Features

Tea time

20 Mar 2007 by business traveller

For a nation of tea drinkers, we Brits are astonishingly unfussy. We get through nearly 200 million cups of tea a day, yet what fills those cups is often no more than shavings from the factory floor, gathered into a bag and dunked in hot water for a few seconds. Most of us don't even know what proper Indian tea tastes like, let alone a phoenix oolong or a silver needle.

The trouble dates back to the 1960s and the advent of instant coffee. The tea industry saw its profits threatened as office workers abandoned their tea pots for the convenience of an instant brew, and responded with the invention of the tea bag.

Sadly, since a decent-sized tea leaf won't fit into a small sachet, the result was an immediate deterioration in the national cuppa. Worse still, whole generations which have grown up in thrall to the tea bag are frankly nervous at the thought of handling real tea.

But just as we discovered a world of coffee beyond Nescafé in the Nineties, so there are signs that the Noughties will be the decade when tea finally comes into its own. Tara Calcraft, founder of Tea Palace in Notting Hill, says: "The people who spawned and supported the real coffee boom in the 1990s are the ones who are now buying organic food, going to the gym and trying to lead a healthy lifestyle. They are now looking for an alternative to coffee, but they're not going to put up with drinking any old rubbish."

Green and white teas have attracted particular attention for their widely touted health-giving properties, but can also seem the most inaccessible to westerners. Intimidated by the thought of elaborate Asian tea ceremonies, most of us have simply stayed in our comfort zone and bought our green tea in bags.

As a result, the fact that drinking it has seemed more of a penance than a pleasure should come as no surprise, says Calcraft. "Green tea in supermarkets gives it a bad name. The box will just say 'green tea', which is as ridiculous as buying something labelled 'white wine'," she explains.

Fortunately, help is at hand for bewildered tea drinkers. Across London, tiny tea shops are springing up, run by tea experts who are passionate about reforming Britain's tea-drinking habits.

Among the most dedicated of this select band is Tim d'Offay of Postcard Teas, who has travelled the world in search of teas for the past 10 years, and who ran East Teas in Borough Market for eight years before opening up in Mayfair in December 2005. In his tiny shop off New Bond Street, he is happy to brew up any of his stock for customers to try for a nominal fee and to put his expertise at their disposal.

He is particularly keen to dispel the mystical miasma that hangs around green and white teas, and which can be off-putting to the tea novice. "There is a lot of mythology about tea – I love that, and when I'm in China I'll try a certain tea with a certain spring water," he says. "But when you see the production of tea, it's an agricultural process. There's a lot about 'this was drunk by a white-haired Buddhist monk'. There's a lot of debunking to be gently."

D'Offay insists that the most important thing is for each individual to be comfortable with tea and to find the way of drinking it which suits them best. "What I've tried to do here is to create an environment where everyone is welcome," he adds. "We have milk and sugar on the table, because you can't tell a billion Indians that the way they drink tea is wrong.

"Tea drinking is very personal – you can guide people, but they have to find out what they want. And if they want to make their Japanese green tea with very hot water, I'll tell them that's not the way it's traditionally done, but it's their prerogative."

The same ethos is in evidence at Tea Palace, which is located among the trendy boutiques of Westbourne Grove. Although its elegant interior doubles as a fine-dining restaurant, Calcraft insists that its raison d'etre is making quality tea accessible to the public. "Our philosophy is, whatever you call a cup of tea, we want to give you the best," she says.

This includes not only top-quality black, white and green teas, but also a vast selection of the hugely popular "herbal infusions" which are anathema to tea purists. And although in the restaurant itself the teas are perfectly brewed and served – the leaves are always removed from the pot to prevent stewing, and a sample of the tea is brought to the table for inspection – Calcraft is well aware that few people have either the time or the inclination to do the same themselves.

"We provide as many things as possible to make it easy for people to make tea," she says. "I love the Japanese and Chinese rituals – over there it's part of their philosophy, their etiquette, their lifestyle – but you have to make tea relevant to modern life. We say you can make tea any way you like as long as you use the best quality tea and stick to a few golden rules."

These are what Calcraft calls "the three Ts": number of teaspoons, temperature and brewing time. Rather than expecting her customers to be messing about with thermometers, however, she has come up with more accessible preparation methods. For example, the instructions on a packet of tea won't tell you to heat the water to precisely 85 degrees, but to switch off the kettles as soon as the water starts to bubble.

Of course, the biggest problem for most city slickers who want to upgrade their tea drinking is not heating the water, but what to put it in. A cup of perfectly brewed Japanese green tea may be a delight to the senses, but few of us have schedules or work environments which allow for the manipulation of the five or six pieces of equipment needed to produce it.

Once again, help is at hand. Both Postcard Teas and Tea Palace stock an array of ingenious gadgets which can take the hassle out of brewing loose-leaf tea. Many of them are inspired by coffee-making equipment, such as tea pots with cafetière-type infusers or large paper filters which act as tea bags. Others take more from traditional tea ceremonies: porcelain infusers for office use, pots with built-in filters, and handy travel sets with cup and mug.

