Rare Tea

I got the most lovely email a few minutes ago.
It said:

Thought you might enjoy my blog post - well done on the award and keep it up!

I eagerly clicked the link
prgeek.blogspot.com

Luckily it wasn’t anything nasty- (Note to spammers and virus disseminators - congratulate or flatter me and I open anything) it was something rather lovely.
It’s kindness like this that holds it all together. The fact that you voted for me at the OFM awards (did I mention that?) really brought home to me how Rare Tea is so much more than me selling and you buying.

I have never advertised and word has spread through the kindness of strangers and the eloquence of good tea.

Here I am being interviewed at the awards.
I had a foot operation recently (long story) and its still pretty swollen making shoes difficult. I asked the surgeon what I should do when I was getting my award and wanted to wear something a little bit nicer than trainers. He said- load up on painkillers. Then I loaded up on champagne. Can you tell?

You’re not going to believe this.

Here I am just back from a wonderful party thrown by the Observer Food Monthly.

I know, I know just look! I won!
Rare Tea was voted the Best Online/Independent Retailer 2009.

I am really grateful to everyone who voted for Rare Tea.
I’m overwhelmed.
I’m just a tiny fish and your votes splashed me into the big pond.
Thank you.

There is a tea, a very good tea that I’ve just added to the Limited Editions.
I could only get a very little of it. Produced in tiny quantities it is so valued in China that demand far outstrips supply. It was only through the kindness of my friends in China that I was able to purchase a small amount.

I know it seems expensive but consider the price of really fine wine. This goes a great deal further. If you make it carefully the leaves can be re-infused at least six times.

Forgive me for going on about this but in difficult times we need affordable luxuries and proper tea is not theft.

These are hand-crafted whole leaves. The tiny particles of industrially processed tea you find in a tea-bag have a massive surface area and give up their flavour immediately- like a floozy. Whole leaves take time to infuse and keep revealing a little more subtlety with each infusion.

If you use 1g per cup and there are 50g in the canister that will give you 50 cups x 6 infusions = 300cups. That’s under 17p a cup. Consider the cost of a glass of fabulously rare wine or even a cup of ordinary tea from a take away coffee place.
Even if you are really decadent and only infuse the tea twice (just once would be criminal) that’s only 50p a cup.

I do hope you enjoy it- please let me know. I hate to hassle you but you may have to be quick. I only have 12 canisters.

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.

Rare Tea has been chosen again to participate in the Real Food Festival

Earls Court 1, London
8th-10th May 2009

What makes this show different is that its not about how much money a company has to throw at publicity. The festival selects and sponsors small producers so little-fish (like me) can afford to be there. Its more about small farmers and producers than big business.

I’ll be there for the full 3 days making tea for anyone and everyone who will stop and chat. Please do. And if you follow this link and use this code GTSJV to buy your tickets you get a 20% discount.

The other night the illustrious bloggers Dos Hermanos hosted a dinner at the excellent Vinoteca.

I’d met up with the chefs a few weeks earlier to introduce them to my teas and allow them time to create something wondrous. Oh my goodness they did. After the cheese course came the tea course. I nipped into the kitchen and did my tea-lady bit and made Emperor’s Breakfast for thirty which was served with the most delicate parfait made with the same tea. It was a triumph of the great and inventive cooking at Vinoteca as well as for the tea.

I can’t begin to explain what pleasure it was seeing people, foodie people no less, really appreciate a black tea as though it were a fine wine. The milk and sugar where in the parfait and perfectly balanced the deep caramel and tannin of the tea.

People came up to me afterward and explained they had never tasted tea like this and yet they had been drinking tea all their lives. You can imagine how I puffed up like a puffer fish. By the end of the night I was so full of delicious Portuguese wine and pride that I could hardly waddle home.