2023 – Page 2 – Discovering Tea

Tea shapes us

20 October 2023

Yesterday, I had a long chat with Jeewan Prakash Gurung, one of Darjeeling’s oldest planters. He has been in the tea business for a record 48 years! He welcomed me to his plantation in Seeyok and together we tasted teas and talked until it grew dark. I was impressed and moved by his words: “Tea is not a product, it’s a culture!” His pride shone through when he talked about himself and his fellow tea growers: “I’m proud of Darjeeling teas, they’ve made us what we are today.” On the winding road back to Mirik, as I looked out of the wide open window of the Jeep at the mountains in the misty night sky, I thought about his words and realised something important. For some people, it is enough to make tea and to shape the tea leaves, while for others it is the tea itself that has shaped them and made them who they are. This reminded me of Nicolas Bouvier’s quote: “You think you are making a trip, but soon it is making you.

The peaceful ryokan

13 October 2023

Everyone finds happiness where they want it. I find it when I’m surrounded by nature, in places that are alive with silence. I enjoy crowds for a while, but in Japan, after experiencing once again the crush of people jostling to cross the streets in all directions at the famous Shibuya intersection, nothing pleases me more than to find myself far from the city, in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. There, in the middle of nowhere, where I am attuned to the slightest sound and the materials that surround me – wood, rice straw, stone – I dissolve into the landscape and find my place among the trees, the breeze and the murmuring stream. With a bowl of tea in my hand, I close my eyes and slowly savour the powerful, vegetal infusion. I stay focused on the present moment. “We drink tea to forget the noise of the world,” wrote Lu Yu, the “Sage of Tea” as he is still known, and the author of The Classic of Tea.

The leaf market

6 October 2023

In Japan there are wholesale markets where farmers sell their tea leaves. In Shizuoka, you have to get up early and be invited in if you want to see the farmers selling their aracha, or raw tea. The buyers are traders, sometimes farmers themselves, who carry out a series of tests on the leaves before selling them according to a grading system, to meet the demands of their customers. Trading is done quietly. They taste, then negotiate as discreetly as possible, using abacuses.

Precision mechanics

29 September 2023

The Japanese are remarkably ingenious when it comes to harvesting tea. In the rest of the world, the leaves are hand-picked by legions of workers, but in Japan, labour is really expensive and so the growers have to do it themselves. This means using machines, each as well designed as the next. The quality of production is not affected by this mechanisation, as the Japanese are generally meticulous and take great care to do everything properly. Once the leaves have been gathered at the processing site, a sophisticated tool with an electronic eye is used to check that their shape, size, structure and colour are of the required quality.

Shade-grown tea

22 September 2023

There are teas grown in the light and there are teas grown in the shade. Shade-grown teas are made from leaves picked from shoots that have been deprived of light for three weeks before harvest, allowing them to develop the amino acids and umami flavour so prized by the Japanese. Japan is the traditional home of shade-grown teas, the most famous of which is Gyokuro. Its intensity and incomparable sweetness literally coat the palate, provided it is brewed correctly, at a very low temperature (50°C) and for just one or two minutes. It is best sipped from a tiny cup, like nectar.

Matcha is another shade-grown tea that has become well known in France, particularly for its use in pastries. It is made from finely ground shade-grown tea.

Barley and buckwheat

28 July 2023

There’s more to life than tea. There’s also barley and buckwheat. The seeds are roasted and then infused. It’s delicious hot or cold and has always been popular in Japan. In France, these crops are grown in Brittany, which is good because we don’t have to get it from the other side of the world. In the autumn, I’ll be introducing you to Yoann, a self-described “Breton alternative roaster”. By then, the ripe ears of barley will have been cut and the beautiful buckwheat flowers will have had time to go to seed. I hope you all have a wonderful summer.

Zen garden

19 July 2023

In Japan, a very orderly country, the tea bushes are tended in the neatest rows. They form a kind of Zen garden, and in Kyoto and many other parts of the archipelago, whenever you see them you just want to sit down and take it all in. The aesthetic is captivating.

Who will take over from this generation in Japan?

