Inspirations – Page 5 – Discovering Tea

A wish for balance

7 January 2022

The passage from one year to another reminds me of crossing those monkey bridges you find in mountain regions. Made of rope or bamboo, or even steel, some can feel shaky to walk across and others more secure, but what they all have in common is the absence of piles and a swinging sensation that comes from the somewhat rickety deck. Balance can often feel precarious.

In these times disrupted by a virus that made has made a difficult period worse, I wish all of us safe passage into the new year and hope that we leave behind the dark clouds of 2021 and step into a healthy and happy 2022 filled with clear blue skies. I would also like to pass on another wish that is just as important: that we take care of our beautiful planet once and for all and think about the future generations in everything we do.

The benefits of passing on your knowledge.

12 November 2021

It’s good to learn, but it’s even better if you can pass on your knowledge. I’ve been travelling around the world’s tea gardens for more than 30 years, and during that time I’ve gained enough knowledge that I can share it in my turn. I continue to learn something every day, every time I travel, and I now consider it my primary role to pass on what I’ve learnt. That’s why I ask my colleagues to accompany me on trips, and I plan to do this more. I want them to meet the farmers too, to experience their passion for tea first-hand, to form good relationships with the people who make tea on their mountaintops and who always welcome us with open arms. Here, I’m on the slopes of Kilimanjaro with Chloé and Nathalie and a team of pickers

Roll out the green carpet

11 June 2021

It takes a lot of attention to detail to produce fine tea, harvested from this beautiful emerald expanse. Only the bud and the first two youngest leaves at the tip of the shoot must be picked. The subsequent stages in production also play an important role in quality. Let’s roll out the green carpet for everyone who helps to create such delicious teas.

Brothers and sisters

4 June 2021

More than ten years ago, I met someone (very) famous and something he said to me changed my life. That person was Richard Gere, a man who loves Darjeeling and the Himalayas, and is a follower of Buddhism. The day I had the pleasure of meeting him, he asked me what Palais des Thés was doing “for our brothers and sisters in the Himalayas”. I was stunned when I heard that expression, “our brothers and sisters in the Himalayas”. It changed my life. Since that day, every time I see a picker, I think of his question, which caught me off guard. I think of his way of naming the people who live in those mountains, and since then, it is no longer pickers that I see, but brothers and sisters. And that changes everything.

And their children after them

21 May 2021

International Tea Day was pronounced by the United Nations to fall on 21 May each year, while other people celebrate it on 15 December. So we have a choice. As far as I’m concerned, every day is tea day. Every morning I wake up and make myself a cup of tea. I make another one in the middle of the morning, then after lunch, and again in the afternoon. It’s always the right time for a tea break as far as I’m concerned. After my evening meal, I sometimes make a small cup of dark tea before going to bed. Between each of these teapot brews, I work. That’s to say, I taste the many tea samples that come in. Dozens and dozens of teas every day, and these I prepare with a tasting set. All this makes up a full day of tea, a lifetime of tea, even.

An international tea day – why not, but for what purpose? A day of tea is good, a day of good tea is better. Good tea harvested and processed by hand. It’s beneficial to promote rare tea if we want to improve people’s lives, if we want to reinforce respectful agricultural practices over time. If we want farmers to live well, we have to buy tea from them at a higher price. It’s not a question of charity, that won’t work, it’s a matter of encouraging them to produce better quality teas. A better quality tea costs ten, twenty, sometimes a hundred times more than an industrial tea, it gives the farmers a much more substantial income, an income that allows them to live well, to stay on their land, and their children after them.

The desire to learn, to find harmony

30 April 2021

We live in a world where people have opinions about everything. These same people become outraged over nothing, because they are convinced that they are right, that they know better than anyone else. This is difficult for me to understand. It seems to me that too much certainty is not conducive to learning. The reason I know a bit about tea is because for many years I was convinced that I knew nothing. Accepting this ignorance, recognising that I knew very little and had so much to discover, allowed me to learn. As for being outraged about everything, this is also a world away from the way I live my life. The work of the tea sourcer consists of meeting people who think differently, who lead different lives and have other beliefs and customs. These differences are exactly what makes my job so rewarding. As my work mainly takes me to Asia, even when I encounter opposing views, the ultimate goal is to find harmony.

With Matthieu Ricard

22 April 2021

Believe in the beauty of a world that is not only guided by profits that benefit the few to the detriment of the majority. Believe that a company can bring happiness to its employees, customers and suppliers, or in our case, farmers. Believe that a company not only can be but should be a good corporate citizen and put the general interest ahead of the individual interest. Do not make profits for their own sake, but within the framework of profitable growth that benefits everyone involved. Make reasoned, useful growth that is not achieved at the expense of the planet, growth that takes into account the short, medium and long term, growth that benefits human development.

Bridges to better times

8 January 2021

On my tea travels, I often come across rope bridges. They let you avoid hours of walking, or wading across rivers. They are solid enough that you sometimes see a horse crossing one, led by the bridle and wearing a packsaddle for carrying tea. A bridge is a transition, and as we start a new year, this rope bridge reminds me of the fragility of the world right now. I hope 2021 offers you bridges to better times.

A walk in the woods

13 November 2020

During lockdown, it can be easy to let ourselves go a bit. We might exercise less and put on weight. Could this be a good time to turn to tea? According to traditional Chinese medicine, one of the many properties attributed to our beloved Camellia sinensis is fat-burning. This remarkable quality is particularly true of dark teas, called Pu Erhs, with their powerful notes of undergrowth and humus. If you can’t take a walk in the woods, you can at least enjoy all the associated aromas in your cup – alongside those other supposed benefits.

Discovering distant horizons

14 August 2020

In normal times, the summer is a wonderful time to head out to sea and get away from it all. This year, though, I doubt you’ll have an opportunity to discover distant horizons. The magnificent Kagoshima Bay, for example. It is overlooked by one of Japan’s most famous volcanoes, Sakurajima. During active spells, it spits out magnificent plumes of white smoke three or four times a day. They stretch across the sky over this part of Japan in the far south of the country, a region familiar to tea connoisseurs. The gyokuros from these parts are celebrated, and the soil into which the tea plants plunge their deep roots is made from lava.