Brew News - the Yorkshire Tea blog

At Yorkshire Tea, Ian Brabbin is the undisputed Head of Tea. It’s not only a great title but it’s also a big responsibility as he leads the expert buying team that, amongst other things, ensures that the supply of top quality teas that go into Yorkshire Tea keeps flowing.

To secure the best teas, you need to have strong, sustainable relationships with the people that actually grow and supply it. The best relationships are face to face, which is why Ian and his Yorkshire Tea buying team take it in turns to travel to some of the best tea gardens in the world to check on the quality of the teas and, equally importantly, the quality of life of the farmers and growers.

Recently, Ian returned from a trip to China and India. Because demand for Yorkshire Tea is higher than ever, Ian has been looking for new sources that can not only deliver the highest quality teas, but also do it to our high ethical standards.

This blog can’t even begin to cover both countries, so let’s just focus a little on China.

China is a massive country for tea. There are over 300 different varieties and 1.5 billion kgs of tea are grown there every year. That accounts for more than a third of all the tea grown in the world and over a billion kgs of that is green tea. So precious is tea in China, there are entire shops dedicated to tea and tea paraphernalia as people give special tea as gifts. Many also take flasks of tea everywhere with them that they continually top up.

Ian visited tea growers in central China, which wasn’t the most accessible – not like popping down to the shops for a pack of Yorkshire Tea. After a 5-hour drive into the heart of the Province, Ian visited a small factory at 800 metres above sea level that made organic tea before continuing another 4 hours to arrive at midnight close to a region where the smallholders have been certified by Fairtrade.

Ian recalls that this was where the adventure started: “There had been horrendous rain over the previous fortnight and there had been scary looking landslides. The road we were travelling on to the village was blocked by mud, trees and rubble, so we abandoned the car and had to walk a few miles in the heavy rain.”

Ian was then met by the chairman of the local community who took them clambering a further mile up a hillside over rocks and trees. “I nearly trod on a snake! But when we got to the top it was stunning and as rural as you could ever get” said Ian.

The community Ian visited consists of 58 smallholder farmers who grow Fairtrade certified tea and are part of a co-op that is also certified.

“Having met the farmers and spent time in their beautiful village I am keen for us to source some speciality teas from this area. Fairtrade premiums have enabled the growers to tarmac the road from the village to the main road and they have bought a new lorry to transport the green tea to the nearby factory.

“We pay a premium for quality teas and by paying good prices, we get the pick of the crop and make a real difference to the lives of the people that grow our tea” explained Ian.

In fact, the six-hour drive back in torrential rain and lightning gave Ian the perfect opportunity to think: “It was a really useful and fascinating visit, I feel I know much more about where our Chinese teas come from.”

And on a slightly different note, Ian added: “I had some of the spiciest food I’ve ever experienced in China. It was mind-blowingly hot. After my taste buds had recovered, I cupped some fantastic speciality teas over there. Mao Feng, which was light and delicate, and also flowering teas where chrysanthemum flowers are hand sown into the tea leaves. Really wonderful.”

So that’s just a glimpse into the lives of our growers and Ian, our Head of Tea. We think all tea should be grown, treated and brewed properly. What do you think?

Since the beginning of May, we’ve been supporting village cricket teams the length of Britain in the Yorkshire Tea Village Cup. Unfortunately, the weather hasn’t been quite so supportive. But we’re British – and a proper brew sipped through a stiff upper lip is all we need to get through this together.

So far, numerous washouts aside, it’s been a fantastic competition, with some really cracking games, and this last weekend was the Regional Finals. It all started with 300 teams from all over the UK. Due to ‘inclement’ weather, 64 teams are currently in the middle of batting and bowling it out with each other in their region’s Finals. It’s a big deal to village cricketers, as the two teams that face each other in the national final will do so at Lords – the home of cricket – on 9^th September.

Little Urn has been out and about getting to as many games as possible, serving Yorkshire Tea to people who really appreciate a proper brew. Cricket lovers really do love their tea – what better proof than the fact that cricket is the only game that actually stops for tea?

We’ve also been looking for the Best Cricket Tea of each round and we’ve seen some mightily impressive spreads. Everything from delicate sandwiches with their crusts cut off and flaky, meaty sausage rolls to wonderfully light sponge cakes and scrummy scones – all with lashings of Yorkshire Tea. Competing Yorkshire Tea Village Cup teams just tweet us a pic of their cricket tea and the most delicious looking one of each round wins a whole cricket season’s supply of Yorkshire Tea.

We’ve also been looking after Yorkshire and England cricketer Tim Bresnan and the rest of the England Team, by keeping them topped up with Graham Gooch’s favourite brew, Yorkshire Gold. It certainly seemed to help against the West Indies.

