Tea Emperor

In my previous post I was writing about the upward trend regarding wholesale tea prices. One of the explaining factors was the increasing consumption of tea. It is actually becoming trendy to drink tea especially because there are so many varieties. You can shine among your friends if you manage to drop a fascinating tea brand in the middle of a discussion.

Image source: Starbucks online store

SO WHAT ABOUT THAT STARBUCKS?

Starbucks can spot a trend that’s why they became so big in the first place. They took light-roasted middle European coffee and introduced it in the States, then they took the rest of the world. Now they are planning to do the same with tea by introducing great tasting loose leaf teas into their brewing selection. Let’s see how the world receives Starbucks tea.

One could say that we have a tea collection, but to say so would be incorrect. We merely buy more loose tea than what we consume. Poor is the faith of some of our purchases as tempting tea packages lay in some forgotten cupboard corner only to be tossed to the trash.

MAINLY LOOSE TEA

As you can see from the photo below there are mainly loose teas in our collection, but we have made some room for daily quick fixes and few specialties. With quick fix I refer to the morning bulk bag tea, which is fast, black, cheap and easy. Come to think of it that is almost how I like my women, but don’t tell that to the Empress…

Our collection of loose teas.

FEW SPECIALTIES

These we get from our travels to Asia and Northern Europe. Let’s face it, in Asia they know how to make a good cup of tea and in Northern Europe they have pristine nature with all sorts of wild plants just dying to be dried and labeled as X tea. So you want an example? Birch leaf tea, Bilberry leaf tea, Bilberry berry tea, Buckthorn tea, Cloudberry tea and then there are all those meadow herbs… I’d like to see them grow those in the Orient.

THE TEA COLLECTION

The good thing about having more than one tea brand in your slate is that you can offer more variety for the visitors, and more importantly, you can add some taste into your life just the way you need it. For some people tea collection might be a source for little competitive spirit. There’s nothing wrong in real tea collections, but remember that very few teas age well.

WHOLESALE TEA PRICES ARE GOING UP ALL OVER THE WORLD
African tea prices have risen about 5% year-on-year in the most of the producing countries, like Kenya, Uganda, Burundi etc. It doesn’t end there as reports from India, Sri Lanka and other countries in the Orient have claimed similar price increases. This is good news for the producers and doesn’t really affect consumers because of the raw material cost of a tea bag is something so little that you need a microscope to see it. What is driving up the wholesale tea or bulk tea prices? It could be popularity, tough weather conditions and opportunity costs or something else.

TEA IS BECOMING MORE AND MORE POPULAR
Tea is more than just a small part of the English breakfast. Today we have tea houses that are as much focused on tea as coffee shops on coffee. In this kind of establishments you can get a cup of regular coffee if you insist but that’s about it. It is safe to say that tea has taken hold of other parts of the world than just East and that small right hand corner of an English breakfast table.

WEATHER CHANGES BRING UNCERTAINTY OVER TEA CROPS
Global warming or not the fluctuating weather patterns over the globe have made it even more uncertain to farm cash crops. This year Africa has seen lot of droughts and that has increased tea prices more than what they would have risen given the increased global demand for tea. Storms also do their trick as heavy rains soak the bushes.

TEA HAS TO COMPETE WITH OTHER CASH CROPS
Tea farmers are running businesses and they make cultivation decisions based on the return for their investment. World market prices make sure that some years tea is not very profitable while other crops might do very well indeed. This affects to cultivation decisions, farmers might swap into other plants or new farmers might initially choose something else than tea farming. Many a time tea’s biggest competitor is not coffee but some fruit for example.

FUTURE TEA PRICES?
Let me consult the tea leaves on the bottom of my tea cup… Ah, it looks like some changes will take place.

You could learn many things about Chinese culture and Chinese philosophy by looking into the Chinese written characters. Tea is a good example. For a few days I have been wondering, what does “tea” in Chinese character (Cha – 茶) means. Does it only mean “tea”, the drink we all love to drink?

The question rose while I was cooking ginger “tea” and writing this post. I noticed that not everything called “tea” in China has tea leaves in it, why ancient Chinese named all those drinks as “tea”?

One of my twitter friends who leads a publishing company in Taiwan suggested:

“maybe tea in ancient China means any drink in which plants are cooked with water”.

What an Interesting guess!

To me this interpretation really makes sense! Many Chinese medicine cook herbs in water, and the legendary creator of Chinese medicine also once “tasted hundreds of plants and herbs” to learn their functions to human body. Obviously, drinking “water cooked with plants” has been a way of living for thousands of years for Chinese, with “tea” be one of them!

Let’s look at “tea” written in Chinese character. It also reveals important cultural information and how Chinese think of tea:

On the top is a common part in Chinese characters which generally means “plants” or “grass”:

On the bottom is a common part in Chinese characters which means “woods” and “trees”:

In the middle is the word which means “human”, “person”:

Combining those parts together, you could see clearly: a person stands right in the middle of trees, woods and plants, and that’s exactly where he should be: to be part of nature. Drinking tea is thus a way of going back to the harmony of nature for Chinese. Having tea leaves or not, tea is never just tea. Tea is a way of living. Tea is Tao.

Related post:
Winter tip – Have many cups of ginger tea
Winter tip – Red Date & Longan tea

Bilberry belongs to the same berry family as lingon berries, bog bilberries and cranberries. Usually we call it blueberry, and even a toddler knows why. Go and watch how kids swiftly combine clean clothes with blueberry pie. Blueberries can be and are used in many different ways for example in blueberry teas.

WHERE DO BLUEBERRIES GROW?
Just like youngsters’ pranks, bilberry doesn’t thrive in excess sunlight. Young and lush forests are best areas to find these fresh and vitamin packed treats. Nutritious bilberry is valued food source for many animals like bears and various birds, which in exchange spread it efficiently.

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN BLUEBERRY FLOWERS?
Bilberries flower during late spring or early summer with the help of insects. Nighttime frosts can damage these delicate, red and sometimes white flowers. If this happens, well, it means fewer blueberry pies in the autumn.

WHEN CAN YOU PICK BLUEBERRIES?
When it is a good time to go pick bilberries then? Surprisingly early, the first month for bilberries to ripe is July and season lasts until late September.