Blog

It took a while to get to Feng Qing but as usual in China the travel is always worth it. After an 11hour flight from London to Shanghai and then a connection onto Kunming in Yunnan we met our driver for the next few days who estimated 7 hours South West to Feng Qing, Lincang Prefecture Yunnan.  The journey took 11 hours culminating in steep climbs and long declines with the obligatory terrifying overtaking but at 1am we pulled into the town passing under the sign reading ‘China Black Tea Capital’ – always a good sign and certainly rejuvenating at the end of...

The next leg of our journey took us to us to one of the most fascinating and exciting tea estates I have ever been to. Idalgashinna began life as a tea estate in 1984. It quickly became one of the pioneers of organic tea farming and was certified Organic back in 1989. This pioneering nature was further exemplified by it being categorised as Biodynamic since 1999. More on what this means exactly later. Further to this it has acted under the Fairtrade banner since 1992. 274 hectares of estate producing around 200 tonnes of some of the finest tea in Sri Lankan each...

The next leg of our journey took us to us to one of the most fascinating and exciting tea estates I have ever been to. Idalgashinna began life as a tea estate in 1984. It quickly became one of the pioneers of organic tea farming and was certified Organic back in 1989. This pioneering nature was further exemplified by it being categorised as Biodynamic since 1999. More on what this means exactly later. Further to this it has acted under the Fairtrade banner since 1992. 274 hectares of estate producing around 200 tonnes of some of the finest tea in Sri Lankan each...

On a quiet evening a few weeks ago I was sitting in the Tea House doing some paperwork and the phone rang.  At this time of night a call is usually family or friends but this time it happened to be a fellow tea enthusiast who had visited the Tea House & taken tea with us.  Since starting our business [& in my previous business life] we have had to make many speculative calls to growers, makers & tea experts seeking advice, help or just the chance for discussion around topics we were trying to understand so I recognised the tone...