Plantation Teas

When The Daughter gifted me a Spring Tea Collection, I was disapproving. It was too costly for tea. Yet, precisely because the teas were so costly, I felt that I had to make the most of it. So, we have all started cold brew tea tasting.

At first, I thought it was cold brewing that did the trick. I cold brewed everything and found that for everything except these whole leaf plantation teas, the hot brews taste better. Basically, if you want to enjoy supermarket tea, you are better off hot brewing. These teas are designed to taste good when hot brewed. The mass production tries to achieve a standard taste using hot water. Taste experts have okayed the taste. 

We then all can buy the same tea from the same brand and be sure to get the same taste.

Single plantation teas are leaves plucked from specific tea plantations and processed according to the manner of that particular plantation. Each plantation has its specific terroir. 

What is terroir?

"Terroir" is a French term used to describe the environmental factors that affect a crop's phenotype, including unique environment contexts, farming practices and a crop's specific growth habitat. Collectively, these contextual characteristics are said to have a character; terroir also refers to this character. This character is expressed in the food produced. The notion of "terroir" is usually expressed in wine tasting. However, for even the most uneducated French country bumpkin, the notion of "terroir" is a daily indulgence. People will travel for miles to buy mushrooms from one particular farmer. Others will wait months for one specific farm to launch the year's bottles of olive oil, or the first batch of spring milk cheeses.

I think The Daughter has spoiled my tastebuds for tea. I am forever going to recoil from supermarket teas now, in the same way that I recoil from supermarket camembert and brie cheeses. Supermarket brie and camembert all taste like plastic. There is no depth of flavour. Artisanal cheeses are usually made with unpasteurised milk. This gives the terroir so much more scope to express itself. Camembert from different farms will taste different not just because the milk tastes different, but also because the probiotics inside the milk are different. These cheeses are not designed to taste standard.

As a young lady, I lived in a small suburb outside Toulouse. Our suburb had one crêmerie whose owner offered to let me taste his cheeses for free provided that I dropped by every morning to taste only one. So, everyday, I would drop by and let him pick my cheese. One cheese a day, every day for about 9 months. It was an entire education in itself. He was masterful in how he started with the young and mild cheeses, before getting me to finally try the blue cheeses. That was an epicurean experience to be remembered.

So now, I am doing the same thing with tea. Every week, I make a new cold brew from a new plantation. All are whole leaf teas. I write my taste impressions down and then, I refer to the taste description on the packet. It is great fun when there is a match!