November 2019 – Discovering Tea

About premium teas

29 November 2019

One question often crops up when I meet customers – it’s about how we source our premium teas. With the growing number of Palais des Thés stores, people want to know if I can always find enough fine teas without compromising on quality. The answer is simple. Right now, I have to taste about 100 teas on average to identify one or two premium teas. But it’s not a problem to try more and choose more. However, I can’t alter the size of the batches. If a farmer has produced 100 kg of an exceptional tea, I can’t ask him to send me 200 kg without affecting the quality. But I have no problem finding other farmers who produce exceptional teas. So to sum up, it’s not difficult to find different premium teas, but the size of the batches is limited, so you won’t find the same choices of premium teas in different Palais des Thés stores on any given day.

Teas to sip by the fire

22 November 2019

Now the temperatures have dropped, we want to drink different types of teas from those we enjoyed in warmer weather. This season calls for rounder, fuller liquors; warm, woody notes; spicy and stewed fruit flavours. Here are some suggestions for teas to sip by the fire. Try a Jukro from South Korea for its cocoa notes, a Chinese Qimen Hong Cha Mao Feng for its leather notes, a Dianhong Jin Ya for its honey notes, a Dongyan Shan Tie Guan Yin from Taiwan for its stewed fruit notes, a Japanese Shiraore Kuki Hojicha for its toasted notes, and a Spirit of Smoke from Malawi for its smoky notes.

All about organic

15 November 2019

I dream of a world where everything is organic, everyone is kind. A world with flowers and bees. A world in which people still have a place, a world on a human scale. But when I go shopping, I don’t always buy organic products. Why not? Because when I’m in the countryside, I visit neighbouring farms, I know the farmers. They run small operations and don’t have certification, but I know how they work, the quality of their products, the care they take in production. I can see their facilities, I can see how they treat their animals, I can talk to them about their agricultural methods. This connection is valuable, it is based on trust, and is worth much more than a logo. The same goes for tea. I trust the AB organic label we have in France, and everything it stands for, but I am very happy to buy from small Nepalese farmers, for example, who have joined forces to form a co-operative with perhaps several hundred members, who I know, and whose practices I understand. These farmers know nothing about the world of certification, and probably would not be able to afford it anyway.

Varying qualities of jasmine tea

8 November 2019

In China, the best jasmine teas come from the Fujian region (photo). They are made using the finest green teas in the province, harvested in April. The jasmine flowers are picked between July and early September. But if we go by volume rather than quality, the biggest producing region is Guangxi. There, they use green tea of a lower quality, while their jasmine flowers from early May to the end of September, hence the high volume, which is double or triple that of Fujian.