Proper Tea Is Not Theft

There's no reason why really good quality tea leaves couldn't be put in pre-packed tea bags. It's just that they generally aren't.
I've been to tea processing plants across the tea growing world and I've watched them shovel the by-product of leaf tea into the tea bagging machines.

It's actually called "tea dust".

When you consider that the best tea sells for several hundreds of dollars a kilo and the poorest quality for a few dollars it's not hard to imagine that less scrupulous tea sellers might not use the best.

But most importantly the best teas are whole-leaf. They are crafted by masters and havent been through the hurly-burly of machine processing. The leaves remain largely unbroken. These leaves need space to unfurl. A tea bag would have to be huge (like the empty 'fill your own' tea bags). You may have come across the silk or fine plastic mesh bags replacing paper. These may look pretty but does the tea inside? And if it is the good-stuff let it free! Let is swirl around the tea-pot releasing its most subtle flavours.

Do you really need more packaging in your life?

I've traveled all over the world to source the finest tea from small mountain tea gardens producing the very best tea. Being certain that Rare Tea sells the best tea available anywhere means I put everything I have into a company I am passionate about and tea I'm really proud of.

Unsurprisingly, its not always easy and there are those who say, "Don't bother, tea's tea."

Then I get an email like this one from Nick at Eat the Seasons a well respected resource for food lovers named as one of the '50 Best Food Websites' in the Independent.

"Well, I've just had my first two cups of White Silver Tip Tea. Being a fairly indiscriminate and infrequent tea drinker I was a bit worried that I wouldn't be able to tell it from my ordinary ****** tea bag. Fortunately this wasn't the case. It has a balance and purity of flavour that clearly sets it apart - like a fine Burgundy compared with a rustic table wine. Lovely stuff."

A cup of tea at a high street coffee chain costs in the region of £1.70/$3
For this you get a mass produced tea bag dumped in the bottom of a cup and hot water.

The good stuff may seem expensive but not when you break it down.

Each serving can be infused three times. The second infusion is the best. It takes time for the water to penetrate deep into the leaves and each time you infuse them different subtleties of flavour are revealed.
The nasty tea-bag stuff is a cheap little hussy that has a massive surface area and gives up its bitter flavour almost immediately. Okay, okay sometimes you want a cheap little hussy but sometimes you want a little more.

Buying losses leaf tea will only cost you pennies a cup. My teas are crafted by masters and you can enjoy them for pennies a cup. It's amazing.

The photos on this page show the harvest of the most wonderful white tea. Is it all mouth and no trousers - as they say in Scotland? Or is it really special?

Firstly, the tips have to be at exactly the right stage of development. They are delicate spring buds, covered in silky white down, just about reach maturity and open to the sun. The picking is incredibly meticulous. It's a very precise art. Once the leaves are open it becomes a rather wonderful but ordinary tea leaf. The silver tips are so special because they are just that- tips- just the delicate little leaf buds.

This is not just for appearances sake. Its not style over substance or gimmick over flavour. Not open to the sun, silver tips have not begun to photosynthesize so they are extremely low in caffeine and tannin. Not only won't you get the jitters even if you drink it all day but it's incredibly sweet and delicious without the tongue drying bitterness of ordinary tea. You really can't conceive that tea can taste so fresh and clean until you try it. And once you've tried it there's no going back to cheap black tea that has to be cloaked in milk and sugar to make it bearable.

Am I being an anorak? Yup, I am, but I just can't stop myself.

Secondly, it has to be a clear sunny day so that the tips can be laid out in the sun to dry- White Silver Tip Tea undergoes absolutely no processing- that's all that happens to it- nothing else. If you think about what's inside an ordinary tea bag you can see that this is not what normally happens. Normally tea is withered and broken and toasted and fermented and passed through all kinds of machines. White Silver tip is just harvested and laid out to dry, so it retains much more of its natural antioxidants.

