Sustainable, organic, fair trade tea

I am quite the groupie of Nigel Melican of Teacraft Ltd - his knowledge and experience in the industry is vast and I am always interested in what he has to say. So, you can imagine how rapt I was to discover that Cinnabar of Gongfu Girl had interviewed Nigel at last year's World Tea Expo and shared the interview on Cha Dao.

If you care about issues of sustainability, organic farming and fair trade - in relation to tea in particular of course, but I think there is much in this interview that applies to agriculture and trade in general - then you should read this. The following excerpt is one I found particularly thought provoking:

NM: I'll give you an example of the dilemma that you might get into. I was working with a new tea grower in Hawaii -- not one of the small guys that we've seen at the Expo, but someone who wanted to do it on a hundred-acre scale, 200-acre scale. He wanted to be organic, said the production must be organic. He was a berry farmer on the mainland, and he always had an organic farm, and he wanted to have an organic tea farm. So we started off and sourced his tea and his raw materials from Africa and got it planted, and his soil was not acid enough, which is unusual for Hawaii, but this was an old sugar-cane plantation and they'd put down a lot of chalk, to benefit the sugar cane. This was 20 years ago, but it was still there. The normal way that you'd acidify soil for tea is to put sulfur on it. Sulfur is recognized by the organic people; they're happy with it. So he goes off to his supplier and when he sees the sulfur that he's offered, he says, "where does it come from?" and they say it's a by-product of the petrochemical industry, and he throws his hands up in horror! So we look and see what else we can get. It's possible to get sulfur which is rock sulfur, mined sulfur. The dilemma is, would you rape the countryside with big holes, ripping out rock sulfur, or would you use a by-product of the petrochemical industry that has to go somewhere, and is at least greening the petrochemical industry at least a little bit?

C: Why would the organic regulations say that you couldn't use petro-chemical by-products?

NM: the regulations don't say that you shouldn't, but they would prefer that you use the natural sulfur.

C: "Organic" meaning that you take it from the earth regardless of consequences? That makes no sense.

NM: No it doesn't make a lot of sense. That's why I say that sustainability and organic should be done with some degree of realism.

The interview is relatively lengthy, so it's been divided into three parts. Definitely worth every minute of your reading time and worth coming back to. Check it out here!

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Size Does Matter

Teapot-wise, that is.

Think about it. The more water you put into a pot, the hotter it will stay. A smaller amount of water will cool faster, even if you warm the pot first. This will affect the way that the tea brews when you put it into the pot. Even if a tea is meant to be brewed with water that has just come to a full boil, it is not meant to be kept at that temperature but to cool gradually as it steeps. This is why it is not recommended to place a tea cosy over your teapot while the leaves are still in there; the tea will stew.

I also think it is why some teas do not taste as good when brewed in a larger pot (much as I love my 6-8 cup London Pottery teapot, seen here coyly wearing its tea-cosy [tea-leaf free], it is better suited to herbal and robust black teas rather than anything more delicate).

Sometimes even brewing a two-cup pot rather than a single-cup pot can make a difference; I feel that the delicious Keemun from SanTion tastes better only brewed a single cup at a time, for example. Have you had a similar experience with the teas that you drink?

Spare Teacups?

No problem! Check out the nifty things you can do with mismatched, spare teacups...

Jess made a teacup succulent garden - doesn't it look beyond terrific, like something from a magazine shoot!

And Deb shares tutorials on how to make mini cake stands out of old plates and other crockery, including teacups - great for cupcakes or small things.

I would love to do either or both of these activities, and they seem pretty well within my creative abilities, but if you are totally talented and capable of something really challenging, then take some inspiration from this 'storm in a teacup' which I spotted on Tea for Joy:

Tea and Food: What to drink with Italian

I find that Italian food is one of the hardest with which to pair tea. There's just something about it that gives me a mental block for some reason. However, being stubborn, and preferring to drink tea to any other beverage no matter what the circumstances, I am trying to come up with some options.

This post focuses on the simpler, lighter-flavored Italian type foods, the ones that you might choose to  accompany with a white wine. So, think of things like a risotto with veggies, pasta with sauteed greens, dishes that actually include some white wine in the cooking - even pizza if it's a fresher sort that's light on cheese and meats. Jamie's Italy and not the local pizzeria kind of thing (unless your local pizzeria happens to be DOC or Ladro, in which case you are lucky).

In my opinion these dishes actually pair well with fruity Chinese greens and greener oolongs, I think because the fruity notes and dryness can be quite similar to those you find in white wine. So you could brew up a pot of bi luo chun or milk oolong and it would be right at home... sort of... at any rate it would taste good! This week I drank some milk oolong alongside a pasta dish of penne with rainbow chard and it was a very good combination.

 Milk oolong steaming from its initial rinse

Likewise you would also do well with a greenish first flush Darjeeling; I accompanied my pasta leftovers the next day with some Singbulli first flush - also a very acceptable partner. Basically, I think in your tea selection you are looking for something with a bit of fruit and a bit of astringency - not mouth puckering, just enough to let you know it's there.

Herbal tea-wise... I would try chamomile, spearmint, maybe even fresh basil, bay leaf or lemon myrtle, depending on what flavorings you were using in the dish. Aniseed tisane would be very refreshing for afterwards (and that way you wouldn't need any Sambuca!)*

I'm still trying to get my head around the kinds of tea you would serve with more robust Italian dishes such as bolognaise... Does anyone have any suggestions? Or is this just not going to work?

