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

“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!

Together with the lovely people at the Wallace & Gromit Children’s Foundation, we’ve been spreading the word about Wallace & Gromit’s Great British Tea Party – harnessing the power of our national affection for tea and cake to raise funds for children’s healthcare in the UK. And now we’ve won a Marketing Week Engage Award for it too.

James and Liz from Yorkshire Tea went down to London for the event and were absolutely bowled over when the judges picked our work on Wallace & Gromit’s Great British Tea Party for the Charity and Voluntary Sector Award.

Thanks to everyone who’s supported the cause so far – here’s to the next Tea Party!

Earlier this month, we told you about our Sam’s trip to the Peruvian Amazon. To help with our Yorkshire Rainforest Project, she was off to meet with the people on the ground who we’re working with, and to stay with the Ashaninka – the communities who live in the rainforest. After so long with no contact (she was in the rainforest after all) we’re rather relieved to hear she’s alive and well and back in Lima. Here’s what she had to say:

“Wow, what an amazing trip! From being thrown into a bustling, congested, polluted Lima to sleeping through a drive over the Andes, then waking up to a vast, cloud covered, lush green rainforest.

Sailing down the Rio Ene and through the Amazon is nothing short of spectacular – you see life in abundance and it was clear on arrival at the first community, Puerto Ashaninka, that this is not taken for granted. We were offered (literally) the fruits of the forest, from coconuts to oranges to yucca (an Ashaninka diet staple), fish and samani, a small boar.

And of course the first bowl of the infamous ‘spit beer’, masato, was passed around. I have to say it tastes a little better than I imagined it would – but it comes in all sorts of strengths so it’s wise to take caution. This community, as with each one we visited, was generous, kind and keen to make the most of their natural surroundings – incredible to see when back in England we are so far removed from the source of our food, housing, water etc. And yet it became clear from early on that the threats to their very way of being (one Ashaninka child, Nike, told me that to be Ashaninka means to be a person of the forest) are very real and getting more serious. It was enlightening, though, the work that the Ashaninka are putting in to combat these threats and look after their home.

CARE, the team on the ground who we’re working with, have done a lot of work in a short space of time on the project. It’s great to be able to see some results – especially from the sustainable livelihoods programme.

Look out for lots more info on this and many other things when I get back to Harrogate next week!

Close to the final leg of my Big Tea Journey now and, from the lush hills of Rwanda, I travelled to Malawi to investigate the tea sector there. Unlike Kenya and Rwanda, where tea grows at altitudes of around 2000 metres above sea level, the tea in Malawi grows at between just 500-1000 metres above sea level, leading to a very different landscape than what I had become accustomed to. There are two main tea growing regions here: Tyolo (pronounced Cholo) and Mulanje – the area around the impressive Mount Mulanje, which juts out from the flat plains to a whopping 2000 meters. Clouds roll in over Mount Mulanje, providing decent amounts of rainfall and the humid climate means the tea leaves grow very fast.

The soil here is a vibrant red – which gives a rich coloured liquor to the tea, exactly what Malawi tea is famous for. Each week, buyers compete in the weekly auction in Limbe for these distinctive coloured teas and use them all around the world. We like it for Yorkshire tea as it helps to give our blend that lovely rich colour we’re famous for.

As well as the tea, Mulanje is also famous for cedar wood, a beautiful, durable wood used for furniture making. Sadly, as with many tree species these days, cedar is endangered due to over-logging. Fortunately, the suppliers we work with here have or are working towards Rainforest Alliance certification, meaning that they protect and replant indigenous trees, including cedar. This is great news for the trees and great news for the retention of the precious water that flows from the mountain.

Though Malawi grows great tea, it faces grave challenges in the form of both a tragic HIV/AIDS epidemic and food insecurity issues with 40% of last year’s crops failing. This makes the tea sector’s role in supporting the rural population all the more important.

Join me next week for my final Africa destination – to the Western Cape of South Africa, where I’m off to see first-hand how Rooibos is grown and manufactured.

Bye for now!

Suzy

Jambo!

Kenyan Tea forms an important part of our blend for Yorkshire Tea – renowned for being bright, brisk and refreshing. I have been tasting Kenya Teas in their hundreds back in the tasting room at Yorkshire Tea HQ and to be here to witness their making is fascinating. Three weeks, sixteen tea factories and endless lush green tea fields since my last blog… I’m not quite sure where to start!  My travel plan is designed to follow seasons, allowing me to experience key times that affect tea production so I arrived in Kenya just as the short rains were coming to an end and the dry spell sets in – watching the land and its tea transform.

