Last Year we won 3 Gold stars for White Silver Tip Tea and 1 Gold Star for Oolong.
This year I entered the others: Jasmine Silver Tip, Whole Leaf Green Tea and Emperor’s Breakfast and they ALL won Two Gold Stars.
Really chuffed. Its the Oscars of the tea world. The stars are given out in blind tasting by the the great and good of the food world and their high opinion gives me a huge boost.
Onwards and upwards!
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.
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.