Ello, ello, ello.

We’ve been on the beat with a bobby again – Yorkshire bobby turned author, Mike Pannett, that is. Regular readers might have read about Mike here before as we’ve been working with him for a good while now – he’s even been in to do a private reading for the Fondant Fancies, our very own workplace WI.

This time we’ve been touring the country with Mike to spread the word about his latest book, Not On My Patch Lad, which is filled with tales from his days policing North Yorkshire. Not only that but we’re in it too – Mike was so appreciative of our help with his last book that he’s thanked us in the new one. We’re very honoured.

Mike spent many years down south working for the Metropolitan Police before eventually heading back to his home county, but far from finding a more peaceful life, he quickly discovered that policing the dales was no picnic. His books draw on his many experiences, both warmly funny and deadly serious, and make for a riveting read.

So with Little Urn in tow to ensure there was plenty of tea to go round, we’ve been meeting people at supermarkets and bookshops, giving them a chance to meet the man himself and even pick up a signed copy of his book. And we had a great time doing it too!

If you missed the tour and would love a signed copy of Mike’s book, we’ve got some good news for you. We’ve got ten signed first-edition copies of Not On My Patch Lad to give away. For chance to win, email our Liz with the answer to the following question by Wednesday 15th September.

Which police force did Mike serve in prior to joining North Yorkshire police?

Good luck everyone – and don’t forget to include your contact details!

For competition T&Cs click here.

28,000 miles over 3 continents to visit 84 factories in 7 countries… all in the name of tea!

To those of you who’ve not read my previous posts, I’ve just returned from the tea buying trip of a lifetime. I’m the first trainee Tea Buyer at Taylors to complete a 6 month training trip for several years, during which I travelled to major tea producing countries across the globe.

We have a very personal approach to tea buying at Taylors and the face-to-face relationships we build with our producers is a real advantage in the fast changing world of tea. My trip was an important opportunity for me to build on these relationships, as well as getting lots of first-hand experience of the tea growing process along the way.

The first leg of my journey covered Rwanda, Malawi, South Africa and Kenya, where I had the chance to experience the buzz of the Mombasa Tea Auction, which sells tea from East Africa to the rest of the globe. Each week there are between 90,000 and 120,000 packages of tea on offer and, in the fast-paced race for the best teas at the best price, you have to think very quickly!

My time in Africa was also a chance for me to see how we’re helping in Rwanda. I visited estates that are part of a project part-funded by us and the Department for International Development to support 10,000 Rwandan farmers in quality and sustainability improvements, in partnership with Rainforest Alliance. It was really encouraging to see that the will is there to boost the marketability of Rwandan tea and certification will really benefit the farmers and workers on the ground. The rolling hills of Rwanda’s tea estates are literally covered in lush green tea bushes, and the volcanic soils and high altitude make for unique growing conditions that really set their tea apart.

South Africa was the last destination on the African part of my trip, where I learned not only about the black tea industry but also Rooibos (or Redbush) tea – not technically a tea as it’s not from the camellia sinensis bush, but it has been enjoyed for hundreds of years by the local inhabitants of the Cape and is renowned for having tasty and healthy properties.

India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia formed the second leg of my trip and I arrived in India just in time for the peak quality Assam season, which only lasts for a short while. Here I visited 30 gardens in 30 days, flying in a 4-seater plane across the great Brahmaputra river.

The processing of the leaf in Assam is unique and requires much attention to detail. Each factory has a chief tea maker, known as the Head Tea House. Many have been making tea for 20 to 30 years – and really, what they don’t know about Assam tea manufacture is probably not worth knowing!

I have to say I felt very proud to be travelling as part of Taylors. Everywhere I went I was really well received and my reception reflected the good reputation and relationships that have been established over the years. As a business we are much closer to the industry than most as we travel directly to the factories, roll up our sleeves, and work alongside our suppliers rather than visiting a head office miles away from the action.

From all of this exposure to so many of our suppliers around the world I have learnt an awful lot, but I also realise that I’ve really just scratched the surface of the tea industry. There are 19 million people around the world who are involved in tea production so I’m returning to Taylors with a great sense of responsibility, knowing that Yorkshire Tea represents a huge, complex, fascinating and friendly industry – so my training trip might be at an end but, really, my journey’s just beginning!

