago, and the same vine that gives wine gives this tea its character. No commercial tea producer outside Georgia uses grapevine smoke. This is not a variation on Lapsang Souchong. This is its own category.

Biochemistry

KVAMLI RKALI DILA is a fully oxidised red (black) tea base, finished with a brief smoke over grapevine wood. The base develops the standard theaflavins and thearubigins of red tea. The grapevine smoke contributes guaiacol and syringol — the same aromatic phenols found in barrel-aged wine. The tea retains caffeine in the morning-tea range. The Imereti variety carries fruit and honey notes through the smoke; the result is layered, not harsh.

• Caffeine: 40–70 mg per cup
• Theaflavins, thearubigins: high (full oxidation)
• Guaiacol, syringol: from grapevine smoke
• Variety: Imereti hybrid — fruit and honey character
• Smoke duration: 7 minutes (brief by design — wood character without overwhelming the leaf)

Character

Smoke that remembers wine. The first infusion opens with the smoke, then settles. By the third infusion, the Imereti fruit-and-honey character returns through the smoke, layered, not masked. Long finish. Holds milk if taken that way, but the smoke deserves a clear cup.

Name Legend

კვამლი (Kvamli) means "smoke." რქალი (Rkali) is the GTNS sub-method specifying grapevine — the Georgian word for grapevine wood. დილა (Dila) is the type: red (black) tea. The full name reads as a process documentation: vine-smoked red tea. KVAMLI is the open method; RKALI specifies which wood. Future sub-methods may include MUKHA (oak) and TKHILI (hazel) — but RKALI is the signature, the one that ties tea to Georgia's eight-thousand-year wine culture.

Origin

• Estate: Teanium plantation, Imereti, Georgia
• Variety: Imereti hybrid (developed in 20th-century Georgia)
• Smoke source: grapevine wood from Imereti vineyards
• Certification: Organic
• Production scale: limited — grapevine smoke is a slow process

How KVAMLI RKALI DILA is Made

1. Plucked: bud + 2 leaves
2. Withered: 18 hours
3. Rolled: 1 hour — shapes the leaf and starts the oxidation
4. Fermented (oxidised): 5 hours — full oxidation, develops the red tea base
5. Dried: 4 hours at 70°C — locks in the oxidation profile
6. Baked: 15 minutes at 110°C — final stabilisation
7. Smoked: 7 minutes on grapevine wood — the KVAMLI RKALI step that defines the leaf

The first six steps are the same DILA process used for the classic Imereti red tea. The seventh step is what separates KVAMLI RKALI DILA from any other red tea on the market: seven minutes of grapevine smoke. Brief by design — long enough for the vine character to enter the leaf, short enough that the Imereti fruit and honey notes underneath are not overwhelmed. This is a tea that carries smoke, not a tea built from smoke.

Brewing

• Water: 95–100°C
• Leaf: 5 g per 200 ml
• First infusion: 2 minutes
• Each next: +30 seconds
• Total infusions: 3–4

The first cup is the smoke. The third is the leaf. Both belong.

About GTNS

KVAMLI RKALI DILA is named according to the Georgian Tea Nomenclature Standard — the first open standard for naming Georgian tea, authored by Teanium. The name encodes the processing method (KVAMLI · smoking), the sub-method (RKALI · grapevine), and the tea type (DILA · red tea). The standard is open: any Georgian tea producer who smokes red tea over grapevine may use the same name. Read the full standard at teanium.com/pages/gtns.