Tea Emperor

The case is about applying the right to use Geographical Indicators rule from the WTO. I’m sure that many of you tea enthusiasts also gulp down some bubbly every now and then so you might recall similar case done by France regarding the Champagne area. Now Sri Lanka Tea Board is on the job and we just have to sit back and wait… and possibly drink several hundred cups of tea while doing all that waiting.

GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATOR - WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

It could mean that only tea with the right to be called Ceylon tea would have to be grown in the island of the Sri Lanka and especially on those traditional tea growing areas. Now that could seriously dent the business of other producers and companies that make some kind of tea mixes with a hint of Ceylon tea and masses of some other crap.

Naturally the positive side of this is that in the future the brand Ceylon would actually guarantee, to a degree, the quality of the product. I would like to see that because it is so tedious job to try and keep updated on good Ceylon tea. Oh by the way, Kenilworth Estate Ceylon Tea is possibly the best Ceylon tea, which is easily available on the market and you can get it with a push of a button from here.

In the United States and especially in the Southern states sweet tea is already a household name in case you fancy a refreshing drink. Sweet tea refers quite simply to sweetened and iced black tea. Hot tea was something that didn’t catch fire in the Southern heat of the night. It was totally different matter when you could gulp it down on the porch while listening to the cicadas. Now the sweet tea has taken the benefit of the growing tea trend and has become the beverage of choice in many establishments like for example McDonald’s as you can read in this article.

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.