tea that flowers

I've made a point of including topical events in this blog. I continue to believe that anyone can write a blog entirely about tea, but my challenge has been to write about other things going on in the world and their thin or even questionably-existent connection to tea.

So, the Indy 500 is this weekend. I suspect some of the people sitting in their lawn chairs near the Indianapolis Motor Speedway are drinking tea. Not very many, but I could wax poetic about what the perfect tea for such a situation might be.

We also have the Champions League Final this weekend, and like last year, I could watch the match and ponder which tea I might serve each player as they play well or poorly. In addition to that exercise, I described a little about what the Champions League is in Tea Voodoo.

But instead, I'm going to do a very typical teablog post. When we were trading tea a while back, Neil from Neil's Yard gave me a few samples of flowering tea from Canton Tea Co, and I'm only now getting round to trying it. The way the company describes it is quite informative, so check it out here.


It's what they call Golden Glow Flowering Tea, and I felt a bit like the whole ordeal was like a science experiment. You start out with a little wound-up ball of what they apparently want you to believe is tea.




The crucial piece of information is to use hot but not boiling water. Sure enough after just a few moments in the water, the little bulb opened up to show a concoction of flowers and white tea leaves (See the photo at the top of the blogpost). If you see Silver Needle Tea for the first time, you know immediately where it got its name.

I should've stated at the outset that I'm not big on white tea. For a long time, I'd drink it before I went to bed. Later I found out that some white tea has plenty of caffeine. Just because the taste is subtle definitely does not mean that the tea is weak or caffeine free.

So what did I think of this flowering tea? It was tasty, but not overly so. The aesthetic of the flowers were really nice, and I can see why the company advertises that this is a nice idea for a gift. While I was drinking the first cup, I should've poured the second cup out of the glass. Because I waited, that second cup was overly strong. It was a perfect example of why one shouldn't over-brew a tea.

Although this isn't a tea I'd drink everyday, I can certainly see myself serving this to guests who find my everyday black tea to be too bitter. Light and delicate flavours that would be a nice tea after a meal. Either served with dessert or in place of it entirely.

tea entrepreneur

Some weeks ago, Neil from Neil's Yard told me a story that I'm sure I've heard before but not in such detail. The way he explained it was that there was a business professor in Berlin who wanted to show his students an example of entrepreneurship. He also happened to really enjoy drinking tea. Darjeeling tea to be exact.

If you've read even a little of my blog, you know that this story quickly got my attention. The professor's name was Günter Faltin and his company is called Teekampagne. He was fascinated with how inexpensive products were in their country of origin, so he resolved to sell Darjeeling tea in bulk with nearly no markup. He was offering fair-trade long before it was the done thing. Here's how he describes how his rationale for not charging more for fair-trade:

'The education reformer Ivan Illich who I got to know in the early 1980s, used to argue vehemently against charging extra for fair trade. In this practice, he argued, the customer pays not only for the product but also contributes to an invisible “charity box,” a modern version of buying “indulgences” (paying money to save your soul) – a trade that Martin Luther was already inveighing against. Although charity has some positive effects, it does NOT challenge the business models that put pressure on commodity prices in exporting countries and inflate prices for consumers at the other end. Since it does not represent a systemic change of business practices, it is also not sustainable: it may stop when the charitable giver’s attention is drawn to
another urgent need. We practice fair trade with a different method: we do not charge the consumer so that we can feel good about ourselves; instead, we challenge costly conventions, and the savings benefit everyone. '

That's just one interesting point he makes in a lengthy article called “Citizen Entrepreneurship” for a Meaningful Life. There's enough here to make several meaty blogposts, which I intend to write, but I wanted to quickly introduce him to those of you who might not have heard of him or his company yet. Teekampagne is Germany's largest mail order tea company, as well as the biggest Darjeeling importer in the world.

If you're in the US, you might know his company as Boston Tea Campaign. In Japan, it's called Teeidee. Can't wait to dig in deeper to this guy's ideas.

this tea lark

Lately, I've been writing a lot about attracting people to loose-leaf tea, and I've been pondering how difficult it is to convince someone not only to eschew teabags, but to order tea online, as well. I'm sure those of us obsessed with tea will continue to see the benefits of ordering tea from as wide a variety of places as possible. And the possibilities with the internet are vast.