Little Urn, along with our friends at Barrington Sports (who provide lots of cricket fun, games and prizes) have been from Birmingham to East Sussex and Neston on the Wirral. Little Urn was also all set to hit Fort William Cricket Club (the wettest ground in Britain) with proper brews, but you guessed it, the match was rained off, as was last weekend’s North Yorkshire North Regional Final at Studley Royal Cricket Club.

The weather is just not playing cricket.

We’re hoping the Regional Finals that were rained off last weekend will be played this Sunday and Little Urn will be able to make it to Sessay who’ll be hosting Studley Royal. On Sunday 1 July, Little Urn, the Brew Crew and Barrington Sports will be squeezing in at the smallest and possibly most picturesque cricket ground in the country at Tolethorpe Cricket Club in Rutland… weather permitting, of course.

So that’s where we’re at in our Summer of Cricket and there’s still plenty more action to come. You can see all the results so far and forthcoming fixtures here and you can also follow us on Twitter if you’d like the highlights. There’s also still time to win a custom made ‘Rolls Royce’ of cricket bats on our Facebook page – click here to enter.

We work hard at Yorkshire Tea to keep Britain in proper brews and Yorkshire Tea flowing. Because more and more people are getting the taste for a good, strong satisfying cuppa, we often have to put in overtime to fill the 22 million teabags we make every day. You’re a thirsty lot.

There are four Yorkshire Tea production lines at our factory in Harrogate, but we don’t simply call them 1, 2, 3 and 4. Oh no. Each is named after one of our favourite Yorkshire rivers: the Wharfe, Nidd, Swale and Esk. It’s much nicer having names isn’t it?

If you’ve got a box of Yorkshire Tea, you can actually tell which river it flowed down to be bagged and packed. Take a quick look at the back of your box now and you should see a code just before the use by date…. it’s a series of letters and numbers. Found it? Good.

Now it should look something like: 2164 NBO 14:46.

Right, let’s start with the numbers. The ‘2’ indicates the year, in this case, 2012. Next ‘164’ is the 164th day of the year, which was this Wednesday. Don’t worry if yours is older, every box is cellophane-wrapped for freshness to last 18 months and once they’re opened, they probably don’t hang about for long.

The first letter is the river name, which in this case is ‘N’ for Nidd which is the river that is just a mile from us in Harrogate. The others are ‘W’ for Wharfe, ‘S’ for Swale and ‘E’ for Esk.

The second ‘B’ letter tells us which actual machine on Nidd made the tea bags and packed them into the box.

The last letter tells you which blend it is; ‘O’ for orange Yorkshire Tea, ‘H’ for Hard Water and ‘D’ for Decaffeinated – though you can tell that from the front of the box, of course.

Finally, 14:46 is the time this pack was born.

So what? Well, we do this not only so you’ll know which river your proper brews flowed down at our factory, we do it for quality control purposes. So if there’s ever a problem with a single tea bag, we can trace it right back to the day, production line and actual machine your Yorkshire Tea was bagged and packed by. We’re very big on quality control here.

We’ll also let you into another secret. If you happen to be a bit posh and drink our Yorkshire Gold tea bags, then the last letter will be either a ‘W’ or an ‘E’. This is just another thing that makes Yorkshire Gold so special. These letters stand for ‘West’ and ‘East’. Because water is generally harder in the East of the UK compared to the West, we actually blend Yorkshire Gold especially for hard water for customers on the eastern side of the country so wherever you live, you get the best possible brew.

Why not let us know which river your box flowed down by leaving a comment below?

Water bed? Sarah's Oatlands Infants Ladies team perform a 'dry run' for Saturday's bed race.

If you had to choose between Yorkshire Tea and bed, would you lose sleep over your decision? Well, in Knaresborough (the town next door to us in Harrogate), they love bed so much, they decorate them, take them to the streets, parade them and then race them. No, seriously, they do. In fact, we’re no strangers to taking part either.

Every second Saturday in June, The Great Knaresborough Bed Race brings the whole community together for one great big, ridiculous (and sometimes downright dangerous) race down steep cobbled streets and across the River Nidd. It’s fantastic, quintessentially British and brings the whole town to a complete standstill.

Russ from our warehouse races most years to raise funds for the fire service, but this year he’s going to mind the fire engine and let kids clamber over it whilst some of the other fire fighters race the bed. However, Sarah from the Taylors sales team is competing. Sarah seems remarkably confident – she should be as she and the five other ladies racing have been training hard for this for the last 4 months with 4-mile runs around Harrogate.

Sarah’s team is called the ‘Oatlands Infants Ladies’ and is taking part to raise money that will be split between funding playground improvements for Oatlands School where their kids attend and Yorkshire Cancer Research. You can donate before during and after the event here. Simply search for ‘Oatlands Infants’, click ‘View profile and events’, then ‘More event details’.

