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Hoping for better times

10 April 2020
Hoping for better times

What’s the point of a tea sourcer who can no longer source tea? What’s the point of a tea sourcer who can no longer spend time with farmers and has no samples to taste, who watches springtime unfurling through the window of his tasting room that usually receives around 100 samples a day at this time of year, compared with just a handful for the whole of the past week? What’s the point of a tea sourcer who can’t offer his customers rare batches to taste, because they can’t be served in stores, or sent out by post?

Although I feel alone, I’m trying to look on the bright side. In my tasting room I’m lucky enough to have an endless selection of premium teas, all bought over the past year. I taste them and hope for better times, and think of you all.

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Update on the spring teas

3 April 2020
Update on the spring teas

Many of you have been calling and emailing us to ask about the next harvests of spring teas. As you can imagine, the situation is very unusual this year.
In India and Nepal, people have been told to stay at home, which means they cannot harvest the tea. Of course, farmers will continue to pick fresh leaves from their own gardens and produce a few kilos as best they can. They will use these for their own consumption and sell any remaining leaves on the local markets once they open again.
In China and Japan, the situation is better. China is starting to allow people out again and the farmers are going back to work, just in time to harvest the new shoots. In Japan, it seems there is nothing to worry about at the moment. The news we’ve received indicates that the harvest will still go ahead at the end of April and early May.
I’d just like to remind you that this virus is spread between people and not goods (make sure you get your news from reliable sources), which means tea is perfectly safe, and in just a few weeks you will be able to savour delicious teas with complete peace of mind. 

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Working outside

27 March 2020
Working outside

These tea pickers have less to fear from Coronavirus than others. They walk to work, they move about in single file, they keep a good distance between themselves, and what’s more, they work outside. Sadly, this isn’t enough in a country of more than a billion inhabitants, and now the entire Indian population must stay at home. Let’s hope that we can banish this virus quickly, and get back to savouring their country’s delicious teas.

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Thank you

20 March 2020
Thank you

At 8 o’clock in the evening, everyone throws open their windows and starts clapping, or they bang on a saucepan or some random kitchen utensil to make as much racket as possible; they sing, they shout, they chant… And I cry because it’s beautiful, it’s so beautiful that in this sometimes selfish world, people still have the urge to do this, that there are still these moments of humanity, that people still find room in their heart to shout out their love, to say thank you, to encourage and support those who are saving lives while risking their own. Thank you.

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Discovering Tea is ten

24 January 2020
Discovering Tea is ten

For years, I didn’t take any photos, misguidedly believing it wasn’t possible to look around me and photograph at the same time. Later, I changed my mind. Those landscapes and portraits taken around the world inspired me to share them, and so the blog was born.

Like the Tea School and the books I’ve written with Mathias Minet (The Tea Drinker’s Handbook, Tea Sommelier), the role of this blog is to impart both knowledge and passion.

This month, my blog celebrates its 691st article, or rather, its ten-year anniversary, so I’m inviting you to help me blow out the candles. I’d like to thank Mathias, Laurent, Philippe, Emilie, Marta, Bénédicte, Kevin and Hélène, who were there at the start or who’ve been part of the journey. And I’d like to thank you, my readers, for following me. Your support is precious, and it touches me.

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Quimper gets its Palais

18 October 2019
Quimper gets its Palais

The people of Quimper now have their very own Palais des Thés, at 15 Rue Kéréon, near the cathedral. 

I was delighted to open the shop, partly because I love Brittany, but above all because François, the manager of this beautiful shop, worked in our Rennes shop for six years as a sales adviser, then as the assistant manager. He has passed his Tea Sommelier exam, meaning he has a rare level of expertise, which is coupled with his natural warmth. A few months ago, I travelled with him and some other tea sommeliers around the tea plantations of Darjeeling. Here he is with me and Christine Delétrée, our network manager. I wish him all the very best in the wonderful city of Quimper!