But how about someone who's just not that far along on the tea journey? Why not just send him to the shops for whatever loose-leaf tea he encounters? Yes, why not?

One solution to this I've found is to assess what teas are available in the shops. Have recently been introduced to Hampstead Tea, and it's exactly because of them that I bring up the subject of what tea you can easily obtain.

Well, I went into an Alnatura shop here in Munich, and found these teas alongside the Alnatura brand. I like the idea that if someone asks where to get decent tea, that this is an option.

And calling this tea decent is an understatement. Seems all of their Darjeeling is grown in the Makaibari Tea Garden, which is a well-known and respected source.

I'm so excited about the coming year's first flush teas, that I was thrilled to try theirs (from last year). Here's how it's described on their site: Hampstead Tea first flush. And here's what the leaves look like:



The tips are a much brighter yellow than the photo shows. The smell of the leaves was so delicious as I broke open the bag. This isn't a proper teanote, but there was a wonderful butter taste to this tea. I've been alternating between this and the tea that they simply call Darjeeling all week. Here's how it's described: Hampstead Tea Darjeeling.

So Neil from Neil's Yard came over last night and we went through some tea he had, as well as one of mine. I'm going to write about what he had to offer another time, but it was this Hampstead Tea Darjeeling that he liked so much. The muscatel and fruit tones are definitely there, but Neil said he could even detect a hint of vanilla.

I love it that this guy who was measuring his steeping times with how long it took to smoke a cigarette a few weeks ago is already noticing these subtle flavours. This tea lark just gets better and better, doesn't it?

I'll show you mine if you show me yours

What an enjoyable afternoon Neil of Neil's Yard and I had trying a variety of tea. Am going to briefly go over the highlights, and possibly come back and go into more detail if there's more to cover.

I wanted to see what he thought of the Darjeeling I have from Darjeeling Tea Express, so I started with a Goomtea Pre Autumnal Black. You can read about it here: Darjeeling Pre Autumnal. This is a tea I like, but Neil was immediately smitten. He loved it. Couldn't help but taste the muscatel, he said. He could clearly see why I was so excited to share this tea with him.



Then I tried his Everyday Kenya from leaf. (leaf. tea), and I was similarly impressed. I've not had much Kenyan tea, but this was delicious. It smelled smoky like a good Yunnan, but was so smooth and spicy. Here's how the leaves looked before adding boiling water (Very dark brown with yellow tips):




Although many Darjeeling lovers wax rhapsodic about first flush tea, I've always liked the stronger second flushes. So I was excited to brew a bit of Gopaldhara 2nd flush (again from Darjeeling Tea Express Gopaldhara 2nd flush). Although he liked it, it didn't make nearly the same impression that the Pre Autumnal did.

This is one of the things I love about tea. Not just the variety of flavours, but the incredibly subjective response that can result from two different tea drinkers.

After we got the black tea sorted, we spent the remainder of our time on multiple infusions of something called Organic Blue Tea (again from leaf.). According to their website, Oolong is sometimes called Blue tea because it's somewhere between black and green. Had never heard that description, but why not? Here's how they describe it: Organic Oolong 'Blue' tea, and it's stated, 'this oolong tea is a Qi Lan from the province of Guang Dong in China.'

From both appearance and taste, this is clearly a highly-oxidised Oolong. Like many first infusions, the smell was more pronounced than the taste. Nevertheless, you could tell what an enjoyable tea drinking session was in store based simply upon this smell.




Sure enough as we drank multiple infusions, the taste of the tea developed. How I ever brewed one single infusion of a decent Oolong still makes me shudder. It was at this point that we sat down and looked at twitter. I think Neil was a bit impressed, as well as intrigued, that the tea companies he'd been in contact with were so easily accessible on Web 2.0. So often, twitter makes no sense until one can see it in action.

There you have it. A wonderful tea tasting experience, and the more he talks about it, I can't wait to see how Neil's Yard turns out. Stay tuned.