Each year there is a theme for decorating the beds and for this Saturday’s 2012 Great Knaresborough Bed Race the theme is ‘Olympic Nations’. Sarah and the Oatlands Infants Ladies are having their bed decorated to represent Pakistan with pictures by the school children and with help from their teacher.

First, the beds are decorated and paraded through Knaresborough at 1pm before the race. Sarah and the girls will be joined by some of the children from the school and there is a prize for the best decorated bed.

“The kids and the team spent three and a half hours in Bombay Stores in Bradford getting kitted out for the parade. You won’t be able to miss us!” said Sarah.

Sarah likes her Yorkshire Tea strong and is one tough cookie who attends Armed Forces Fitness training three times a week… she’ll need to be to complete the grueling course. At 3pm, the race will start. Ninety teams compete which are ranked 1 to 90 according to how well they have performed the previous year – one being last year’s winner. Sarah and the Oatlands Infants Ladies team are number 55. They’re hoping to finish higher this year as they want to beat the dads’ team that ran last year. They’re ridiculously competitive and the ladies fought hard to win the right to race this year.

Each team has six members plus a ‘sleeper’ who must remain on the bed at all times. Sarah’s team’s sleeper is Miss Gibbs, a slight 7.5 stone Oatlands teacher. Teams set off at ten-second intervals and race the 2.2-mile route along the waterside, up a steep hill and around the Marketplace before swimming, with their beds, across the River Nidd to the finishing line in Conyngham Hall Fields.

“We did a dry run a few weeks ago. It wasn’t really a dry run as we crossed the river too. Red hot from running then plunging into the river was a real shock. Really takes your breath away” said an excited and slightly nervous Sarah.

Well, good luck Sarah and the Oatlands Infants Ladies Bed Race Team. Enjoy your lie in on Sunday morning – we think you’ll have definitely earned it. Remember, you can make a donation here.

We love a good tea party at Yorkshire Tea and this Jubilee weekend looks set to be jam-packed with them. We’ve teamed up with the National Trust to support tea parties and keep the tea flowing on their properties all over the UK this weekend. They’re open to the public too, so click here to find the tea party nearest you.

We’ve already been warming the pot and getting tea party started!

Now we all know that Little Urn is a great little mover. He’s nimble on his tires and turns on a sixpence. It’s just as well considering where he was last Saturday. Little Urn and his Brew Crew for the day – tea experts Suzy and Henry – love travelling to far-flung places, but this week they were keeping it local by appearing at a rather special charity event in Armley, Leeds… ‘Teapots & Twirls’.

Last year, tea-potty Jules won a visit from Little Urn in a competition we ran but for one reason or another (Little Urn going to America, then recuperating at the mechanics afterwards, for one) he didn’t make his guest appearance till just this week.

The lovely Jules does a lot of great work for local charities and had the idea of putting on a tea dance – a proper retro one. She pulled together her ‘Teapots & Twirls’ line-up of swing and blues band the ‘Leeds City Stompers’, together with her dancing friend Tessa and her Andrews Sisters tribute band ‘The Honeybirds’. Jules handmade 50 metres of bunting, then rounded up an army of cake-bakers and raffle prize-donators. Someone even concocted a special teapot cocktail of Yorkshire Tea, apricot jam and gin! That certainly got the party swinging.

Trainee tea buyer Henry summed the day up perfectly: “It was a fantastic event with a real community and fun vibe to it. There was a great atmosphere, lovely weather, plenty of jiving and tea sipping. Jules was over the moon with Little Urn being there.”

A great time was had and ‘Teapots & Twirls’ raised a much-needed £512 for The Prince Of Wales Hospice in Pontefract that cares for people with life-limiting illness and their families.

Jules, you’re a diamond – we raise our teacups to you, and everyone else that made it happen.

If any fellow Yorkshire Tea lovers could throw a little something in the charity’s pot, that would be rather lovely too.

With the deadline for applications to our new grad scheme approaching, we asked our Head of HR Anna to tell us a bit more. Here’s what she had to say about it…

“Bettys & Taylors is a business centred around people and relationships, so development is a real focus for us. With fewer businesses offering graduate placements these days, I’m really pleased we’re in the fortunate position to be able to open up 10 graduate placements to begin in September this year.

We’ve taken on graduates before and have some wonderful success stories as a result, but this is the first time we have taken on so many in one intake. This presents lots of challenges (not least reading all the applications we’re receiving!) but there are lots of pluses to taking on 10 at once too. We hope the graduates we choose will form a peer group and will benefit from going through their learning and development journey together.

The programme is open to all graduates who meet the criteria. This may include some who graduated several years ago – we welcome a really wide range of applicants.

I’m looking forward to the assessment days in July, when I’ll get to put faces to the names on application forms. It’ll be rewarding to see the successful applicants grow and develop in their careers here.”

The deadline for applications is 12pm on Monday 11 June, so get in quick – and click here if you’d like to know more.