Rare Tea

Calming in times of national peril. Fortifying when courage is required.

Last November I made a little film about tea and the RAF. I had the great honour and privilege to meet Terry Clark, a veteran of the Battle of Britain. I wanted to take him something special so I made a bespoke blend - a really old school British tea. He rather liked it. I’ve been making it for him ever since. And then I got a call from the RAF. Can you imagine the excitement of jumping in a cab and asking the driver to take you to the Ministry of Defence on Whitehall?

This year is the 70th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain and to help celebrate the RAF asked me to make this bespoke blend on a bit of a larger scale. I don’t just make it for Terry anymore. From today it is available to everyone.

10% of the price you pay goes to the RAF Association Wings Appeal repaying just a little of what so many of us owe to so few; and to support the RAF museum.

Inside your tin you might find a golden ticket. Prizes include a year’s worth of free tea; dinner with Terry Clark and a FLIGHT IN A SPITFIRE.

Best of all the tea is utterly delicious- a blend of wonderful hand-crafted teas from two wonderful tea-gardens in Darjeeling and Malawi. It’s the good stuff.

Here it is and you can also get it in Sainsbury from Saturday 28th. Can you believe it?

I hope you like it. It’s a tea I’m really proud of.

At the offices of Rare Tea this morning my glamorous assistant, Storm, was feeling a bit low. It’s cold outside, the sky is gray and she wasn’t feeling great. I’m not suggesting that she might have had a heavy weekend of indulgence. No, no, not for a moment. It’s just a gray Monday morning.

We have a Rare Tea rescue remedy that never seems to fail. A pinch of gentle white leaf tea (packed with antioxidants that make your liver sing) and a pinch of our beautiful chamomile to sooth.

We’d love to know if you have a tea-rescue of your own?

videos.php

A few months ago I was doing a tutored tasting for the esteemed customers of Melrose and Morgan where I met a wonderful and dapper man, Bertie Miller.

Bertie fell for Rare Tea from the first sip, as almost everyone does when they get the good stuff. This was particularly lucky for me because Bertie is one half of WaterMill with Dave Waters.

They are god’s of the creative world and they agreed to help me. I am truly blessed.

Have a look at the first couple of films they made. And, do please pass on the link to anyone you know who likes tea. It would be wonderful if they spread faster than swine-flu.
http://www.rareteacompany.com/videos.php

There is an Aladdin’s cave of the most wondrous cheese close to South Ken Tube. La Cave à Fromage
I have spent many happy hours there eating cheese and drinking tea as Eric and I began matching the flavours.

The problem for cheese lovers is what to drink? Generally we eat cheese after a meal. If the wine has run dry do you open another bottle? A glass of pudding wine or a liqueur? Well, yes but not for lunch and not if you’re trying not to over indulge (a constant battle for me).

After dinner it’s usually coffee- which is very heavy on the pallet and no good with cheese.
Or milky tea- again, not good with cheese - nasty dairy slick.

Nor herbal infusions- they just don’t stand up to the powerful flavours.

But really good teas have the power and complexity to compliment the cheeses and are delicious enough to be drunk black (without milk). The tea combines perfectly with the creaminess of the cheese.

We are looking at oolongs, green teas and black teas. There is such an incredible diversity of flavours in tea depending on the season, the region, the varietal, the processing etc. just as there is with cheese. What we are trying to do is pair the flavours perfectly.

You might want to help us in this terribly arduous work. We’ll be doing a tea and cheese tasting at the shop on Wednesday evening next week 25th March. There may be a couple of places left - please call the shop on 0845 10 88 222 to reserve a place. If you miss this one there will more, I’m sure.

A few days ago I met Petra Barran and if I am the tea-lady she is the chocolate-lady. You have to be careful when you give her a cup of hot tea- she might melt. I know, I know she thought it was a poor joke too.

She is actually more than a chocolate-lady- she is a Choc Star. I can verify this by the quality of the Whoopie Pies she brought to have with tea.

With boundless enthusiasm she travels the country and soon the world making and creating wonderful treats. She is as excited about chocolate as I am about tea. Together we have plans a-foot for wonderful combinations.

