The Tea Thread

[anne_of_28_days]

Hi PD, I think you'll find this site interesting.

thanks, pete! i thought i understood tea, but i now realize how little i know.

i think a lot of earl grey tea -- or any other tea, can taste different depending on a variety of things. kind of like tobacco and cigarettes. of course earl grey is flavored, but it can still vary in taste depending on the maker and the process used.

 

[Anonymous]

Absolutely. Some Assan can taste like rot gut, whereas I find the Twinnings one nice and smooth.

I'm partial to Chai as well. Can't give up the milk and sugar though!

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Oh dear, it looks like Oll's Tea Board went AWOL some time ago. We were just not supportive enough when it might have counted.

Now we are going to pay for it!

I've noticed that you can no longer get loose leaf Lapsang Souchong from any mainstream supermarket. Oh they will sell you that dust-bag stuff but you can see it isn't right and you pay through the nose for it.

It may be too late but I'm going to have to find and support a good local dealer.

 

[stu neville]

I've noticed that you can no longer get loose leaf Lapsang Souchong from any mainstream supermarket. Oh they will sell you that dust-bag stuff but you can see it isn't right and you pay through the nose for it.

It may be too late but I'm going to have to find and support a good local dealer.

Whittards are present in most large cities - they also do mail order.

Loose leaf Lapsang? They got it .

 

[Yithian]

I'm living in reduced tea-drinking circumstances at the moment. Aside from being quite pleased by having to use a metal, whistling, on-the-hob kettle, I'm surviving on tea-bag shipments from the UK. Green and other teas here are great, but the black wholly fails to cut the mustard.

What do you think are the best tea bags available? I like stronger teas and drink with only a medium to small amount of milk and no sugar. Could I be doing better? Cost is no obstacle as I won't be paying for them!

 

[stu neville]

Yorkshire Strong Tea bags make a decent cup (I like stand-the-spoon-up-in-it tea), or, if the water's soft enough, two bags of PG Tips in a large mug. If it's hard water PG gets filmy and overly bitter.

Again, Yorkshire Hard Water tea is excellent for.. erm.. hard water areas.

 

[Yithian]

At home the water's perect, hard and clear.

Here it's ok-ish, but I use bottled mineral water--extends the lifespan of the kettles.

 

[Yithian]

SEE HERE

 

[Graylien]

A Nice Cup of Tea and a Sit Down

Dominated by biscuit content rather than tea, but still well worth a look.

 

[Yithian]

Don't miss the wallpaper-sized picture of some pie and custard they've got there!

 

[oll_lewis]

Yith, ye should seek out Harrods. they will sell any tea from their london shop by mail order over the telephone to anywhere in the world provided you pay the postage on it too.

thats especilly good as they are a majour tea importer anyway and you can get some seriously rare teas there and even exclusives.

Another company with a good selection is the teahouse, here's a ink to their shop:
http://theteahouse.co.uk/buy_tea.html

the selection of teas you can get from the teahouse does tend to urinate on wittards from a great height. Wittards often shreds the tea into a fine powder as if it were coffie too which in my opinion adversely affects the flavour in some teas. tea shreadding is also a method used to 'bulk up' tead with less flavoursome and older leaves, bits of stalk and in some cases teas cheeper teas, this is done with teabags fairly often especilly with supermarket ranges.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Thanks to Stu and Oll for suggested suppliers. Glad to see that Oll is still into the steaming pot - and what quality too, look! Commiserations to Yith. out somewhere nearer the origins of tea, who can't get a good cup of the stuff! Or stup of the cuff as I kept saying as I read this back . . .

Well I can't limit myself to one drink!

 

[rynner2]

You'll have to dig deep if you want to sample this one...

Tea in China costs six times as much as gold
By David Eimer in Beijing, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 12:34am BST 24/06/2007

China's stock market may be booming and its house prices soaring, but the hottest investment in the country today comes in the shape of a small, compressed cake that smells vaguely earthy and is wrapped in paper.

