Blog — indian tea

My journey started with a two-train trip out into the beautiful Japanese countryside. After the crowded hubbub of Osaka this was a welcome relief and gave a very different view of life in Japan. I left the train and met up with my wonderful host for the day, and we were soon on the way to her office deep in tea country. From the brief car journey her passion for Japanese tea was clear. On arrival, I was quickly made to feel at home. ‘Do you want to taste some tea?’ was one of the first questions to be asked....

The story of our tea tin began with a visit to an antiques shop in Brussels, Belgium. After browsing the shop and not really being inspired by anything, we were about to leave when we noticed a large wooden cabinet in a corner. It was stacked full of small metal boxes, which in closer inspection were all embossed with numbers on their lids. Intrigued we picked one up and opened it revealing a scrap of paper. It was then the penny dropped. The piece of paper read ‘MARGARETS HOPE’, which we instantly knew as the famous tea estate in Darjeeling,...

My first taste of tea came at a very young age and must have been from an unattended cup belonging to one of my parents. I would love to say that this first experience started me on my tea journey, but it didn’t. More experiences followed in my early twenties from politely accepted cups offered by a variety of equally polite hosts. Sadly, the conclusion was the same. I didn’t like tea. In fact I would go as far as to say I disliked it. To me it was bitter and not at all pleasant. Even meeting my tea enthusiast...

We stood outside the Cochrane Place Hotel taking in the openness created by the huge drop behind the small concrete wall. The journey up to Kurseong in the Darjeeling District of West Bengal, India had been special to say the least. We had climbed over 4000ft since leaving Siliguri in a cramped 4x4. Putting the amazing views and scenery aside we were still marvelling at the man who had ridden the whole way standing on the back bumper. From all the other vehicles similar to ours it seemed you just couldn’t travel this route without such a passenger! Once we...