Fill your baskets with tea

This charming Nepalese tea plucker is setting off with her basket to harvest the young shoots of the tea bushes.
She reminds me of you all who, at this festive time of year, are out looking for things that will make your loved-ones happy.

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Wild orchids growing around tea plantations

Spending your life in the tea fields does not prevent you from wandering around the tea plantations and raising your eyes to admire the nature around you. Here in Nepal, wild orchids grow right on the tree bark. Alongside them live many other delicately coloured flowers and mosses.

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A Nepalese plantation in the middle of nowhere

For the first time, a few weeks ago, I bought a lot of a spring tea from the Kanchenjunga Tea Estate. This Nepalese plantation, situated in the middle of nowhere – two day’s travel across the Terai Plain – is one of the most promising in the country.

While there, you can admire the incredible steepness of the slopes as you realise how difficult it must be to harvest the leaves on such a gradient. As for this narrow path which snakes around the side of the mountain, and along which I have seen villagers walking, laden down like mules, it is the only route for the inhabitants of other hamlets located a few days’ walk from here.

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Dilli Baskota, passionate about tea in Nepal

I’ve just completed my annual selection of spring teas from Nepal. They will be available in a few days’ time, once they have been shipped by plane. This year, the Guranse and Kuwapani plantations produced the best lots. They are truly remarkable: if you have never tasted these teas, don’t delay! They are worth trying.

Other gardens have made excellent progress and I’ve reserved two lots, one from the Everest Tea Estate, the other from the Kanchenjunga Tea Estate – an incredible plantation located in the far north of the Ilam Valley and run by my friend Dilli Baskota, pictured here. He is passionate about tea and is very involved in the sustainable development of the region.

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Smelling the wet tea leaves : an essential step

When you taste tea, the first thing you do is look at the dry tea leaf, of course. Then you bring the liquor to your lips and analyse the flavours, aromas and texture. But assessing the qualities of a tea includes another important step: smelling the wet leaves that have just been infused. For this, we can follow the example of Peter Orchard, manager of Kuwapani Tea Estate, who you see here, plunging his nose into the leaves while they’re still warm. Peter is looking at me but he is elsewhere, concentrating intently on the smell of the infusion, a smell which says a great deal about the quality of the lot he has just tasted.

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