Blog – Page 12 – Discovering Tea

Dara’s maocha

20 May 2022

Travelling is about meeting people. Last week, I was very happy to meet Dara in the mountains of northern Thailand. Dara’s father, whose family comes from Yunnan (China), fled Kunming at the age of 15 accompanied by his younger brother, and came to the city of Pai. That was in 1938. He was escaping misery. He knew about tea. He felt the right feng shui in Fang and settled there. Dara is passionate about tea and makes a delicious maocha from leaves picked from old tea plants. Here, she’s posing with Mie, her friend with whom she shares her life.

Among the Karen people

13 May 2022

It is not only in China and northern Vietnam that tea leaves are harvested from camellias that have grown tall. In the north of Thailand, a few kilometres from Myanmar, this woman, who belongs to the Karen ethnic group, picks young shoots from old tea bushes that are flourishing in the jungle. These will be used to make maocha, which is then turned into dark tea.

The art of picking tea

6 May 2022

When it comes to picking tea, you have to do it to understand it. It’s difficult to imagine what it feels like to stand for a whole day, sometimes on a steep slope, with a ten- or twenty-kilogram basket on your back. This basket is held in place by a strap across the forehead while the picker quickly plucks the bud and the two young leaves from every stem on the bush with their nimble fingers. The gesture has to be repeated thousands of times and the young shoots must be thrown over the shoulder with a certain dexterity to make sure they land in the basket. Here, yours truly is concentrating on the task. (Photo: Uday Yangya)

The trip of a lifetime

29 April 2022

Part of my job involves taking those who help to promote tea with me on my research trips. Many of my colleagues have never seen a tea plant in real life, so it is both a pleasure and a duty to ask them to accompany me on a tour of the plantations. Last week I was in Ilam Valley with Anna, Cassandra, Svetlana, Clément, Pierre and Thomas. We went from one small producer to another, meeting extraordinary people and admiring breathtaking scenery. Together, we rolled the leaves we had picked ourselves, joined by Léo, who works with me, searching for the world’s finest teas. We wished each other a Happy New Year, because in this incredible country we had just entered the year 2079. What wonderful moments these are, what incredible discoveries. To travel to such remote regions is, in a way, the trip of a lifetime, and nothing makes me happier than sharing it, and giving others a glimpse of this extraordinary profession.

Discovering other cultures

22 April 2022

One of the joys of being a tea researcher is the opportunity to discover other cultures. Here, during the Tsechu festival, the monks breathe life into the characters whose masks they wear for the procession or dance.

Sacred Tibetan dances

15 April 2022

On my way to Ilam valley, I stop in Kathmandu. Matthieu Ricard invited me to the Shechen monastery for the celebration of Tshechu, a festival that includes the performance of sacred Tibetan dances. On the eve of the big day, the monks rehearse. Tomorrow, they will take to the stage again, this time wearing a heavy, lavish costume and an impressive mask.

The Darjeeling marathon

8 April 2022

Every year, we tea sommeliers are subjected to a marathon: the Darjeeling spring harvests. Samples of new-season teas from the region arrive in bags of ten, twenty or thirty. You must taste them within half a day if you want to be in with a chance of getting hold of the tea. The sooner you buy, the more expensive it is, but the longer you wait, the more you run the risk of missing out on the teas you want. This process, which only takes place for Darjeeling because sales go to the highest bidder and batches don’t exceed a few dozen kilos, lasts about six weeks. By the end, the entire spring production has been sold and the tea bushes, distressed by three consecutive harvests, take a rest before resuming their growth. An observation at this point: every year, these teas are worth more and more. Yet all the gardens in Darjeeling claim to be losing money due to rising production costs, and the increases don’t appear to benefit the pickers. The Mckinsey audits, which were so maligned on the eve of the election, would be invaluable in shedding light on this mystery.

Everyone has their way of preparing tea

1 April 2022

When buying tea, it’s important to have information that allows you to prepare it in the best possible way in order to obtain the most flavourful and balanced tea to drink. So the recommended water temperature and brewing times marked on each pack are very useful. However, they aren’t definitive. Someone new to tea won’t prepare it in the same way as a connoisseur. For the first-time tea drinker, it’s a good idea to brew it a little longer, to really bring out the characteristics of that particular tea. And the more you know about a tea, the shorter the brewing time, even if it means using more leaves. So the water temperature and brewing times are not to be followed to the letter; rather, they indicate the maximum water temperature and maximum brewing time. Once you know that, you can do as you please and experiment with the preparation to get the tea just as you like it.

Our Georgian friends

25 March 2022

In these difficult times for Georgia, we’ve received this particularly moving message from one of our producer friends: “Every kilo of Georgian tea sold, especially in Europe, contributes to both our dignity and our survival.” Of course, we’re doing what we can for those with whom we work closely, and it’s in this spirit that I’m sharing his message with you. If you’ve never tasted tea from Georgia before, there are some delicious ones. White tea from Guria, for example. The harvest was very small. It’s a white tea produced in the same way as the well-known Bai Mu Dan from China.

Beautiful harmony

18 March 2022

Here in Taiwan, the ground outside the oldest black tea factory – now a museum – reminds me of my work. If left unpicked, the tender camellia shoots will gradually turn into stems, into wood. Thus the tea plant is made up of greens and darks, of soft and hard materials, of leaves and branches. This contrast of colours also reminds me of tea’s aromas, which are so often vegetal with green teas and woody with black teas. Everything here speaks of tea, right down to the beautiful harmony of the old boards between which a joyful shoot emerges.