Allow us to explain. The 75 year old in question is actually the De La Warr Pavilion in East Sussex, a great event and exhibition space you might remember reading about on our blog a few months ago.

Following their successful Wallace & Gromit weekend last Christmas we jumped at the chance to help them celebrate their 75th anniversary this Bank Holiday weekend – so we’re sending loads of tea and cake to help their tea party go with a swing.

As well as inviting people to come and help them recreate this vintage group photo shown above (which originally appeared in the Daily Mirror in 1936) there will also be street-party dancing with tunes from DJ Nikki Beatnik, parkour displays from Urban Shadows and loads more entertaining stuff. To find out more about the event, click here.

To say thanks for providing tea party goodies, the DLWP folk have given us 5 pairs of these great 75th anniversary mugs to give away. For a chance to win, just email your contact details to our Liz with the subject line ‘Mugs’ by 12pm on Wednesday 25th August.

For competition T&Cs click here.

After an incredible six months travelling around six major tea-producing countries, gaining great exposure to the tea manufacturing process, plantation operations and participating in auctions, I headed to the last and final stop of my tea training trip: Indonesia.

Now, there was something a bit different about this trip for me. After six months travelling alone, I was meeting my boss, the Head of Tea at Taylors, Ian. I was really excited about seeing a friendly face and travelling with a colleague to see how he worked at the plantation level and the oportunity to learn from him. It would also give me the chance to see if I’d been doing it all right or all wrong for the last six months!

It was both Ian’s and my first time in Indonesia and an opportunity to really learn as much about the coutry, the people and the tea industry as possible. We started our journey in Jakarta, on the island of Java, home of the Indonesia Tea Auction, which takes place every week.

After visiting the auction we set off on what was to be a 2,000km round trip to east, central and western Java, visiting seven tea factories across three districts. Java is dotted with both semi-active and dormant volcanoes, resulting in rich volcanic soils that are really fertile. Indonesia first struck me as a really innovative place that’s making full use of its natural resources. In addition to tea growing, Java also grows plenty of rubber, coffee and cocoa. They also harness the underground geo-thermal energy from volcanoes and convert it into domestic power, like the picture below.

At the factories, Ian and I did lots of work to understand the manufacturing style in Indonesia. We made many more contacts, helping to build good, face-to-face relationships with producers there that will hopefully go from strength to strength. Just the way we like to do business.

From the cooler climbs of Darjeeling I travelled to Sri Lanka, or Ceylon as it is historically known, home of Ceylon tea.

Sri Lanka is a mountainous, subtropical island and has six main growing regions ranging from high-grown to low-grown areas: Dimbula, Nuwara Eliya, Uva, Uda Pussellawa, Ruhuna and Kandy. Each produces distinctive characteristics in their tea. Traditionally Sri Lanka’s main export crop was coffee, until coffee blight ruined crops. With nothing left to plant, tea was quickly used a replacement and now plays a major role in the country’s economy, supporting around one million people.

Due to the mountainous climes and warm temperatures, tea from here provides a bright and flavoursome component to our blend. I was here to find out more. After landing in Colombo and spending time in the loud and fast-paced weekly auction I then travelled up to the tea plantations to visit some estates and factories that we buy from for both our Yorkshire Tea and Pure Ceylon tea.

This trip to the estates was a little different to my previous estate trips because I was travelling with Dushy Perera, a representative from the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP). As members of the ETP, Taylors of Harrogate and other members form an alliance of tea packers, big and small, who work together to improve the sustainability of the tea sector, and this incorporates both social and environmental impacts.

Last year, the ETP teamed up with CARE International on an EU funded project which focuses on improving labour relations between management and workers in Sri Lankan tea estates.
Together, ETP and CARE have been piloting the use of ‘Community Development Forums’ (or CDFs), designed by CARE, to improve the relationships and understanding between tea estates and their workers.

The idea of Community Development Forums is to create a ‘mini parliament’ on estates to allow better communication and representation to ensure the varied needs of workers are voiced by providing an equal forum of communication. Out of 2000 workers on the estate a representative from each village of the estate was elected, and in proportion to the male female ratio within the plantation. It brought a smile to my face to see as many women as men present at our meeting.

The CDF representatives reported how the project had not only improved management understanding of the workers but also the workers have a greater understanding of the work of the managers.