If nothing but the best will do, however, head for TeaSmith in Spitalfields, where husband-and-wife team John Kennedy and Tomoko Kawase are introducing Asian tea rituals to a British audience. As with most of the new generation of tea experts, Kennedy's interest in tea began as a hobby and developed into an obsession. "I came into tea 10 years ago when I lived in San Francisco," he says. "I used to go down to Chinatown to drink tea and became fascinated by the huge variety, from very floral to very fruity, from sharp to sweet."

Kennedy's enthusiasm for tea has taken him all over the world, including training with a tea master in Hong Kong. He teaches the benefits of using Yixing clay pots, which allow the tea to "breathe", unlike their non-porous porcelain counterparts. He argues that, just as you would recoil in horror at the thought of drinking your finest Burgundy out of a paper cup or decanting it into a plastic bottle, fine tea deserves respect.

Customers attending one of TeaSmith's masterclasses, which can be arranged for groups or as one-on-one sessions, learn to make tea according to a unique methodology which combines elements of both Japanese and Chinese tea ceremonies but is adapted for western sensibilities and modern living. "We recognise that tea rituals are culturally very specific," says Kennedy. "We're trying to modernise with a nod to tradition. I like to think of it as bringing speciality back to something that's become a commodity. "

Those who don't have time for a class can pick up tips on tea preparation while trying out some of TeaSmith's extensive stock. Indeed, one of the delights of the new generation of tea houses is the provision of tea bars, where novices can not only try before they buy, but also begin to understand the forgotten pleasure of comfortable conversation over a really good cuppa. Kennedy adds: "We hope that TeaSmith will provide a calming space where people can drink tea and forget the din of the world for a few minutes."

Tara Calcraft of Tea Palace agrees: "The thing in common in the big tea-drinking countries is that it's something to enjoy – whether it's a Japanese tea ceremony or the British 'I'll put the kettle on and you can tell me all about it'. It's about sitting down and chatting and interacting, unlike coffee, which is drunk on the go and often standing up.

"People come in to our restaurant for a pot of tea and switch their BlackBerry and their mobile off and just sit down and relax for 10 minutes. Enjoying tea is more collaborative than coffee – it's all about the idea of sharing."

Sadly for tea aficionados, the chances of seeing top-quality tea become as widely available as proper coffee are currently slim. Although cafés and sandwich shops are catching on to the new trend and offering green and redbush teas along with their
lattes and cappucinos, the technicalities of brewing loose-leaf tea mean that it doesn't really lend itself to mass production.
Then again, perhaps it's time we stopped knocking back caffeine on the run and sat down for a good chat over a nice cup of tea.

KNOW YOUR TEAS

All types of tea come from the same plant, camellia sinensis. The easiest way to understand the difference between them is to think of the way in which an apple will turn brown when it is cut. The same process of oxidation – or fermentation, as it is sometimes called – starts when a tea leaf is picked, and arresting or accelerating it produces the spectrum of tea colours.

White Long regarded as a delicacy in Asia, white tea's health-giving properties are now being widely touted in the west. It is made from the youngest leaves and buds of the tea bush, which are dried in the sun immediately after picking, and can only be harvested on a few days of the year. White tea is low in chlorophyll and therefore higher in catechins – natural antioxidants – than any other type of tea.

Green Sometimes known as "unfermented" tea, green tea is made from leaves which are steamed or fried as soon as possible after picking to halt the oxidation process. Japanese green teas are nearly always blended, while the Chinese prefer single-estate varieties.

Oolong Mainly produced in Taiwan, where they are known as "blue" teas, oolongs are a category between green and black tea. The leaves are allowed to wither and the oxidation process is then accelerated by rubbing or rolling them to break the cell walls. When the desired level of oxidation is achieved – from 30-80 per cent – the leaves are heat-treated to stop the process.

Black The traditional British cuppa is made from tea leaves which have been fully oxidised to produce a dark colour and strong taste.

TEAS TO TRY

TEA PALACE
Sweet osmanthus A fragrant Chinese green blended with orange osmanthus blossoms. Warming and floral without being flowery. 125g tin, £10.50
White monkey A rare green from the Taimu mountains in China, made from young leaves and unopened buds for a very light, delicate flavour. The original grower claimed the tea was picked by his monkey, but that may just have been good marketing. 100g tin, £11.00.

TEASMITH
Wuyi supreme An aromatic oolong grown from a cutting from the famous Big Red Robe tea tree. Warm and heartening, with a complex aftertaste. 50g tin, £19
Silver needle Almost all bud, this is the queen of white teas. A malty aroma and sweet flavour of lychees on the throat, very smooth and refreshing. 50g tin, £9.50

POSTCARD TEAS
White coffee blossom A high-quality white tea from the Handunugoda Estate in Sri Lanka, delicately scented with coffee flowers. Light, sweet and floral. Limited edition 20g tin, £12.95
Kukihojicha A lightly roasted Japanese green made from leaves and stalks, with an aroma of new-mown hay. Very low in caffeine, so can be drunk all day. 50g pack, £5.00