I know, I know you don’t always want to be so pure as to drink white tea. A deep, dark black tea is often just the thing- especially with breakfast.

Breakfast tea differs from an afternoon tea in that it ought to be gentle on us first thing in the morning but strong enough to rouse us. This effect is mostly achieved by blending as many as 60 different teas - some decent- some not so- and putting them in a bleached paper bag.

Emperor’s Breakfast is nothing like that. It’s crafted from the very finest single estate China tea and not blended with anything. This is something completely different and yet reassuringly delicious.

Some people have said it’s not strong and bitter like their usual tea-bag. It’s not. Emperor’s Breakfast is crafted by masters and the bitter tannins are not heavily developed. This means you can drink this tea without milk (or with if you prefer). But it doesn’t mean the tea isn’t strong. It’ll give you the caffeine kick you require just like tea-bag tea. Bitter - as with coffee- does not necessarily mean strong or highly caffeinated.

If you want something more robust please mix in a pinch of Lost Malawi Tea. This has a lovely earthy tang which complements the delicate sweetness of the Emperor’s Breakfast. You might add a spoon of Muscatel Darjeeling. That would be really traditional Breakfast Tea. Blended at home to your personal taste and not dictated by the tyranny of the the big tea companies and what they put in bleached bag.

I know that industrial tea-bags have their place in the world. But in these troubling times a really good breakfast tea has it’s place too.

I don’t know if you noticed but we have a new white tea which is rather perfect for a wintry January after an indulgent December.

Like White Silver Tip Tea
White Whole Leaf Tea is a delicate white tea from the presitgeous Fuding area of Fujian, China. Both teas undergo the least processing of all teas having been just dried in the sunshine. They retain higher levels of antioxidants than other teas because of this. Indeed, it’s grown on the same farm from the same bushes as the silver tips.

The difference is that it is harvested differently.
Instead of just nipping the leaf bud before it opens to the first set of spring leaves (the silver tip) the tea is plucked to include the first spring leaves and the bud. This allows a more complex and developed flavour. Its still clean and fresh like a silver tip but with another level of -I know this sounds wierd- “creaminess”. You really must try it for yourselves because the tea is infinitely more eloquent than I am.

Its rich in antioxidants that help the body get rid of toxins which cant hurt after Christmas. And its delicate and delicious which is always good.

I got a lovely message from New York today from Maria who is pregnant.
She says the Jasmine Silver Tip Tea is really helping with her morning sickness.

Both staff and customers who have undergone grueling chemotherapy recommend drinking silver tips -not just because they contain the highest levels of antioxidants but because they are so gentle on a delicate tummy. Now we know the same is true for pregnancy.

Which all very nice but really I’m just rubbing my hands with avaricious glee. The baby will arrive addicted to the good-stuff. Another customer hooked.

Last week I worked hard. On Thursday I did 10 solid hours in-store tasting at Waitrose. Rushing across town was my only break but it was as exhilarating as it was exhausting.
The people at Waitrose were incredibly kind, helpful and encouraging. The customers were really appreciative that I bothered to be there myself; but not half as appreciative as I was when they took armfuls of my tea off the shelves.

By Friday my feet were sore and I was ready to sit down but never tired of tea. Even after a week of tasting I could still think of no better treat - so I invited the food-writers William Leigh and Simon Mujumdar (one of the celebrated Dos Hermanos) over to my place for … well, yes tea.

Simon and William wrote about it far more eloquently than I could on their blogs:
Dos Hermanos
The Boy Done Food
(forgive me Simon, for stealing the photo).

There is little I enjoy more than taking tea with people but it’s deeply pleasurable to make tea for people who are so fascinated by flavour and brimming over with ideas. William is making Panna Cotta with my jasmine silver tips and we have hatched a plan to pair teas with curries and create deliciously indulgent tea-cocktails.

The picture was taken inside of a bomb shelter. The warning went off just as I made a cup of tea (silver tip), didn’t want it to go to waste, so I took it with me.

Terry Dees

This was sent to me by a customer in Southern Afghanistan. Proof that a delicate silver tip is certainly the best cup of tea wherever you happen to be.