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Tea and joy

7 September 2018
Tea and joy

Kolkata, formerly Calcutta, is known as the “city of joy”, but it’s also the city of tea. All the producers of Darjeeling and Assam teas have their office there. Auctions take place in the historical district of BBD Bagh, supplying the lifeblood of a whole economy. And the precious cargoes of tea are dispatched from the city’s port.

Kolkata, a sprawling city of ten, fifteen, even twenty million inhabitants – who knows? – extends outwards from the banks of the Hooghly River, a tributary of the Ganges. Its public transport system includes many boats which offer a peaceful crossing, away from the busy traffic.

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Timid shoots

16 March 2018
Timid shoots

In Darjeeling, the years go by, and each one is different. In a little over 30 years, I’ve never known anything like the current situation. To remind you, a strike lasting 105 days prevented any work from taking place on the region’s 87 plantations between June and October. When the separatists finally removed the blockades, it was time for Durga Puja – the local version of Christmas. After the plantations had been abandoned for months, the workers then had to set about taming the jungle. The problem was that some of them had fled the conflict to find work in the valleys. And that’s where we are now: the tea plants were pruned very late – some at the end of December – which means that we’re still waiting for the Darjeeling spring harvest. On Wednesday 14 March, a few rare and timid shoots appeared on the tea plants (photo). Of course, so-called first-flush Darjeelings have been on the market for more than a month: that’s the magic of spring Darjeelings, they’re being sold before they’ve even been harvested. This is because some low-altitude plantations, which benefit from a warm climate and irrigation systems, can produce small quantities of tea during the winter. They falsely call them spring teas. Which is sad, as they are nothing like the leaves harvested from the plants in which the sap rises slowly, and which produce the unique tea that has made Darjeeling famous.

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Darjeeling facts and figures

8 December 2017
Darjeeling facts and figures

During a recent stay in Ilam Valley, I took the opportunity to meet several Darjeeling planters, and talked with them at length about the situation in the district. This is the latest news I can bring you, as well as a few figures to help you understand. In 2017, 80% of the Darjeeling harvest was lost. Ninety percent of the autumn harvest alone was lost. The separatist leader is now in hiding, and 105 days of strikes have resulted in no concrete gains for the population. They don’t know who will pay for the massive financial losses suffered by the tea plantations, of course, but also by everyone whose business relates to tourism. Then there are the shop-keepers who had to remain closed for more than three months. Throughout this stand-off between the autonomists and the government of Western Bengal, many people who were living in the mountains left to find work elsewhere. Now, 30% of this population have gone, and we don’t know if they will return. And most people who live in the mountains work in the tea fields. Despite this set-back, the herbs that had grown over the tea plants have been pulled up. There’s still a lot of work to do to cut back the bushes, though. Normally they are cut back every four or five years, but this winter, because the plants were left to grow for three months, they must be cut back to form what’s known as the plucking table. This winter pruning will delay next spring’s Darjeelings, which are usually harvested from the beginning of March. Darjeeling’s planters are unanimous in their view that there won’t be any teas in 2018 before around 20th March, and even then, only a few. The harvesting period will be shorter, the quantities smaller, and the prices higher. Another subject all our planters agree on is that if the separatists go on strike again, they will allow the tea plantations to operate normally so that people don’t suffer any more than they have to.

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Darjeeling lacks a workforce

10 November 2017
Darjeeling lacks a workforce

Darjeeling is a place of contrasts right now. Life has resumed throughout the district. Once again, the roads, shops and hotels are open, the tea plantations too. But there is much work to be done, as the tea plants have disappeared beneath the weeds. This is not serious for the shrubs, they’re in good conditions, but all the vegetation needs clearing, and then the precious camellia sinensis must be cut back to their initial size. Sadly, there is a lack of manpower in Darjeeling. During the three months of protests in favour of regional autonomy, many men left the mountains to find work elsewhere. And now, the plantations don’t have enough people to do the clearing and cutting back. Yet this work is essential if there is to be a good harvest next spring, otherwise there won’t be enough Darjeeling tea, and fake Darjeelings, which are already in circulation, will flood the market. That would be a catastrophe for Darjeeling, and I hope with all my heart it will never come to that. We will have to pay close attention to the situation.

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