Tea Tasting – Page 10 – Discovering Tea

A tea organ to introduce people to aromas

30 September 2011

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.

Tasting rooms have windows to let in the sunlight

6 September 2011

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.

Smelling the wet tea leaves : an essential step

26 August 2011

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.

Hot tea is more refreshing than cold tea

18 August 2011

The summer is upon us in France, and with it comes the heat. Many people like iced tea at this time of year, simply because they want a refreshing drink. But it’s funny that in regions where it is very hot – like the Sahara, but there are many other examples – people tend to drink their tea hot. In fact, hot tea is considered more refreshing than cold tea. This is because the closer the liquid’s temperature is to body temperature, the less it will provoke a temperature change. And this temperature change is one of the reasons we sweat.

Our love of iced drinks comes from the other side of the Atlantic, and when a food-related fashion arrives from that region, we are not necessary wrong to question it. My suggestion for fans of iced tea is to shun the overly sweetened – in my opinion – commercial varieties and instead to make your own delicious teas using water at room temperature, and to drink them chilled.

Or, as I am here to tell you about the different customs relating to tea, you can also celebrate the arrival of the warm season by drinking a hot tea with mint leaves, like this one, served on the banks of the river Nile.

Tea tasting with Dilan and Vidusha

9 August 2011

Last week, in the company of Dilan Wijeyesekera and Vidusha Wakista, I tasted teas from the regions of Dimbula, Uva and Nuwara Eliya, side by side.

Dilan and Vidusha work for the company Mabroc and supply some of our teas from Sri Lanka, which come either from their own plantations or the Colombo auctions.

We also discussed “low growns”, teas from the south of the country that grow at a low altitude, and which have steadily improved in quality over the years. Most low tea plantations don’t use the rotorvane, a machine widely used on high grown plantations, which handles the leaves more roughly than the orthodox procedure.

Preparing tea requires precision

26 July 2011

Preparing tea requires a certain amount of precision when it comes to professional tasting. If you are preparing to taste and compare a number of teas, it is essential that the infusion takes place in exactly the same conditions for them all.

So everything is done with attention: the water must be at the correct temperature, the recipients must be clean and of the same colour. The exact same quantity of leaves is placed into each pot, to the nearest tenth of a gram. Then the infusion can begin – timed, of course.

The art of tasting tea with or without milk

28 June 2011

At the Amgoorie Tea Estate, tea is tasted both with and without milk. This is because some of the tea produced by this plantation is particularly full-bodied, and is appreciated by British consumers. So by lightening each cup with a cloud of milk, we are tasting the tea in the same way as the customer.

While adding milk is sacrilege for the finest teas, it is natural for more powerful brews. The milk reduces the astringency and sensation of bitterness.

In Kolkata, you throw your teacup after use

8 April 2011

Back to Kolkata. In this city, as in many Indian cities, people drink tea everywhere, especially in the street. There are many tea shops, where you drink the chai standing, or perched on the end of the single wooden bench on the pavement outside. In the tea shops, tea is generally served in freshly fired clay cups, which are very porous. When you have finished drinking, you throw your cup to the ground, and it breaks. As the day goes on, a little heap of broken cups gradually forms.

In each country, people prepare tea differently

4 February 2011

In Japan, they have the Cha No Yu, or “way of tea”; in Russia they prepare their brew in the samovar. The British have their tea time, the Indians drink chai. And when the Chinese prepare fine teas, such as rare Wu Longs, or Pu Ers, they follow the rules of the Gong Fu Cha.

Gong Fu describes an activity that is carried out slowly, with great self control.

In China, people boil water before drinking it

14 January 2011

In many of the countries I travel in, the water is not safe to drink unless it is boiled first. So people always have water on the boil, day and night, at home, at work, in the shops, and even on the road, like here, al fresco.

Just after arriving in Sudianlisuzuxiang in Yunnan, while some of our party went off to pluck the birds and others cut fine sticks of bamboo on which to grill the meat, I lit the fire to make tea. On this high and peaceful plateau, once we had eaten our fill and drunk our Pu Er, we stretched out on the grass for a nap. Except for one, who took a stroll with his water pipe.