This Saturday I had the pleasure of attending an all day course with tea specialists Jane Pettigrew and Tim Clifton at the Chesterfield Mayfair Hotel, London. They refer to the course as a Tea Masterclass, and it’s a day packed full of tea tasting and learning all about tea, not to mention a lovely lunch and cream tea arranged by the Chesterfied.
The Day
A cup of a seven-year aged puerh tea and a welcoming introduction to Jane, Tim, and the rest of the course attendants served as the start for the days Masterclass, which only proceeded to get better from there on in. The atmosphere was just right. The day was relaxed, informal and full of question-answer dialogue. Yet, also very well coordinated, which saw us moving effortlessly from a series of presentations on tea, to tea tastings and back again.
The opening talk given by Jane charted the history of tea from its founding father and China’s first herbalist- Shen Nong, to tea’s journey around the globe, which has seen tea enthusiastically adopted throughout the world. Jane covered many topics from brewing tea to its health benefits, with a good amount of emphasis on tea processing. The role of oxidation in the development of all the different tea types, from white and green tea to black, oolong and puerh tea was well presented and very informative.
Tim Clifton, tea taster and consultant, told us all about the manufacture of black tea from plucking the leaves to their processing at the factory, which culminates at the auction house, where tea is sold. Tim spent five or so years training as a tea taster in Sri Lanka and his talks were packed full of anecdotes and behind the scenes stories from the world of tea.
Interspersed throughout the informal presentations was tea of course! We started out with a variety of black teas: a Darjeeling, Assam, Assam CTC, Ceylon Uva, Kenya, and a Chinese Yunnan. Then onto white and green teas: a Silver Needle, Dragon Well, Sencha, followed by a yellow tea, simply called Yellow Buds. Last were oolongs and another puerh tea. The oolongs were probably the highlight of the tasting sessions for me. We had a Taiwanese oolong that was just so full of floral notes and honeyed undertones, it was heaven!
The Highlights
What came through from Jane and Tim was their passion for tea. They’ve both been on quite a few adventures, which has seen them literally out in the middle of nowhere in pursuit of learning more about tea and the people who make it. They had loads of photos from their travels and it was just amazing to see the range of conditions that tea is made in- from large plantations and factories, to home kitchens! One really got a sense of the extent to which tea is integrated into the lives of the people who have been cultivating it for centuries and seeing this was by far the highlight for me.
All in all it was a great day. A lot of the information that Jane and Tim covered can be found in Jane’s book “Tea Classified”, which is given out at the end of the course. So I was able to just sit back, relax and enjoy the stories from their travels, their enthusiasm for tea culture, as well as the very well selected teas.
Posted in About Chocolate | You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