After landing on the shores of Lake Victoria, in no less than two hours I was breathing in the clean crisp air of Nandi Hills on the Western edge of the Rift Valley. This area is home to many of Kenya’s amazingly fit gold-medal athletes and even my car, struggling up a steep incline, was over taken by a runner!  The peaks of Nandi lie at over 2000 meters above sea level; the climate is pleasantly cool with reliable amounts of rain making it lush and perfect for tea growing. The tea here is grown on both estates and small-scale farms and is brought to one of the several factories in the area for processing. A striking feature of the area is the rugged escarpments dotted with dense indigenous forest. This is very pleasing to see since this area is an important water catchment area. The presence of indigenous forest around rivers and streams is encouraged by the standards of Rainforest Alliance as indigenous trees are less thirsty than foreign eucalyptus so therefore help to protect precious water supplies.

Lush tea fields bordered with indigenous forest

I have now moved to Mombasa, the second largest city in Kenya and home of the the tea auction which, each week, sells East African tea around the world. I have internet connection now – and lots to share with you – so keep your eyes peeled for more updates from me!

Suzy

Today’s post has virtually nothing to do with tea so apologies to anyone in need of something more relevant. It’s just that two things of note have happened to us recently that we can’t resist sharing.

The first thing involves a crane. A company near our office who we know quite well was testing out its brand new crane the other day. And we let them use our car park to do it. When they offered us the chance to go up and take photos, we leapt at the chance to get a shot of the Yorkshire Tea factory from high in the sky.

Now, this in itself meant we had a piccie to share, but before we got round to doing that we found about something called Tiltshifting - if you’re into photography and design you’ll probably know all about it, but it was news to us and we couldn’t resist having a play with it. The result, this strange toytown-like image of Taylors, is below. Weird, isn’t it?

Recently we put a call out via our Twitter page, asking all our Yorkshire Tea drinkers if they knew of any good songs about tea.

The responses we had were really rather impressive.

Suggestions ranged from 90s grunge (Nirvana’s ‘Pennyroyal Tea’) to 30s ditties like ‘Everything Stops for Tea’ by Jack Buchanan. Our most prolific pop-picker was American teablogger Denise who sent in loads. Our favourite was this: “Sunday for Tea” by Peter and Gordon, with a video set to clips from The Avengers.

Other numbers included ‘English Tea’ by Paul McCartney, ‘T.U.S.A’ by Ginger Baker, ‘Another Pot of tea’ by Emmylou Harris, ‘Have a Cuppa Tea’ and ‘Afternoon Tea’ by The Kinks, ‘Tea and Sympathy’ by Jars of Clay, and ‘For the Price of a Cup of Tea’ by Belle & Sebastian. An eclectic mix we’ll think you’ll agree. Clearly tea and creativity make for good companions.

Thanks again to everyone who made suggestions. Your devotion is very much appreciated.

Anyone got anymore to add?

What do you drink your tea out of?

A china cup? A chunky mug? A plastic beaker?

An earthernware bowl?

Whatever your answer (probably not earthernware bowl), we bet you have a favourite. But does it make a difference to the taste?

If you happened to listen to Radio 4’s The Material World yesterday you might have heard something on this subject.

It featured a very interesting chap called Mark Miodownik from a very interesting group called The Materials Library. He was talking to host Quentin Cooper about how the vessel you drink your tea from really can affect the way it tastes.

Together they tried drinking tea from a glazed ceramic cup (ie what most people use), then compared it to drinking the same tea from an unglazed ceramic cup – and noted the difference, with tea from the unglazed cup tasting ‘chalkier’.

This could be down to the ‘taste’ of the cup itself – the material of the cup reacting to your mouth – but could also be down to the reaction between the tea and the material of the cup while it sits there waiting to be drunk.

We salute this kind of thinking. To us, doing tea properly means considering all the elements, and getting each of them right – like when we blend Yorkshire Tea For Hard Water, for example, which involves choosing teas that ‘perform’ better taste-wise when made with tap water with a high calcium content.

Obviously there’s much more to it, but they only had time to skim the surface. If you can make it to the Victoria & Albert museum in London for 6.30 tonight, however, you’ll find people from The Materials Library conducting very similar experiments for a special open-to-the-public tea-tasting experiment.

This free event is part of the Ceramica weekend, which is a celebration of the opening of the V&A’s new ceramics galleries. It’s a bit too far to nip down from Yorkshire, so we’ll have to be content with some kitchen experiments of our own.

Whether you make it to the V&A or not, let us know what you think. We’d love to compare notes.