Welcome to our year with tea
Throughout 2024 we will be sharing our year with tea; embracing tea through the seasons both at home & in the tea fields. As this is the only full year our pop up Shatwell Tea House will be open we are taking the opportunity to document the space throughout the year & share it with you all. In this blog we offer our reflections on January - starting with stories from the Shatwell Tea House and then looking at activity with some of our friends and partners around the tea world.
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For January our theme was simplicity - our actions centred around simply sharing tea & quiet time together in our beautiful Tea Houses - no new activities - simply encouraging rest and reflection in ourselves and our visitors - strengthening our roots ready for brighter days ahead.
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Reflections on January....Simplicity at the Bath Tea House
Our Bath Tea House, lit in the winter light, stays open all year round with Rob, Marta and Avery as our current team. Inside is warm & cosy & in January we welcomed visitors from around the world who sat, sipped and enjoyed steaming cups of tea & plates of Gyoza. These simple winter days also offered the chance to spend time drinking tea with our family. Our children can often be seen in and around the Tea House at this time of year- below you can see Esme continuing her very informal tea education and making Jin Xuan very beautifully in the Tea School downstairs. In fact one of the real highlights of this time of year at our Bath Tea House is the number of families who come to visit and how captivated young tea drinkers are with the tea making process.
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Reflections on January....simplicity at the Comins x Shatwell Tea House
Our pop-up Comins x Shatwell Tea House opened for our year with tea on Thursday 4th January & with rain and high winds outside making the Tea House feel like a mountain retreat - sheltered from the rain with the fire burning and the steam from hot tea & gyoza filling the air.
Despite our concerns that the colder weather may put off tea drinkers it was quite the contrary - even on the days that the taps froze & then burst making the floor of the barn into a temporary ice rink tea drinkers made the pilgrimage up the Atcost barn stairs to be greeted by Michelle & Jenny.
This particular day reminded me of my time in Nepal some years ago when the rain came down so hard that we had to shelter in a local house as the roads became rivers. No-one panicked - we just stopped and took stock for a while. Eventually the rain stopped and then we headed back on our way. The floor of the tea house, once covered in blankets became safe to walk on again - taps were fixed - water ran and tea was made. Somehow these moments make the Tea House more special - in the UK these days we sometimes forget how resilient we all are and how a little cold and discomfort is rather invigorating when we embrace it [and with tea in hand]. I have felt this month that people like the rustic nature and 'outdoor-ness' of the Tea House - no one left because of the cold.
Daily rituals of preparing the kitchen for service remain the same through the year but in winter there is also the task of lighting the fire - a process I have come to enjoy and find peace in. First I clear the ash from the day ahead before lighting the logs and adding new coals - by half an hour before opening the fire is giving a warm glow ready to welcome visitors - we then light the incense and the candles. I always hope there will be half an hour left to enjoy tea before opening and if there is then this time of year, as the hot water hits leaves, the steam created takes me to another place. In this immersive environment I have, in January, found it easy to place my full attention on the ceramics, the warmth of the cup, my natural surroundings. My mind empty. The moment simple. A restorative boost in these early days of 2024
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Tea choices for visitors varied but one particular week of note was the two days on and after the full moon. Almost every visitor ordered white tea with moonlight white being the more popular choice. Although I love this tea I do not remember a time before this day where the perfume arising from the gaiwan when the hot water was added was so prominent. A beautiful scent filled the air - crisp, delicious, floral. Moonlight white on the January full moon was an utter delight.
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Reflections on January....in the tea fields
As part of our year with tea project we are asking many of our partners around the world to share what activities they undertaken each month - an insight into the worl that goes on in tea all year round - and of course a window into what tea everyone is drinking! Here is our spotlight on January from India to China & beyond.
January In the Nilgiri Hills Southern India
From our partner Murali : It is now Winter time at our Tea Farm. Our Tea farm is located at an elevation of over 2000 meters in the Nilgiris mountain in Southern India. Winter in the Nilgiri mountain can get really cold and get freezing at night time. These are photos from January : Frostbite has hit the top layer (that's why the brownish color) and tea plants have gone into dormancy. We will have to wait until mid-March for young shoots to come up.
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Because of the high elevation, tea growth comes to a halt at this time of year. From Jan through mid-March tea plants go into dormancy. Tea plant maintenance. Pruning and cleaning are the major activities at this time of the year. Since there is no tea processing we take the time to focus on home chores, cleaning, sprucing up the shop. We do everything to get ready for the Summer tea season.
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Nilgiri black tea is my favourite tea at this time of year. With temperature dipping, hot aromatic nilgiri black tea is a perfect companion
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Want to try the tea? 2024 tea is coming very soon
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January In the Darjeeling Hills Northern India
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From our partner Husna : January Irrigation One of the reasons that we have such lovely sunny weather at Glenburn is because it lies in a rain shadow area. This isn’t so ideal for our tea bushes during some months of the year. To keep our bushes happy, we need to find ways to keep our soil moist when it doesn’t rain for many months.
