Blog – Discovering Tea

Serenity

25 April 2025

Tea doesn’t have to be grown on vast plantations that cover hundreds of acres. Tea is also grown on a more human scale. Take this house surrounded by Camellia sinensis plants, for example. In many countries, tea cultivation has led to intensive farming practices, typically in lowland areas. However, if you climb a little higher, travel further and finish your journey on foot, you will find villagers who grow tea alongside other crops. These farmers use traditional methods to produce remarkable teas. Sometimes they sell the fresh leaves to a neighbour with better equipment or to the local cooperative. Here, I feel a deep sense of serenity. By eight o’clock in the morning, the sun has been up for a while and the household is bustling. The crowing of the rooster mingles with the chanting of a mantra, and a sun salutation greets the new day.

Sérénité

Nul besoin de plantations immenses, de domaines qui s’étendent sur des centaines d’hectares. Le thé c’est aussi cela, une maison entourée de camellia sinensis. Une production à échelle humaine. Dans de nombreux pays, la culture du thé a donné lieu à des pratiques intensives, en général en zone de plaine. Mais dès que l’on grimpe un peu, que l’on accepte de faire de la route, de finir à pied, on trouve des villageois qui cultivent le thé parmi d’autres matières agricoles et ces fermiers-là, de la façon la plus artisanale qui soit, manufacturent des thés remarquables. Il leur arrive aussi de vendre les feuilles fraîches à un voisin mieux équipé ou encore à la coopérative locale. Ce que je ressens ici c’est une atmosphère de sérénité. À huit heures du matin, le soleil était levé depuis longtemps et la maisonnée s’activait. Au chant du coq se mêlait celui d’un mantra, une salutation au soleil et à la vie.

Sharing knowledge

4 April 2025

Sharing your passion with your team, experiencing moments of happiness together, rewarding and celebrating the best… This is what comes to mind when I express the joy of going on a trip with my team, in this case six Master Tea Sommeliers I invited to India to discover an iconic Himalayan region: Darjeeling. Over five days we visited some of the finest tea plantations (Risheehat, Barnesbeg, Seeyok and others), including some small producers, and tasted the first premium teas of the season. We also visited villages surrounded by abandoned tea gardens, where Karuna-Shechen – Matthieu Ricard’s nonprofit organisation – is working on the ground with strong support from Palais des Thés.

Here, with Allan Rai, the producer of Yanki tea, and his wife, mother and father are: Marie (Lyon Croix-Rousse store), Lucie (Nantes), Elena (communications), Simon (Liège), Lola (data analyst), Kenza (Faubourg Saint-Antoine) and myself. Is there anything more important, more essential in life, than sharing experiences and passing on knowledge and skills?

Drink your soup!

21 March 2025

When you take part in a professional tasting, you assess the dry leaf, the infused leaves and the liquid in the cup, known as the liquor or “soup”. This last name seems particularly appropriate when it is tasted with a spoon similar to those used in Asia to drink the broth served at the start of a meal. You bring the spoon of tea soup to your lips and slurp. Inhaling air at the same time allows you to better appreciate the texture, flavours and aromas of the liquor.

Fingers of steel

6 March 2025

The appearance of the man in the pink hat is deceptive. Beneath his innocent-looking pastel camouflage are fearsome fingers of steel. With razor blades clipped to each forefinger, he moves swiftly between the rows of tea plants, plucking the bud and the next two leaves at lightning speed.

In over thirty years of travelling through tea producing countries, I’ve come across some amazing gadgets, but I’ve never seen digits extended by steel blades before. Tea is still harvested by hand in many countries around the world, which is a good thing. Some pickers are finding ingenious ways to speed up the process and reap the rewards.

A distinctive style

21 February 2025

In Taiwan, many tea pickers come from Vietnam. They have their own distinctive way of layering colourful clothing and sometimes combine this with bright protective covers on their fingertips to prevent their skin from turning black after a day of picking leaves.

Tea at the top

7 February 2025

From November to March, the days in the Himalayas are cool and the skies clear. This is when you can see the distant peaks glistening white beyond the tea bushes, like Kumbhakarna (7,710 metres), whose ghostly silhouette can be seen here. The best time to see them is at sunrise, before they disappear in the mist. The view is well worth the relative discomfort of the journey and the rudimentary morning wash with a bowl of cold water and a cloth, out in the open if you follow local custom.

Tea connects us

10 January 2025

This cup, shining in the morning light, is my way of wishing everyone a Happy New Year – a peaceful year in a troubled world. We all have different tastes; I wouldn’t have chosen this cup for myself. I thought it looked it a bit pretentious on its silver tray, sitting on a starched napkin. It’s not my usual taste. Then I put the tray on the bed, and the cup looked elegant and charming in the early morning sun. This was in Tbilisi, in a former printing house converted into a hotel. Each to their own cup, each to their own tea. Let’s hope there is always room for difference, for listening to others. Let’s hope we are driven more by the desire to understand than to judge. By the desire for peace. Tea connects us; tea calms us. Happy New Year 2025!

Our Italian friends

6 December 2024

Palais des Thés opened its first shop in the sixth arrondissement of Paris in March 1987 with the ambitious mission of introducing the French to tea. After 37 years of dedication and enthusiasm, thanks to its passionate team, its quality teas, close relationships with farmers and delicious house blends, Palais des Thés has won over many people to tea through a network of more than a hundred shops and prestigious partners.

In November 2024, Palais des Thés opened its first shop in Italy, in Padua. What a wonderful challenge to bring tea to the Italians! Our Tea Sommeliers and experts, led by the indefatigable Matteo, have embarked on this exciting venture to take tea into the homes and hearts of our European neighbours, the coffee experts.

The experience of plucking tea

29 November 2024

To understand tea and how it’s made, there’s nothing like experiencing it first hand, starting with plucking, when the young leaves are selected for processing. It’s only by doing it yourself that you can truly appreciate the precision, care and difficulty involved in every stage of making a tea, especially one of premium quality.
Here in Kalapani (Nepal), Céline, who manages the entire supply chain for Palais des Thés, is being shown how to pluck tea, and is concentrating on picking the bud and the top two leaves from each shoot that has reached the desired stage of growth.