I love the part of how they're selling tea to China @ £230 for 100grams
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World
If you wanted the finest cup of tea, where would you go? The craggy peaks of Yunnan, China? Not any more. Improbable as it may sound, the world’s most celebrated tea is grown in the hills of Perthshire (Mike Wade writes).
Today in Paris, Dalreoch Estate Smoked White Tea will be presented with the Salon du Thé Gold Award, officially the best in the world. For Tam O’Braan, the founder of the Wee Tea Plantation, it is the vindication of a dream, one he celebrated yesterday with a cup of Smoked White in an Edinburgh hotel.
By the end of this year 13 tea gardens will have been established in Scotland, all owing some debt to Mr O’Braan.
In 2011, with his wife, Grace, Mr O’Braan, from Northern Ireland, decided to turn a struggling upland sheep farm into a place of pilgrimage in the billion-dollar world of tea. They began with three plants from China, convinced that Scotland had the climate and conditions to build a business. Their hunch seemed correct when they quickly propogated 2,000 cuttings.
Then came the snows of 2012. Mr O’Braan said: “It was the worst winter for 200 years. Every leaf fell off, and I thought, I am going to turn out to be the most stupid person since Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.”
Then on Valentine’s Day last year the plants produced shoots. “We knew right then that we were going to produce a Darjeeling-standard flavour,” Mr O’Braan said. “It wasn’t till the following year that we found the bravery to tell people what we were doing.”
At Christmas, by mail order, the plantation was selling its tea at £2,300 per kilo, or £230 for 100g. He sold out, all of it going abroad, most to China, to feed the appetite of the burgeoning middle class. Although it can also be found at London’s Fortnum & Mason.
Talk about coals to Newcastle.
Today in Paris, Dalreoch Estate Smoked White Tea will be presented with the Salon du Thé Gold Award, officially the best in the world. For Tam O’Braan, the founder of the Wee Tea Plantation, it is the vindication of a dream, one he celebrated yesterday with a cup of Smoked White in an Edinburgh hotel.
By the end of this year 13 tea gardens will have been established in Scotland, all owing some debt to Mr O’Braan.
In 2011, with his wife, Grace, Mr O’Braan, from Northern Ireland, decided to turn a struggling upland sheep farm into a place of pilgrimage in the billion-dollar world of tea. They began with three plants from China, convinced that Scotland had the climate and conditions to build a business. Their hunch seemed correct when they quickly propogated 2,000 cuttings.
Then came the snows of 2012. Mr O’Braan said: “It was the worst winter for 200 years. Every leaf fell off, and I thought, I am going to turn out to be the most stupid person since Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.”
Then on Valentine’s Day last year the plants produced shoots. “We knew right then that we were going to produce a Darjeeling-standard flavour,” Mr O’Braan said. “It wasn’t till the following year that we found the bravery to tell people what we were doing.”
At Christmas, by mail order, the plantation was selling its tea at £2,300 per kilo, or £230 for 100g. He sold out, all of it going abroad, most to China, to feed the appetite of the burgeoning middle class. Although it can also be found at London’s Fortnum & Mason.
Talk about coals to Newcastle.
Don't have a times subscription? here's a link.. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/58171385/tea.pdf
World
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