The monsoons start to retreat in September and so during the Winter months in particular, irrigation is a key activity for our team. We manage to irrigate almost 60% of the fields between the dry months from mid November to the end of March. We source our water from a natural stream, near Singritam, about 3 km above the tea garden. This allows us to bring water down naturally via the force of gravity. We have lots of water in our two rivers that run through the valleys bordering Glenburn, but pumping this water up to the tea fields would require a lot of energy - so working out the feasibility of water turbines and harvesting sustainable energy from the rivers is something we are working towards to combat a future scarcity of rain. It doesn’t help that climate change is increasing temperatures and reducing rainfall - although when it comes to rainfall, the challenge is often related to erratic rainfall patterns, for example too much rain when we don’t need it, and not enough rain when our bushes crave it! In a few weeks we will conduct our annual Puja ritual to the tea and weather gods to inaugurate our 2024 tea season.
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January Pruning : Many people wonder why in North India, tea is only picked for 9 months of the year, when in South India and other regions closer to the equator, the bushes are happy to offer us leaves to pick for all 12 months. This is not related to the winter temperatures in the North, but rather the lack of enough sunlight hours as the days become much shorter in the winter. During these winter months, at Glenburn Tea Estate, our workers undertake many winter activities that prepare our resting bushes for the new season. Our estate follows a 5 year pruning cycle which not only rejuvenates but also improves the growth and the yield of our hard working tea bushes. Pruning takes place in the winter months and as we follow a 5 year pruning cycle, about 40% of the estate will be pruned every winter, and the remaining 60% of the bushes simply enjoy their winter rest. There are 2 main types of pruning that we schedule for each tea field - CA (Cut Across) which prunes the bushes down to a level of 18" above ground level, and DS (Deep Skiff) which is when the branches are pruned at 6" to 8" above the last CA cut mark. So over 5 years, we rotate between Cut Across, Deep Skiff and Unpruned for each field on the estate.
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Want to try the tea? You can explore here
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January in Kurseong & Poobong, Darjeeling
From our partner Rajiv : Preparations are under way for the tea season and now in these cooler months [highs of 15 and lows of 7] we are light pruning the bushes and some are also being skiffed. The team is undertaking soil manuring across our tea plots. All of this is in preparation for the tea season : manufacturing will start from the 20th of March.
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Want to try the tea? You can explore here
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January on the China : Myanmar Border
From our partner Matt : It is winter in Cangyuan now but still the temperature is fine, 7 C - 20 C, comfortable I should say. - the trees are in blossom. When we built the tea garden we kept the original trees so there are many different trees in the garden now. The main activities in the tea garden are pruning tea trees, removing weeds and doing winter ploughing in the tea garden at the moment.
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Chinese New Year is in Feb so the local WA people will be busy getting the local snacks and foods ready. And I want to take a moment to talk to you about the 24 solar terms, which is quite ancient. T here are 24 solar terms in a year, which tells us about the order of nature. They are very much related to the weather in the season. For example, you are familiar with the Winter Solstices, we called it Dong Zhi, which means the cold winter is coming. And Li Chun means the beginning of spring. People believe that the food and drink they eat should follow the change of nature. When it is cold, we need to drink something warm, not the WARM word only but the drink inside. It is like Yin and Yang, we divide food and drink to warm & cool category and believe that we should have them according to natures changes. For example, green tea is kind of cool and black tea is warm in general.
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January is between Dong Zhi & Li Chun. We just had Da Han(big cold) a few days before. People believe that black tea could get rid of the cold and keep your body warm in the cold days so it is recommended to drink it during Dan Han(big cold).
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Want to try the tea? You can explore here
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January in the tea fields of Fujian, China
From our partner Mr Zheng : At this time, the tea tree is hibernated, the internal quality is rich, and the quality of the new tea is high. In our spare time we enjoy new tea, especially white peony. Our main activity in January been welcoming & training tea farmers from local farms
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Want to try the tea? You can explore here - Michelle will return here in the Spring and then there will be more beautiful teas to try
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January in Ujitawara Japan
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From our partner Yuta : It’s winter season in Japan. Cold weather is important for tea growing as the tea plants absorb nutrition during this time for their 'sprout︎' later in the Spring. At work we are busy planting - the tea trees we are planting will take 7 years to get to a point where we can harvest. We are also, when an order comes in, grinding Matcha because we usually leave matcha for around a half of the year to make it matured You can get more sweetness and nutty flavour this way!
