Tea Emperor

I have been mulling the plan of importing some blooming teas – or flowering teas if you prefer – because they have been in short supply here in Finland. Similarly various tools and pots that can be used to steep tea have been non-existent. It seemed like a good niche to position oneself – make a little webshop and sell to the small but growing market of tea educated Finns.

Forsman Tea finally introduced more variety to their product slate. They now offer blooming teas or flowering teas as well as all kinds of tea steeping related items.

DARK CLOUDS GATHER OVER THE TEA TREE FIELDS
(Please excuse me that long and winding subtitle – I have no idea why I wrote it) Now there is an obstacle on our way to becoming tea entrepreneurs and that obstacle is called Forsman Tea Company.

It is a small tea company in international terms but a HUGE LEVIATHAN OF A COMPANY IN FINLAND. It is bit like Microsoft used to be. They can sniper any budding competition in Finland by introducing specific products with cheap price to match new market entries and developments.

What should we do? Any ideas?

Global warming troubles tea farmers. Traditional tea cultivation areas are facing climate changes that influence the rainfall and temperature. Changes in average rainfalls and temperatures mean that once ideal conditions for example Assam tea cannot be found in the same elevation as before.

Gloom and doom over a tea farm.

Photo by Jakob Montrasio

WHAT THE GLOBAL WARMING MEANS TO A TEA FARM?

A tea farm that has been founded maybe one hundred years ago is now facing deep trouble. Farms have been using lot of money into investments that boost the tea production and into land purchases. Now these traditional tea farms find that their location is not so ideal anymore.

THE QUANTITY OF THE TEA CROP

The quantitiy of the harvested tea has dropped slightly because the changed weather but this is not a catastrophical change because the drop in production is usually compensated by the increase in the prices. The world has learned to drink tea in huge mugs and that has meant increased consuption. This is the reason why the low production quantity is not so pressing issue for a tea grower.

THE QUALITY OF THE TEA CROP

Here comes the trouble. Tea enthusiasts around the world have come to value specific tastes and tea blends and to get those special aromaone needs standard quality teas. Standard quality tea can only be grown in steady conditions. which are now qreatly affected by changing weather patterns stirred by the global warming phenomenon.

Imagine that you grow Assam tea and you have a long supply contract with some big tea company. That tea company supplies tea to the breakfast table of millions of people. Think what effect it would have if consumer would find their favourite tea tasting like – well – something else. Tea drinker would find another brand that suits her taste buds better.

So, my review was a long time coming as my wife so eloquently put it in the previous article – Tea Emperor’s own review post will come soon after mine.

MAKERS OF THE TEA
Small tea plantation in Japan under private ownership. Can tea get any more real? Not much!

INSTRUCTIONS
Instruction manuals (and asking the way if lost) are for women and engineers. They are helpful if one has no idea about the topic, but useless if one doesn’t know how to read. Luckily I can read and I am rather new to tea. Oh, don’t get me wrong, I drink several big mugs of the damn thing every day, but ceremony and gong fu are far beyond the reach of my skills. Good thing that they include all the necessary guides on their website too, check them here.

COVER LETTER
They had included a very comforting cover letter, which told about the teas in question. Sample bags were stabled on to the paper so it was impossible to mix them up and therefore accidentally review a wrong product. Simple and effective not to mention beautiful.

THE TEA
Now you know that supportive items were fine, but how about the tea itself?

1st steep for half a minute
Refreshing and light taste with sweet aftertaste. Just my kind of a cup of tea that’s what this is, but then again I am from Finland and the strongest spice that we use here is black pepper. We like our food mild and vodka strong and cold. We drink coffee here tea, however, is a drink for old women… Anyway I liked my first cup.

2nd steep for about ten seconds
Much stronger and pit over the top for me. I liked the aftertaste though and had high hopes for the third steep.

3rd steep for half a minute again
This one already had lost its luster and was easily downed as a refreshing drink.

4th steep for one minute

Frustratingly bland and got quickly thrown away, but the left over green tea salad was fantastic!

Actress Jodie Foster was spotted on a bubble tea break. As you can see, the answer is celebrity association. Now, the Taiwanese bubble milk tea has it made because it is tasty, sweet, possibly vegetarian, non-fattening, soft, milky and chewy – a perfect drink and cake combined. Has anyone else seen a celebrity trotting around with one of these cups?

BRAND TEAS LACED WITH BULK CTC TEA RUINS TEA FOR CONSUMERS

Taiwan’s authorities, namely Control Yuan, claim that some local tea brands are laced with imported leaves and sold under the name of Taiwanese tea, which hurts the interests of consumers.

Tea farm on the beautiful island of Taiwan. Photo by Harry Huang.

ORIGIN MATTERS

Controlling body points out that sellers can blend local tea with imported tea, but tea sellers should clearly indicate the ration of imported tea and local tea. To me this sounds like the complains of the Indian Tea Board that encouraged their tea plantations to grow orthodox specialty tea. The underlying motivator seems to be protectionism.

IMPORTED GREEN GOLD

Taiwan imports around 25,000 tons of tea every year, 74 percent of which comes from Vietnam. The imported tea ends up blended with local tea and sold as a Taiwanese product, this is “unreasonable” and “hurts the interests of consumers.” Although Taiwan imports 19,000 tons of tea from Vietnam every year, one cannot find tea labeled as Vietnamese on the local market.