* Just kidding. You can have the Sambuca too.

Tea Stuff Roundup

I have read a few interesting tea blog articles over the last few days and thought some of them worth sharing.

This article 'Whose Tea Is That?' by Michael J Coffey of 'Tea Geek' has been getting quite a bit of kudos in my Twitter stream - deservedly so. Michael points out that most of the time we just don't know where our tea is coming from - and what's more, can you really say that one company's tea is better than another if they originally came from the same source? What is there to like about one, but not the other, in this case?

The issue is not just confined to single-origin unblended teas, either; in fact perhaps it's even more problematic in the case of flavoured teas. Take this quote from Charles Cain, who writes a fascinating blog about the process of opening a bricks and mortar tea store for a large US tea company, Adagio:

The supply chain for most teas sold in the US is ridiculously incestuous. Half of wholesalers buy from other wholesalers. It's not uncommon to find the same flavored tea, blended by the same large wholesaler, sold at dramatically different price points under the names of quite a few smaller wholesalers. Many independent retailers pride themselves on choosing only the finest teas for their collection. As proof of this, they buy from many different tea wholesalers. I've heard shop owners boast of having more than 30 tea vendors. The incredible irony is that I've also heard tea wholesalers boast of selling to the same shop owner under the name of a half dozen different companies. 

Read the rest of Charles' article here. Kind of depressing, isn't it. I suspect that things are not that different in Australia, although perhaps on a smaller scale; I know that in most retail tea shops I see a whole bunch of very similar blends, sometimes under slightly different names (think Monk Pear-type blends, French Earl Grey variants, Blue Mountain blends etc etc) that almost have to be imported from a bulk tea supplier somewhere in the world. They're just too similar to be individually made by each of the shops concerned. I'm not saying that these shops have NO originality because most of them probably do in some areas. I've just always found it a bit disappointing I suppose when I find that something I thought was unique actually isn't.

On the plus side it does mean you can shop around til you find the tea you like at the best price! Cloud, silver lining, etc.

Enough with the grumping, I didn't mean for this to be a depressing entry. Let's cheer ourselves up with a post from the awesome Stephane at Tea Masters (if you can't read the French, he does post a lot in English, and his photos are always worth a look). In this one he brews up a low-mountain oolong from Zu Shan and explains how important it is when starting out with tea to really get a feel for it. It can be so tempting to get a lot of small amounts of different teas and not really learn how all the variables (water, temperature, amount of leaf, even time of day) affect a single tea and your enjoyment of it. This is really sound advice and something I am going to pay more attention to.

Tea and Food: what to drink with chocolate

Last week I made some rather fabulous dark chocolate brownies, which I ended up eating accompanied by several different kinds of tea over the course of the week. Some pairings were more successful than others, and this set me to thinking that a series of posts about tea and food might not be a bad idea. If you have a particular kind of food you'd like me to focus on, just place a request in the comments and I'll do my best to accommodate it (barring seafood, of which I am not a fan).

So here's this week's instalment: teas to pair with CHOCOLATE - cake, brownies, or just all on it's lonesome own. Aw.

 Just crying out for some tea to keep it company!

My first recommendation: jasmine tea. I find that jasmine goes beautifully with moderately dark chocolatey things; the sweet floral taste offsets the slightly bitter chocolate very well. Even though I often prefer to drink my really good teas on their own, without any disruption to their flavour caused by combining them with food, I think it is actually worthwhile cracking out the good jasmine tea to have with your chocolate, simply because the jasmine flavour will be stronger. Keep the lower-rent jasmine for having with your Chinese takeaway and have a really top-notch one (I have still got some of the 2009 Moli Jin Zhen Wang from Amazing Green Tea which is just divine).

Second recommendation: a strong Japanese green - sencha or matcha, or why not both (like the Macchairi Kabuse Ryokucha I blogged about here). The bitter-sweetness of the tea and chocolate play off each other and the greenness of the tea cuts through the richness of the chocolate as well. I thought jasmine and chocolate was my favourite until I tried this. It's really an incredible combination.

If you are looking for a black tea I would go for something robust and a bit astringent like an Assam, or fruity like a second or Autumn flush Darjeeling; the taste of a first flush Darjeeling gets overwhelmed by the chocolate. I also felt that my beloved Yunnan Golden Tips didn't shine as I would have liked when I drank it alongside the brownie (which you can see in the corner of the picture in that post!). Earl Grey is a good option though and one I often choose when I am out somewhere like Koko Black; the floral/citrus taste of the bergamot is refreshing and also cuts through the richness.
 

Useful things to do while you wait for the kettle to boil

#5: Hunt frantically for a clean teapot then resign yourself to having to wash one of the dirty ones.

Useful things to do while you wait for the kettle to boil

#4: Find your prettiest cup and saucer... The special set you hardly ever use cos it's too good. It's not! Fetch it now!

Useful things to do while you wait for the kettle to boil

#3: Blog about things to do while you're waiting... sheer genius.

Useful things to do while you wait for the kettle to boil

#2: Get yourself a piece of cake or some nice biscuits... like HobNobs. Yum!

PS: the chocolate-coated ones are more fun.
PPS: I like that HobNobs have their own Wikipedia entry.
PPPS: If you were super-organised, you could make your own. I recommend this cake, and these biscuits!

Useful things to do while you wait for the kettle to boil

#1: Fold the nappies.