Pu'er tea, a strong, aromatic brew from the remote south-western province of Yunnan, has long been prized in China for its medicinal qualities. Now, instead of drinking it, millions of Chinese are hoarding it after the price jumped 50 per cent last year.

Like fine wine, Pu'er tea is considered to improve as it ages. In 2005, 500g of 64-year-old Pu'er tea sold at auction for one million yuan (£66,300) - making it six times more expensive than gold.

The price has been rising since 2003, when investors in southern China and Hong Kong realised that, with a limited amount of tea grown each year, they could drive up its price by storing the tea rather than selling it.

Three weeks ago, an earthquake measuring 6.4 on the Richter scale hit the Pu'er tea-growing region, prompting fears of a shortage and causing a sharp increase in the price of the most recently produced tea - which, because of the lengthy fermentation process, might have been harvested up to two years ago.

At the Maliandao Tea Market in south-west Beijing, Pu'er is sold in 350g cakes which the vendors handle as gingerly as if they were rare antiques.

"The price of new tea has gone up 30 to 50 per cent since the earthquake," said Liu Na of the Che Yun Shan Tea Company.

A cake of two-year-old Ye Sheng Gucha tea costs 260 yuan (about £18), while the 13-year-old tea sells for 1,800 yuan. "It'll double in price in two years," said Mrs Liu.

Such returns are irresistible to a people in the grip of a speculating frenzy. Traditionally, the Chinese are savers, not spenders. But in April and May savings declined for the first time in four years, according to the People's Bank of China, as people sought to cash in on the stock and property markets.

Pu'er tea is seen by some as an even more attractive option.

"You don't have to pay tax when you sell your Pu'er tea," said Mrs Liu.

The red-coloured tea has a distinctive taste, much stronger than green tea. In the Huangshan Feng Tea Shop, the owner, Zhang Sheng Qin, held up a glass and swirled it around. "Good Pu'er tea should be transparent," she said.

"It's good for people who want to lose weight," she added. "Are there a lot of fat people in England? Maybe we can do some business."

http://tinyurl.com/3xhezm

 

[WhistlingJack]

I like green tea, Darjeeling, Ceylon, Orange Pekoe, Assam, Russian Caravan, Earl Grey and Twinings' Lady Grey, among others

I'm bemused by people liking Lapsang Souchong - it's always smelt like a bonfire and tasted like a packet of tobacco to me :? Does anyone have any tips on preparing it and Chai (another tea I've never had success with)?

 

[Anome]

The key to chai, as I understand it, is to actually boil the leaves in milk. That's how it's done in India.

The key to Lapsang Souchong is to throw it away and make something else.

Smokey bacon? More like tarry coal.

 

[WhistlingJack]

Cheers, Anome

So I'd be better off making Chai with hot milk instead of water?

 

[JamesWhitehead]

Lapsang-haters seem to be in the majority since mainstream supermarkets have given up stocking it as leaf-tea. The tea-bags are horrid as this large leaf tea gets ground up to brew faster and then produces an acrid liquor.

Chinese supermarkets are probably the best place to find the proper stuff, though my current batch is from Whittards and was a bit dear.

Key to a good brew? A small earthenware pot - mine is a snazzy little Chinese number with a wire handle: very cheap and practical. Warm the pot, use freshly boiled water, use only two small teaspoons of the leaf to make three or four cups of the liquor. Stir well and leave it for four minutes to settle. Use strainer and favourite bone china cup & saucer to appreciate the colour. Result should be aromatic and autumnal, redolent of a bonfire detected at twilight rather than a kipper fillet nailed under a desk for six weeks.

Traditionally, I gather the tea was smoked over fires made of old fishing tackle but any hint of herring is unwelcome in these here parts.

A few weeks back I experimented with making a brew using a filter-paper, like coffee. I had been listening to the radio and learning how the Chinese throw away the first infusion. The results were horrendous. Maybe I used too much tea but the horrible tannic fluid made me shudder. Too early in the day for tea, perhaps. :cross eye

 

[waitew]

You're all nuts!Tea is for throwing into icy harbors but if you must drink it at least do it right & include ice.

