Blog – Page 29 – Discovering Tea

Brie melts in your mouth with Bancha Hojicha

7 December 2018

Tea and cheese make ideal partners. To go with a Brie, whether it’s from Melun, Meaux, Nangis or Montereau, I recommend a Bancha Hojicha. The woody, roasted notes of this well-known Japanese toasted tea beautifully complement the flavours of the soft cheese. And if you prefer, you could infuse the tea for an hour in water at room temperature, instead of in hot water.

It’s not easy to find the right pairing. You need to taste lots of different teas, as in this photo, where I’m comparing Pu erh Impérial, Malawi Dark and Bancha Hojicha with three different Bries, after trying many others.

Looking across the roof of the world

30 November 2018

In Darjeeling, tea is cultivated until the end of November, give or take a couple of weeks, depending on the soil temperature. Once the temperature dips below 16°C, the tea plants enter a dormant state until the following spring. November is an ideal month to admire the third highest peak in the world, Kangchenjunga, which rises above the Himalayan foothills.

As many different teas as there are ethnic groups

23 November 2018

For the tea connoisseur, the “Golden Triangle” is a unique region. First, it is without doubt where tea was born, and that already counts for something. And these days, on those steep, inaccessible mountain slopes, there are as many different teas as there are ethnic groups. From southern Yunnan to eastern Myanmar, via northern Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, one encounters a great variety of traditional costumes and customs. People in this region produce white, black, green, blue-green or dark tea, depending on local tastes. Some are worthy of the name “premium” tea. And there are still many farms waiting to be discovered in these endless mountains shrouded in mist and legend. It’s a real treasure trove for a tea researcher seeking out new gems!

A better world is within our grasp

16 November 2018

What if we tried to think about our children? We all have immense power every time we spend our money. The power to make the world better. Spending money means encouraging people. Encouraging a producer, encouraging a distribution system. Encouraging good practice, encouraging healthy, unprocessed products, fairly traded, respecting people and the planet. We have the power to encourage artisans, co-operatives, farmers, town-centre shopkeepers, local producers. Nobody forces us to shop in big supermarkets, nobody forces us to push around trolleys loaded with industrially-produced foods, wrapped in plastic, containing mystery ingredients in addition to the sugar, preservatives and palm oil. We can consume better, and less. We can consume healthily. We can favour good producers.

And when we look at the labels, we might be surprised to see that the best is not always the most expensive (with tea, for example, a box of tea is often more expensive per kilo than a good quality loose-leaf tea sold by a specialist retailer). So what are we waiting for?

Encouraging growers to produce the best teas in the best conditions

9 November 2018

Sri Lanka is a magnificent country, now at peace. The landscapes are stunning, with tea plants as far as the eye can see. The country’s best teas are produced in the south, near the remarkable Sinharaja forest – these are the low growns. Further north, the teas are manufactured more industrially, a legacy from the colonial days. On these high northern plateaus, producers could make better teas if they stopped using machines called rotorvanes, which maul the leaves to accelerate the oxidation process. It would also be better, in this region where the climate and scenery remind Scottish visitors of their own country, to come across more people who own their land and make their own tea, rather than employees – often women – working in less than ideal conditions. A fair system works very well for the low growns (for example at New Vithanakande, the most famous garden in that region).
During the visit to France by Navin Dissanayake, Sri Lanka’s minister for the tea industry, accompanied by Buddhi K. Athauda, the Sri Lankan ambassador to France, we enjoyed an informal tasting and friendly discussion at their request to help them understand how to make what used to be known as Ceylon teas – Sri Lankan teas – better known in France.

The perfect object for tasting tea

2 November 2018

To create the ideal tasting conditions, you need quality tea, you have to pay attention to the quality and the temperature of the water, the brewing time and, of course, the recipient. Avoid large teapots, because they are detrimental to the quality of infusion. To get the very best out of your tea, including and above all the rarest teas of all, the material and the size of the recipient are essential. Here is an inspirational tasting session for the famous designer, Patrick Norguet. His goal is to understand my trade, to understand the imperatives and the expectations, so that, one day, he can create the ideal object for tasting tea. I am looking forward to it.

Time to sweat

26 October 2018

Black teas are oxidised; green teas aren’t: that’s the difference. With oolongs, it’s more complicated. They can be oxidised a little, a lot, or zealously. Their oxidation rate can range from 10% to 70%. Of course, a lightly oxidised oolong will have a more vegetal aroma, while a more oxidised oolong will develop woody, fruity notes. Whatever the level of oxidation required, the processing steps are the same: withering, sweating, roasting, rolling, then drying. The sweating stage is essential. It involves alternating periods of stirring the leaves with periods of resting them, as illustrated by this photo. The aim of this stage is to encourage oxidation while removing the natural moisture from the leaves.

Starting from scratch every time

19 October 2018

When I’m looking for premium teas, I look at what the farmers and plantations I already know are producing. I also look for new farms, sometimes in new regions, sometimes in new countries. Sourcing premium teas is like starting from scratch every time. When it comes to rare and exceptional teas, there is no guarantee that a reputable producer will be able to make a tea as amazing as the previous year’s. You have to try the teas, blind, so you’re not influenced by the prestige of a name or your goodwill towards a farmer. And sometimes you have to pack your bags and set out on an adventure. Rwanda, for example, can produce some very good teas, and is among the countries I intend to return to soon and explore different plantations.

With Bryan Esposito, pastry chef at the Collectionneur Hotel in Paris

12 October 2018

Part of my job is to introduce the incredible variety of flavours among teas to current and future chefs. This is the flipside of my work out in the fields with the farmers. On the one hand I select premium teas; on the other, I help chefs understand how to use them. There are teas of different colours, different origins and also of different varieties. These differences create the range and variety in the gastronomic qualities of tea. You have to taste them to understand, which is what I’m doing here with Bryan Esposito, pastry chef at the Collectionneur Hotel in Paris and former pastry chef at the Westminster Hotel. Introducing someone to the great range in the flavours of teas also means explaining the best way to obtain the liquor for the intended use. The amount of tea used, and the time and method of infusion, will differ depending on whether you want a liquor to be consumed as it is or used in a recipe. It is interesting to experiment with different aspects of the infusion method, including cold infusion, which opens the way to many uses in the kitchen. It goes without saying that I’m looking forward to tasting Bryan’s new creations!

The art of making jasmine tea

5 October 2018

The world’s finest jasmine teas are produced in August and September in Fujian province (China). They are made using a green tea base, and as the best green teas are harvested in April, the necessary quantity is reserved at the time. The jasmine flowers on the other hand, are picked at the end of summer. Jasmine flowers open in the evening, when they release their fragrance. When this happens, they are placed in layers with the tea leaves, impregnating them with their heady scent. Throughout the night they are mixed together to ensure the leaves have absorbed as much of the fragrance as possible. When day breaks they are separated, before the jasmine flowers turn bitter.