News

The Five Stages of Black Tea Production
Today’s interesting Tea Fact Producing black tea requires five successive operations. After the tea leaves are withered, a drying process that reduces their moisture content by half, enabling them to be rolled without breaking. This rolling or macerating, causes essential oils to be released but still retained within the leaf. The leaves are then carefully hand sorted according to size and form (whole or broken leaf). Next comes fermentation, which transforms the leaves from being ‘green’ through an Oolong stage (semi-fermented) to fully fermented ‘black’ tea. This fermentation process is... Read more...
Samuel Pepys and Dr. Samuel Johnson
According to Antony Burgess; Samuel Pepys, the diarist of the reign of Charles II, who came to the British throne in1660, writes of having drunk “tee (a China drinke) of which I had never drank before,” He does not say whether he liked it or not. There was at first some dissension as to its preparation. It could be either too strong or too weak? Should it be sweetened or not? In the eighteenth century the greatest tea drinker of all time established the way the British were to drink... Read more...
Assam Tea Interesting Facts
The upper Assam valley, in north-eastern India, is the world’s largest tea producing region. Its two thousand gardens account for almost a third of India’s annual harvest of 507 million kilograms, (compared to Darjeeling’s more modest 9.8 million kilograms) yet it was not until the early twentieth century that the jungle along the banks of the Brahmaputra River were finally cleared. Wild tea plants sixty feet high were discovered in 1823, in what is one of the wettest and least hospitable regions of the world. A typical Assam picker will... Read more...
A Golden Pagoda from Yunnan
Oh so quick… Just to say that both Elderflower and Stinging Nettle Teas are back in stock after a small hiatus. The Japanese Sencha Sakura and an unordered black Wild Cherry (rather than the green Wild Cherry) are back on the lists and in quantity. But most excitingly this week is a rather rare black Yunnan tea called GOLDEN PAGODA ORGANIC HAND TIED. It is quite sublime, a smooth, delicate and enjoyable taste and flavour as well as the joy of watching leaves that have been tied together slowly unfold... Read more...
London Coffee Festival 1 of 2
  Bit late on this one but you know how tempis fugits… Anyway just wanted to give a quick resume of the London Coffee Festival at the lovely Old Truman Brewery on Brick Lane.  It really was a great day from start to finish - the weather was superb and it seemed a shame to be spending it indoors, up until we got inside when we were enveloped by the heavenly smell of roasting and freshly brewed coffee. It was a very well attended show, (expecting 22,000 visitors) with an eclectic... Read more...
Three New Coffees...
Helen has let me have a go at blogging, and as we took delivery of three new coffees last Friday, I have taken it upon myself to  Read more...
Inaugural Post...
Crikey! This website lark isn't as easy as I thought it would be... Read more...