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Want to try the tea? You can explore here
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January in Kyoto Japan
From our partner Tokuya : It is winter. This year's New Year's Day was unusually rainy. In Kyoto, the temperature is around 8 degrees. It doesn't often snow. During this period, there are a lot of document-related tasks that need to be submitted. Another thing we do is ship products to customers. Many other events are also held during this time. This year, I held a live talk talk in a large hall where I talked about the past 40 years since I was born with a single microphone.
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In addition, I provide physical training every day at the training gym attached to my home. I am not trying to make delicious tea, but I am making tea with the goal of helping tea plants grow healthily. It's about how you can draw out your life force. The same is true for the body, where we teach people how to bring out their immunity and vitality through body building.
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During this period, I try not to touch the tea plants as much as possible, and let the trees be free. There aren't many insects because it's a cold season, but there is dead grass on the ground, and short grass peeking out from between.I often drink black tea, white tea, and lactic acid fermented tea.
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I must write my self-introduction. I have been a tea farmer for generations in Kyoto, Japan. The way I make tea is based on my experience of having my body damaged by chronic poisoning from pesticides, learning Aikido, diet, and training, and experiencing how my body healed without the use of medicine. I'm not trying to make delicious tea. I value how tea plants grow vigorously. What kind of tea will be made with it? I'm also one of the people looking forward to it. That's how I relate to tea plants.
January in South Korea
From our partner Seong Il : In January 2024, the exhibition took place on Jeju Island. The exhibition introduced the newly designed teawares and objects made of white porcelain and silver decorations in the new year, 2024
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At this time of year the weather in Korea was exceptionally snowy and the temperature was sharply cold, but fortunately, it became warmer and now at the end of the month plum blossoms and daffodils are blooming. Since January is winter season, tea cannot be produced in Korea, so I am drinking Taiwan winter made tea or 2023 Boseong black teas For example, Li San Oolong and dayuling Oolong, Mongjungsan hongcha...
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Fancy a beautiful new teapot? you can explore here
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January in the Shire Highlands Malawi
From our partners Wouter & Alexander : January is part of the main rainy season in Malawi that runs from December to March/April. So in January there is a lot of rain and it is very hot. This is the main season to produce our CTC black and green teas. 80% of the total production at Satemwa is concentrated in this period at the beginning of the year ; a very busy time of the year. In terms of speciality tea we make some orthodox black tea and this has proven to be a very good time of year for the steamed green teas, we also produce some of our pearls in January too.
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The picture above might interest people and was taken on 30/01 from Alexander at Satemwa. We are participating in an international tea producers collaboration. Three specialty tea producers (from India - The Tea Studio, from Colombia - Bitaco, from Malawi - Satemwa) challenged themselves to produce the best possible tea crafted exclusivly from the Assamica cultivar. We will all craft teas in the following categories: white, black & free style. All teas need to be produced between September 2023 & January 2024. Tasting & explanations about terroir will happen during the World Tea Expo in Vegas in March.
The picture above might interest people and was taken on 30/01 from Alexander at Satemwa. We are participating in an international tea producers collaboration. Three specialty tea producers (from India - The Tea Studio, from Colombia - Bitaco, from Malawi - Satemwa) challenged themselves to produce the best possible tea crafted exclusivly from the Assamica cultivar. We will all craft teas in the following categories: white, black & free style. All teas need to be produced between September 2023 & January 2024. Tasting & explanations about terroir will happen during the World Tea Expo in Vegas in March.
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Want to try the tea? You can explore here
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January in Adams peak Sri Lanka
From our partners Buddhika : After 5 months of heavy rain at the end of 2023 [where the crop had gone down very badly] January has seen sunshine return and so tea making return - we are not at full production at this time of year - more like 80%. Tea is made all year round in Sri Lanka but we make to order - we don't keep any stock as we like to send garden fresh tea to our partners. January was a good month for us - the crop is picking up. daily temperatures are around 23 - 25 with rain in the afternoon returning to sunshine. The rainfall pattern is now good - good conditions for the tea. We have mainly been plucking tea and making all types of tea according to orders. We have also been welcoming visitors from around the world - this month from Japan, Denmark and other places.
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One area we have had to address in the wild tea forest is the blister blight. This is something that affects the taller parts of the wild tea trees which are in the wet and misty climate. It can be dealt with by increasing plucking rounds but with the heavy rain at the end of 2023 we were not plucking so much as it was too wet to climb the trees - and so the branches became affected. Through January with warmer weather we have been able to climb again and we have been removing the affected branches by hand and everything is recovering nicely. This is only a problem in the wild tea section not with the cooperative farmers who are plucking from conventional tea trees.
Want to try the tea? You can explore here
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What were your January highlights?
Share them with us - we would love to hear from you.
Share them with us - we would love to hear from you.
