I do hope you all have a lovely white (silver tip tea) Christmas.
It really, really helps with the hangover.
Not that you would ever overindulge but just in case you had to offer solace to someone who had, obviously.
All the best.
Henrietta
Tea-Lady
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.
Just a gentle reminder that the last day for sending out parcels to arrive in time for Christmas is one week away:
Friday 19th December
If you want you’re tea to get to Europe it’s today.
Unless , of course, you are in Italy. In which case you should have ordered you’re tea back in October. I send out a lot of parcels and nowhere in the world takes longer than Italy. A week to the NZ, easy. A month to Turin, maybe.
If you are in Italy, email cs@rareteacompany.com and we can organise a special delivery.
I hope you’ll agree Rare Tea makes an affordable but wonderfully luxurious Christmas present. Sir, may I suggest the Gift Collection? Madam might be interested in the Limited Edition Collection?
There is no Post and Package charge within the UK. I decided it was cruel to add extra costs at the check-out. I hope this makes you love Rare Tea even more.
If you want something wrapped and a card added do email.
Did you see the lovely bit about Rare Tea by Lucas Hollweg in the Sunday Times Style Magazine this weekend?
Henrietta Lovell’s Rare Tea Co sells some of the world’s most delicious teas. So delicious, in fact, that her jasmine silver tips have permanently changed my tea-drinking habits. The good news is you can now buy her teas in selected Waitrose (call 0800 188884 for branches). They cost more than your average char, but you not only get wonderful flavours (and rather a pretty tin), but several brews from each lot of leaves. As Lovell says: “Proper tea is not theft.”
I mangled the quote from Proudhon (Property is theft). I don’t think he would have approved.
There is a wonderful estate in Cornwall called Tregothnan. At the heart of the estate is a private botanical garden and at the center of the garden is tea.
The first ever commercial tea-garden in Britain.
The Head Gardener, Jonathon Jones, showed me around the garden when I first visited him in June 2007. I was amazed at the beauty of the place and astonished by his tea-garden. Like me he is a tea obsessive and like me he leaps from one topic of conversation to another, juggling several at once. Our conversations must seem like jibberish to most people but it is a great pleasure to find someone who I don’t have to finish my sentences for.
But it is Jonathon’s devotion to producing the very best tea he can that really won me over.
Today I launched Tregothnan’s Earl Grey on the website.
www.rareteacompany.com.
This really is my favourite Earl Grey tea. And its uniqueness matches it’s flavour. Not only is it made from Cornish tea-leaves (blended with Assam) but it is made by the descendants of the Earl Grey of it’s invention.
I hope you enjoy it.
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.