I attended a meeting between ETP, CARE International and members of the Community Development Forum on a tea estate who had been running the project for two years, to hear firsthand what the workers and management really think about the project. One worker told me that the meetings provided the opportunity for management to share information about the productivity or success of the estate and made the workers have a better awareness and feel a greater sense of ownership over the estate. “When we come to the table to meet we are all on an equal level,” said one CDF member, who then added, “it feels more like a partnership now.”

The Community Development Forums have also helped in identifying workers needs more quickly and have assisted workers in better agricultural practice, speeding up the process for supplying mosquito coils, training a group of youth volunteers to teach other community members about relevant issues through the medium of street drama, and last but by no means least have boosted the confidence of workers on the estate.

The success of this project has led to it being rolled out on other tea estates in Sri Lanka (at the request of the estates themselves) and potentially to other tea growing regions around the world.

Join me next week in Indonesia – the last and final stop on my Big Tea Tour!

Suzy

From the stimulating streets of Kolkata the next stage of my training trip was to take place in the cooler climbs of Darjeeling. Darjeeling nestles at the Western edge of the Himalayas at up to 2000 meters above sea level. As a result, Darjeeling offers some of the most stunning landscapes in India and a very special kind of tea. The steep slopes and high altitude provide a climate that leads to a unique character in the tea. Tea bushes grow here on inclines of about 60%, meaning that the tea bushes (and the estate workers!) have to be super fit and healthy to withstand such steep conditions… and they are. The religion most commonly practised here is Buddhism and across the tea estates colourful Buddhist prayer flags blow in the morning mist.

Darjeeling tea is known as the ‘champagne’ of tea amongst the tea fraternity for having muscatel character and a liquor and astringency similar to that of champagne. It’s because of the altitude and climate here that the tea leaves grow slowly, making them packed full of enzymes that, during processing, give it great flavour. The process here is very traditional in terms of manufacture and follows orthodox leaf processes whereby the finely plucked small leaves are rolled, oxidised and dried before being sorted into larger loose leaf grades of tea.

I had the opportunity to travel and taste with some very experienced Darjeeling experts who were able to share with me some of the secrets of making tea here.

I learned that the unique character of Darjeeling tea is not just down to the agro-climatic conditions but the variety of tea bushes that grow here. The varieties, or clonal types as they are referred to, add much in the way in providing distinctive characteristics. The older bushes related to the original China varieties give a more muscatel flavour, where as the new varieties that have evolved give a more peachy or fruity character so the blending of these characters actually starts in the tea fields, before processing has even taken place. Whilst Darjeeling tea is technically known as a black tea, as it goes through an oxidation process, the period that it oxidises for is actually much less than that of black tea, which we may add milk to. Because of this the liquor is a clear golden colour, and the taste is crisp and refreshing, so best to drink it without milk or with a slice of lemon.

After two months in India, Darjeeling is my final stop. So it’s time to wave goodbye to this fascinating country and say hello to Sri Lanka – another important tea-growing country, rich in tea history and culture, and the home of Ceylon tea. More from me soon.

Bye for now,

Suzy

A few weeks ago we revealed that we’d set up a very special partnership with Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Our ‘Runs for the Rainforest’ idea means that for every run Yorkshire’s first XI score in the ‘County Champion’, ‘40 over’ and ‘20 Twenty’ matches, we’ll save a tree in the Peruvian Amazon – adding vital support to our Yorkshire Rainforest Project, our pledge to save an area of rainforest the size of Yorkshire.

Since we joined forces with YCCC, 9,120 trees have been saved. And last week, Adam Lyth became Yorkshire’s first player to reach 1,000 runs. This lead to Adam being presented with a somewhat unorthodox cricketing trophy – a Yorkshire Tea teapot and apron.

After being presented with prizes, Adam said: “The whole team are behind the Runs for the Rainforest campaign and I’m thrilled to be the first player to get to 1,000 runs. I’ve already saved just over an acre of trees on my own!”

“Someday you will find me, caught beneath a landslide…”

Regular readers of our blog will know all about our celebrity fanbase. It’s quite a varied bunch, consisting of characters that range from 83-year old film-maker Ken Russell to unpredictable songstress Amy Winehouse. In terms of singing our praises, though, ‘rock & roll star’ Noel Gallagher takes some beating.

Not only has the ex-Oasis star frequently discussed his love for Yorkshire Tea live on Radio 1 with his DJ friend Chris Moyles (also a big fan), but now he’s picked our tea to feature with him in a gorgeous new photography book called Love Music Love Food.