With only one growing season a year the white silver tips are incredibly rare and special. Only the most experienced pluckers can harvest them. Instead of returning from the tea garden with huge sacks of tea leaves they come back from a whole days plucking with just a small basket of tips. They are rewarded for their efforts not by weight, as with other tea pluckers, but for the quality of the tips.

1. Tea Pot
White tea is very delicate. A silver or metal tea pot can taint the tea as can your favourite tea pot that has been used over and over for black tea.
Its best to use a clean glass or ceramic pot.
2. Water temperature
If you can catch the kettle just before it reaches the rolling boil that makes the best white tea because the amino acids responsible for the lovely grassy flavours dissolve at a lower temperature. John Lewis sell their own brand kettle that has two temperature settings with the lower one being perfect for white tea.
3. Brewing time
White tea needs longer. Well, the good stuff does. If you buy a whole leaf tea like my Limited Edition Darjeelings or the tightly furled Silver Tips it takes time for the water to penetrate deep into the leaf. They are not chopped and broken like black teas which have high surface areas and rapidly give up their flavours. It takes time for the water to penetrate the whole leaves of these white teas. They wont become bitter like black teas because the tannin has not been developed through oxidization.

Lastly I recommend brewing white tea in small batches with a high leaf-to-water ratio.
To make one cup of tea take a good pinch of tea and infuse it with just one cup of hot water. I measure the water with the teacups before I pour it into the tea pot so I am sure I have the correct amount of water. Infuse for roughly 4 minutes and then pour all the tea leaving the leaves at the bottom of the pot. Because they are no longer steeping they will be perfect for a second infusion and a third. You can keep re-infusing the leaves by adding fresh water. This will reveal wonderful subtleties of flavour instead of swamping the leaves in one big pot of water the way one makes black tea.

I hope this helps

You've just made a cup of White Silver Tip Tea (you can buy it at www.rarteacompany.com) and it is sitting there all pale gold innocence. You know its pure and delicious. You'd never sully it with sugar, far less gloopy milk. But there is one question that niggles; one tiny foothold of doubt in the otherwise smooth sides of your enjoyment.
Caffeine?
Yes, it does have caffeine. All tea does. Who knows why it came about but lots of people seem to believe that green tea is caffeine free.

All tea comes from the same plant- Camellia Sinensis- like the Camellia you've got in the garden but this variety focuses its energy on its leaves rather than its flowers. (Please don't try making tea from your garden, it wont taste very nice at all.) What makes green tea different from black tea is the way the leaves are processed. Black tea goes through fermentation and the rough and tumble of machinery to bring out the heavy, bitter tannins. Green tea is lightly fired to develop the softer, fresher flavours and deliciously delicate white tea is just dried. Different varieties of the tea plant do have different levels of caffeine but basically if it all comes from the same plant you're going to get the same amount of caffeine.

However, the fact that Silver Tip Tea is made entirely from leaf buds that have not begun to photosynthesize means that its caffeine levels are lower.

The number of times you use these tips can greatly reduce your caffeine intake. Experiments have shown that ordinary green tea after a first 5 minute brew contains 32 mg caffeine. But if the same leaves are then used for a second and then a third five minute brew, the caffeine drops to 12 mg and then 4 mg.

If you want to infuse the leaves more than once, you have to use really decent tea. It has to be whole leaves or leaf buds. If it comes in a tea bag don't try it- it becomes either bitter seaweedy stew or dish water. But with all the teas I bring back from around the world you will find different flavours are released each time you infuse them. This is truly the epicurean way to drink tea (its not about having short arms and deep pockets).

If you really want to cut down on the caffeine do not drink the first brief infusion. This is referred to as 'washing' the leaves and often done in Chinese tea ceremonies when the absolutely perfect cup is required. (I drink this first infusion because I enjoy all the flavours really good tea reveals, but strictly speaking the second cup is the best.)

In all cases, it should be remembered to never use boiling water. The high temperature can destroy valuable therapeutic compounds and destroy the finer flavours. Also, instead of leaving the leaves stewing drain them completely between infusions.

Bossy? Yes.