Tea and food

How to warm up with tea

7 February 2012
How to warm up with tea

With the cold you are battling in France at the moment, you need to keep warm. Always have to hand a kettle filled with fresh water. A singing kettle, for example, whose song warms the soul and lifts the spirits.

A song calling you for tea.

Everywhere in India you see tea vendors in the streets and on the roadsides. With a kettle purring over what are sometimes simple wood fires, they are always busy. On the roads of the Himalayas, they might set up stall on the corner of a rock. You squat down next to the vendor and take your time sipping the scalding blend of tea, milk and spices. You simply take time to do yourself some good.

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An olfactory journey in the streets of Hong Kong

31 January 2012
An olfactory journey in the streets of Hong Kong

Walking through the streets of Hong Kong is an olfactory journey. In this city where street food is sold on every corner, the many stalls – there’s one every ten metres or so – give off copious, diverse and unusual smells: duck skin crackling over the heat, sizzling lumps of fat, garlicky vegetables frying in the wok, caramelised pork. There are fried noodles, fritters and dim sum of all kinds.

With all the greasy smoke, the stalls overflowing with delicious food, it’s a real wake-up for the senses. Whatever the time of day or night, it makes you want to dig into a big bowl of steaming noodles.

Nowhere as much as here, in Hong Kong, in this city that never stops and that dazzles with a thousand neon lights, have I ever had such a strong sense that man was put on this earth to eat.

Luckily, there are also tea houses where you can take a seat and follow the owner’s advice, and taste with him a few leaves of Pu Er, delicately broken off an old tea cake. Then you can take time to savour your tea, and think about this island and its hyperactive inhabitants who consume with such frenzy.

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Tasting tea is like tasting wine

16 December 2011
Tasting tea is like tasting wine

Tasting tea is a bit like tasting wine. You take some of the liquid in your mouth and swirl it around gently. Then comes what we call “retro olfaction”: you exhale air through your nose, directing the aromas towards your olfactory bulb. With your head slightly lowered, your cheeks sucked in, you hold the liquid around your tongue and inhale through your mouth several times. By exhaling this air out through your nose, you increase your olfactory capacity to its maximum.

We use this method to enhance our assessment of a tea. It’s necessary when you want to describe a tea’s aromatic profile, for example.

Here, with one of his assistants, is my friend Anil Jha in action. His Turzums and other Sungmas have acquired an excellent reputation.

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Tea tasting: a special moment

9 December 2011
Tea tasting: a special moment

Tea tasting is a special moment for me. While we wait for the teas to infuse, we talk, or we look at the dry leaves. Then, when the tea is ready, we exchange cups, without a sound. We inhale the aromas of the leaves, look at the liquor, and taste it. Then we compare it with the cup beside it. It is a moment of pleasure and of concentration. Hand movements are precise and slow. To me, this serenity is important in order to appreciate all the pleasures offered by a cup of tea.

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Length of infusion varies from one tea to another

25 November 2011
Length of infusion varies from one tea to another

Tea needs infusing for a specific length of time, and this can vary a great deal from one fine tea to another. A Japanese Gyokuro, for example, only needs infusing for a few seconds, while a white tea like Yin Zhen must steep for 10 minutes.

With some teas, like a Long Jing, for example, if you exceed the infusion time a little, it’s not a problem, and it won’t make much different to the final brew. However, if you leave a first flush Darjeeling for just a minute longer than you should, it’s quite simple: you’ll ruin it. It will become astringent and bitter.

So that’s why we need a timer when we prepare a good quality tea, and why we emphasise the importance of attention to detail with the infusion, to ensure you get the best from your tea.

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In New York : my tea tasting lesson

22 November 2011
In New York : my tea tasting lesson

I’ve just returned from New York, where I gave a tea tasting lesson to 35 journalists, bloggers and students from the prestigious French Culinary Institute. Cyrille and Aurélie Bessière, who moved to New York to foster a taste for fine teas among Americans, also took part in the exercise.

Having talked about the different colours of tea, and explained how to prepare them, we all tasted five different teas, taking time to consider their aromas, flavours and textures. Then, in the company of chef Mélanie Franks, who is well known for her use of tea in cooking, we set about tasting some interesting pairings of tea and cheese.

On the subject, I recommend you try a fresh goat’s cheese with a Dong Ding. You’ll find the creaminess of the former goes very well with the roundness of the latter. And if you want a different way of experiencing your Butterfly of Taiwan, serve it with an Ossau Iraty. A pure delight!

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I have just tasted the very first teas of the season

4 November 2011
I have just tasted the very first teas of the season

In Darjeeling, October marks the start of the autumn tea harvest. Once the Diwali and Dussehra festivals are over, the workers start plucking the leaves, of which there are now too many after the holidays. A week later, they carry out a more delicate plucking which will serve to produce a high quality tea.

Here, with Abishek Dev, grower at the Teesta Valley Tea Estate, I am tasting the very first teas of the season.

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On my way to Darjeeling, I often stop at Longview

11 October 2011
On my way to Darjeeling, I often stop at Longview

I’m on my way to Darjeeling. On my journey, I sometimes stop at Longview Tea Estate, the first tea plantation in this appellation. It doesn’t always produce great teas, as not all of its various plots get enough sun, but at certain times of the year, on the highest part of the plantation, Longview produces some very good teas, earlier than other gardens. Here, under the watchful eye of the grower, I’m assessing the aromas of the different lots I’m going to taste.

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A tea organ to introduce people to aromas

30 September 2011
A tea organ to introduce people to aromas

We don’t get many opportunities to develop our sense of smell in today’s world. This sense is rather neglected, and while children learn about colours at school, the same cannot be said about different types of aroma.

Yet we all have the ability to memorise a great number of smells. But you do need a method of remembering them, and the easiest way is to give them a name. By naming a smell, as we have done with each of the colours we are familiar with, we can remember it easily. Then you simply move on to the next one.

This “tea organ”, which featured at the recent Maison & Objet fair, is a fun way of introducing people to aromas and helping them learn to recognise some of the key fragrance groups.

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Tasting rooms have windows to let in the sunlight

6 September 2011
Tasting rooms have windows to let in the sunlight

When tasting tea, it is good to have a source of natural light in which to judge the leaves and the infusion, as well as the liquor. It means you can assess the tea not just on its taste and aroma, but also on its appearance.

This is why, on most plantations, the tasting room has windows right down one side, to let in the sunlight. The cups of tea are placed along the windows, and while the tea is infusing, I can spread the dry leaves on a card in order to get a good look at them and judge the quality of the plucking. Or, while waiting for the timer to tell me when the infusion is ready, I can take my camera, as I did here in Darjeeling, and find the best angle to immortalise this beautiful morning light.

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