TEA BREAK - A CATCH UP WITH TEALICIOUS
We’ve been stocking high quality loose leaf tea from Tealicious for a long time now - many of our long-standing tea-loving customers keep coming back for these superb leaves so we thought it was about time to have a catch up with Tealicious owner Nigel, the legend behind the loose leaf, to hear what (jasmine) pearls of wisdom he has to share. Join us as we steep ourselves in the world of a global tea-buyer, promise there are no more terrible tea puns…
Carl (Lentils and Lather): Hi Nigel, thanks for taking some time to talk with us. I’m really intrigued to find out how you landed in the tea industry - can you give us a quick background to your career?
Nigel: Hi Carl, of course! I originally started a degree course in Applied Physics, but I quickly realised that this was not my calling, so I started to look for jobs. One of the advertisements I saw by chance was for a Trainee Tea Taster and my father persuaded me to apply. As I arrived for an interview a week later little did I know that I would be working there for the next 40 years.
Having spent the first 3 years honing my taste buds I was then sent to India to complete my training. Working in our agent’s office in Kolkata (then called Calcutta) I made numerous visits to the tea estates in the North: Assam and Darjeeling, and South: The Nilgiris and Munnar.
With this background I then progressed through various buying, blending and development roles and by the end of my career I was running Tea Buying Offices for Tata Global Beverages in India (Guwahati, Kolhata and Kochi) as well as Mobassa in Kenya and Limbe in Malawi.
During my career I visited tea estates all over the tea-growing world, including some less well known regions like Rwanda, Burundi and Bangladesh and I helped to develop blends for many markets, including Australia, USA and Russia.
Carl: Wow, it sounds like your career has certainly taken you to some interesting locations around the world! What do you think your special skill is that enables you to source excellent loose leaf tea?
Nigel: I now have a deep understanding of the tea-growing industry and global consumer requirements, which along with my ability to taste and my expansive international network of contacts, means I can source the best loose leaf tea for each of our blends.
Carl: From all the tea plantations that you’ve visited, do you have a favourite?
Nigel: There are so many and they are all special in one way or another. Watching the sunrise over the Himalayas from Teesta Valley Tea Estate in Darjeeling, riding an elephant to go fishing from Bordubi Tea Estate in Assam, seeing the flamingos on Lake Naivasha while driving to Cheboswa in Kericho, Kenya and watching a cloud form over the rainforest from Malabar Tea Estate in Bandung, Java, are some of my standout moments.
Carl: All of these experiences sound truly wonderful! On a more serious note, relatively recently the tea industry has been negatively associated with issues around waste, particularly plastic which has been widely used in tea bags. Why is it important to you to minimise the waste that often comes with tea production and consumption?
Nigel: From a pure ‘Tea Man’ perspective, it seems mad to restrict the ability of the tea to brew by putting it in a bag that restricts the size of the leaf and therefore constrains the quality of the tea.
From a sustainability perspective, why would you take a simple, organic product like tea leaves and wrap them in paper, plastic and excess packaging?
So from both an environmental and quality perspective, loose leaf tea from a refill shop like Lentils and Lather is about as good as it can get!
As an aside, did you know that boiling a kettle to make a cup of tea is the biggest contributor to its carbon footprint? So only boil the water that you need to reduce your brew’s carbon footprint!
Carl: Loose leaf really is the best, which ever way you look at it! Last question then - what is your favourite tea and why?
Nigel: This is like asking me for my favourite track - I can name my top 20, top 10 at a pinch, but to pick one is impossible!
The most important thing is to find the teas you like, make them the way you like them and drink them when you like them - there is such a massive world of tea out there, go explore!
Many thanks to Nigel for sharing with us some of the history behind the Tealicious range of loose leaf tea that we sell, all of which can be found listed in our web shop in the hot drinks category.