 

[rynner2]

I've posted about this before, but as those posts have now disappeared I'll give it another plug!

Tregothnan Estate sells Cornish-grown tea to Japan

A tea plantation in Cornwall - believed to be the only one in the UK - is to export its produce and Cornish cream teas to Japan.

The Tregothnan Estate, near Truro, already ships tea to China and India.

The estate currently makes about a tonne of leaves a year at its 25-acre plantation.

The plants take six years to mature, but the tea is ready for drinking 36 hours after the leaves are hand-picked from the bushes.

After picking, the leaves and buds are withered on racks to allow them to soften. They are then rolled, oxidised and dried.

Tregothnan's garden manager Jonathan Jones said the temperature, rainfall, humidity and soil PH at the Cornish estate was very similar to Darjeeling, which was why the estate's tea was so successful.

The estate said it blended traditional imported teas with its own leaves to produce a "quintessential" English tea.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cornwall/8589041.stm

 

[rynner2]

Job losses are always sad news, but this seems particularly harsh:

Twinings to leave Britain for Poland
Twinings, the tea company famed for opening one of the first tea rooms in London in 1706 and blending Earl Grey, is to leave British shores - and English staff will have to train their foreign replacements.
Published: 7:00AM BST 06 Sep 2010

The company has announced its North Shields factory in North Tyneside will be closing with the loss of 263 jobs transferring production to Poland and China.

Now staff have been told they will have to train the foreign workers who will take their place.

Company bosses said all production would be transferred to Poland or China by September 2011 as part of an efficiency drive.

The company plans to invest in new high-speed packaging equipment in Andover, Hants, and build a new factory in Poland to cater for the growing taste for tea in continental Europe.

Staff at the North Shields plant said they had been told Polish workers would travel to Tyneside to “familiarize themselves with the tea making process.”

Workers have criticised the move as "Rubbing salt in the wound" after being told they were losing their jobs.

After the plant closure was announced last year 22 MPs signed a Commons motion condemning the move. But the campaign was not successful.

Meanwhile almost 4,000 people have joined a Facebook group to save the North Shields plant.

Twinings said at the time that it would offer volunteers the chance to extend their contract with the company by up to six months by going over to Poland to help with training.

But now it has also decided to bring staff to Tyneside to be trained, starting next week.

One worker, who did not want to be named, said: "It's rubbing salt in the wound because they are taking our jobs yet we have to train them.

"There's a lot of animosity here towards them, people are very angry."

etc...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... oland.html

 

[WhistlingJack]

While sympathising with the workers who've lost their jobs, all that's happening is that where Twinings used to import the tea and then process it, now they're processing it before they're importing it - if this saves the company money, they'd be fools not to do it.

 

[Quake42]

While sympathising with the workers who've lost their jobs, all that's happening is that where Twinings used to import the tea and then process it, now they're processing it before they're importing it - if this saves the company money, they'd be fools not to do it.

I hadn't realised Poland was a major tea-producing nation.

:?

 

[Yithian]

I'm a Twinings customer/drinker and I have to say that this doesn't greatly endear me to a brand which I have like for many years. That said, we're going to have to get used to this: Britain nowadays is not a very (economically) competitive place to employ a skilled or semi-skilled workforce. Our combination of high business taxes, significant national insurance obligations, and workplace insurance and regulation means that at a time of savage austerity it will benefit such companies to leave our shores.

I will add that it's understandable but wrong to blame the Poles themselves for accepting job offers. Wouldn't you?

 

[Quake42]

I will add that it's understandable but wrong to blame the Poles themselves for accepting job offers. Wouldn't you?

I don't think anyone is blaming the Poles as such. I think the British workers rightly feel aggrieved at being expected to train their replacements, and I think it is shockingly insensitive of Twinings management to suggest this.