A unique collection of portraits of musicians posing with their favorite food or drink, Love Music Love Food is a charitable project supporting the Teenage Cancer Trust, which helps improve the life and chances of survival for young people with cancer. All proceeds from the book go to the trust -  so it’s a lovely idea and a very good cause too.

Less hard rock and more hard water these days, Noel is pictured with a cup of his favourite brew attached to a special cupholder on his mike-stand, while another photo shows Yorkshire Tea teabags spilling out of his guitarcase.

As ever we’re blown away by Noel’s support, and chuffed to be associated with such a cracking project. Thanks Noel!

Just goes to show – Yorkshire Tea beats ‘cigarettes and alcohol’ any day!

Professional tea tasters use a set of defined tasting terms, some of which can sound pretty odd to the rest of the world. Most people know what we might mean when we call a tea ‘malty’, for instance, but how about ‘gutty’?

Gutty describes the ideal character of a good second flush Assam tea, so ‘guttiness’ in the tea is an indicator that the second flush season (the new wave of growth that follows the first harvest) has really arrived. Good strength in Assam tea can be found throughout the year, but ‘guts’ only comes during May and June. During the build up to this part of the season, buyers and producers alike get quite excited, and buyers will tussle to pay extra for gutty teas.

But what does ‘gutty’ actually mean?

Well, a tea with guts has all round quality. All the parameters to make a cracking brew have been met during the manufacturing process, and the leaves used have also got that special second flush ’something’ – because the polyphenols essential to quality tea are only present in the buds in such concentration during the second flush.

During the processing of tea, a chemical reaction takes place as the plucked and cut leaves begin to oxidise. There are two main chemical compounds essential to this process, which are formed from the oxidising polyphenols: thearubigin (TR), which is responsible primarily for ‘body’ and theaflavin (TF), which is responsible for brightness and flavour.

These compounds are very delicate, and the trick is in achieving a balance of the two. During oxidation, the formation rate of theaflavin (the brightness and flavour) declines at a more rapid rate than the thearubigin (body) and the ideal balance is where the TF and TR proportion is at a ratio of 1:10. Once this ratio is achieved, the chemical reaction must be halted to maintain the balance, which is done by ‘firing’ the tea in a dryer.

During drying, provided the right balance of TF and TR has been achieved, the sugars present (in the form of chlorophyll) caramelise, which contributes to the sweet and malty character. (Just the way I like it.)

When left to cool, a brewed gutty tea will look as though milk has been added. (See the photo at the top for an example of this.) This is known as ‘creaming down’. One tea broker in Kolkata told me: “When a tea has guts you feel it in your guts, strong and thick. It creams down and gives you a real boost for the day.”

As many of you already know, the Yorkshire Tea blend contains plenty of Assam, so next time you have a cup, remember that rich and satisfying kick you get is all about the guts!

Till next time!

Suzy

After an incredible four weeks touring the enchanting tea gardens of Assam I’ve made it to what is the tea capital of India – Kolkata (Calcutta).

Since the very first tea plantation in Assam was established in 1835, Kolkata has been the most important administration centre for tea, later housing the auction and port where tea was exported to the UK on famous clipper ships. Today Kolkata remains the largest tea auction centre in the world and evidence of this city’s history and love of tea is all around.

Though we love our tea in the UK and drink on average 8 cups a day, the Kolkatans give us a run for our money. Tea culture and tea drinking here is alive with ritual and ‘chai’ shops are on every street corner – I simply had to take part. Tea making here, just like at home, is an art and crowds gather as the tea is being prepared. You can always tell a good chai shop by the 40 people waiting on the street in anticipation for their cuppa!

Chai shop owners buy the smaller grades of tea or the ‘dust’ types because they make super strong and thick liquors. The tea is wrapped in muslin cloth, mixed with cardamom and other masalas (spices), tied to form a giant tea bag, then placed in a pan of steaming hot milk and left to ‘cook’. Only when the liquor is a deep reddish-gold and the sweet smell of cardamom is present is it ready. Ritual pouring of the thick milky tea from one pan to another must take place to cool and ensure equal balance of flavour. Then indiscriminate amounts of sugar are added before being served up in a small earthen pot known as a khulur – just like the ones above.

The result? The sweetest, yet most refreshing pick-me-up that really is a must to try if you traverse these streets.