13 July 2023

One of the things you notice when you visit tea farms in Japan, going from factory to factory, is the age of the farmers. Often these couples represent the fourth, fifth, even sixth generation of tea producers in their family, but when you ask them about the next generation, there’s often no one left to take over. They have few or no children, and the latter are rarely inclined to carry on the family tradition. It’s a huge challenge for tea production in Japan. Of course, the land won’t disappear and the tea bushes probably won’t either: the fields will be taken over by a big tea company. But this mosaic of small producers, who farm an average of around 12 acres, contributes to the rich diversity of tea, as they all work with their preferred cultivars and the plants that are best suited to their terroir. I think it’s important to buy from them for as long as possible, to give the next generation every chance.

Organic farming: room for improvement

7 July 2023

Following my last post, I received some comments that I thought would be interesting to discuss. Firstly, I’d like to say that I have a deep affection for India and have visited the Darjeeling region dozens of times, which shows how much it means to me. And Palais des Thés has taken many initiatives over more than 30 years to promote the wonderful teas from this part of the world.

I’d like to stress that this pesticide problem, which should never happen with tea, especially bearing the AB organic label, doesn’t just concern India. The same thing could be happening in other countries. I have the following comments to share with you from producer friends:

– The pesticide in question is not easy to find, and its use in tea has become extremely rare. On the other hand, DDT has been sprayed by the authorities in very isolated cases to control malaria in particularly infested areas. These sprays, which would be better if substitutes were used, can end up on surrounding crops.

– The creation of planted barriers between roads and fields, and around homes, has been the subject of much discussion with regional health authorities. This is an easy solution to implement in cases where it’s essential to combat the presence of mosquitoes carrying the malaria parasite.

– Sometimes, the person in charge of certification is too close to the plot owner, which can undermine the professionalism of the work and result in inadequate inspection.

I think it’s important to point out something that few people are aware of: AB-type organic certification is essentially based on the examination of various documents, and the organisations in charge of these certifications don’t carry out regular laboratory analyses. Our health and that of our customers is paramount, which is why I’m approaching this subject in the simplest and most transparent way possible.

Agriculture biologique : des pratiques perfectibles

A la suite de mon dernier billet, j’ai reçu des commentaires qui me semblent intéressants à rapporter. Au préalable, je tiens à préciser que l’Inde est un pays pour lequel j’éprouve un profond attachement, et la région de Darjeeling, je l’ai visitée plusieurs dizaines de fois, c’est vous dire si elle m’est chère. Enfin, en plus de 30 ans, Palais des Thés a multiplié les initiatives pour faire connaître les merveilleux thés en provenance de cette région du monde.

Je fais la synthèse des remarques reçues et je tiens à souligner que ce problème de pesticide qui ne devrait jamais se retrouver a fortiori dans un thé labellisé « AB » ne concerne pas que l’Inde. Dans d’autres pays, la même chose pourrait se produire. Les remarques en provenance d’amis producteurs et que je partage avec vous sont les suivantes :

– Le pesticide incriminé ne se trouve pas facilement, son usage est devenu rarissime dans le thé. En revanche, des pulvérisations de DDT par les autorités existent et ce afin de lutter contre le paludisme dans de rares zones particulièrement infestées ; ces pulvérisations qui gagneraient à être réalisées à l’aide de produits de substitution peuvent se retrouver sur les productions agricoles alentour ;

– La création de barrières végétales entre les routes et les champs, ainsi qu’autour des habitations a été au cœur de nombreuses discussions avec les autorités sanitaires régionales ; c’est une solution facile à mettre en œuvre dans les cas où la lutte contre la présence du moustique porteur du parasite à l’origine de la malaria s’avère indispensable ;

– Parfois, une proximité excessive entre la personne en charge de la certification et le propriétaire de la parcelle nuit au sérieux de ladite mission et aboutit à un contrôle de pure forme ;

Un élément me semble important à souligner, que peu de consommateurs connaissent : les certifications de type « AB » reposent essentiellement sur l’examen de pièces diverses, et les organismes en charge de ces certifications ne procèdent pas systématiquement à des analyses en laboratoire. Notre santé comme celle de nos clients est primordiale, voilà pourquoi j’aborde ce sujet ici de la façon la plus simple, la plus transparente possible.