Our combination of high business taxes, significant national insurance obligations, and workplace insurance and regulation means that at a time of savage austerity it will benefit such companies to leave our shores.

I think it's more down to the fact that companies can obtain cheaper labour abroad, without the need to worry about nasty things like paid holidays or safety equipment. Unless govenments are prepared to do something about this incessant race to the bottom we will end up with 6 million unemployed, rampant crime, social unrest and rocketing support for the BNP and their ilk.

In the meantime I'd like to see some grassroots action - consumer boycotts of companies which outsource production or services to low-wage economies.

 

[ramonmercado]

Yes, I think its a about a race to the bottom re wages and working conditions. British & Irish workers could never compete with Chinese or even Eastern European wage rates. It would mean a complete impoverishment and actually would require a complete smashing of the trade union movement and the creation of a totalirarian state to bring people in these isles to accept such conditions.

 

[WhistlingJack]

While sympathising with the workers who've lost their jobs, all that's happening is that where Twinings used to import the tea and then process it, now they're processing it before they're importing it - if this saves the company money, they'd be fools not to do it.

I hadn't realised Poland was a major tea-producing nation.

:?

...importing it to the UK, of course.

Personally, I blame those evil coffee-pushing capitalist pigdogs at Starbucks for the woes of the great British tea industry...

 

[Yithian]

I will add that it's understandable but wrong to blame the Poles themselves for accepting job offers. Wouldn't you?

I don't think anyone is blaming the Poles as such. I think the British workers rightly feel aggrieved at being expected to train their replacements, and I think it is shockingly insensitive of Twinings management to suggest this.

Our combination of high business taxes, significant national insurance obligations, and workplace insurance and regulation means that at a time of savage austerity it will benefit such companies to leave our shores.

I think it's more down to the fact that companies can obtain cheaper labour abroad, without the need to worry about nasty things like paid holidays or safety equipment. Unless govenments are prepared to do something about this incessant race to the bottom we will end up with 6 million unemployed, rampant crime, social unrest and rocketing support for the BNP and their ilk.

In the meantime I'd like to see some grassroots action - consumer boycotts of companies which outsource production or services to low-wage economies.

I agree with nearly everything you say here. I do actually selectively refuse to buy from a few companies who have been found to have done dodgy things in the past (I don't glorify it with the label boycott). I seldom publicise the fact (and don't plan to elucidate here), but in the few cases that I have, the listeners have seemed to think me mildly eccentric. I think it's incredibly difficult to persuade the consumer to make political decisions when they shop. There have been a few successes with free-trade coffee, free-range eggs, and organic produce but the price-tag or quality seem to regularly trump all other considerations.

 

[Quake42]

I think it's incredibly difficult to persuade the consumer to make political decisions when they shop. There have been a few successes with free-trade coffee, free-range eggs, and organic produce but the price-tag or quality seem to regularly trump all other considerations.

I think they key thing is that it needs to be focused on one or two brands or products and it needs to be accompanied by sympathetic media coverage. People don't want to spend the whole supermarket trip worrying about whether every purchase is ethical - but they will generally be prepared to make one or two statements in their shopping basket. As you say there have been notable successes. I would add the anti-apartheid boycotts (South African fruit and wine/Barclays), Hugh and Jamie's support for free-range chickens and campaigns against Nestle in the 90s to your list.

 

[Stormkhan]

*shakes head sadly*
Egad! A dark day indeed. Economic pressures winning out over tradition in business. Whatever happened to a firm running at a loss just to keep a national tradition going, only to lose out to cheaper competitors?

 

[Mythopoeika]

Are Twinings running at a loss?
I think when companies decide to do this kind of thing, they are usually being driven by the need to give shareholders their pound of flesh.
They are probably making plenty of profit, but to meet crazy promises they made in a budget somewhere, they are doing everything they can to maximise profits.
In fact, I'm surprised they don't move their entire operation to India or China, where all the tea comes from. That may be the next move if the Poles aren't cheap enough.

It's completely awful.