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Kenya - one of the first countries in Africa to grow tea after the first bushes were introduced in 1903 by the Briton G.W.L. Caine and planted near Limuru in the Kiambu district - admittedly at the time only for ornamental purposes - but a foundation that was built upon when commercial production started in 1924 by Brooke Bond on colonist-occupied farms. The country’s location means few fluctuations in weather and year round tea growth and production.  This combined with the high levels of polythenols in the tea [which creates a bitter taste that repels bugs and eradicates the need for pesticides] has...

After a short break to recover from the book launch we are back to continue our journey around the tea world with our #60partners60days stories.  Our next destination is Taiwan a small mountainous island [located just off the coast of China] with a big presence in tea.   Over the next few days we will introduce you to a number of the parters we work with and have profiled in our book through our social media #60partners60days stories Rob first visited Taiwan back in October 2013 for a whistle-stop tour of the most famous tea regions, travelling from Taipei down the east coast to, among others, Alishan mountains. "The...

Hi, its Rob here.  I thought it might be interesting to share a number of short blogs from my trip to South Korea - so here goes with day 3.  Any questions please do just get in touch!  Cheers Rob _____________________ Day 3 started with a coffee in a butchers  shop with a restaurant attached. All restaurants have free coffee machines in them, serving paper cups of very sweet, fairly light coffee. This apparently is the most popular type in Korea, and very popular amongst sweet toothed American tourists. This led to a conversation about the fact that Korean students...

As Rob prepares to leave South Korea we continue our journey around the tea world as part of series of  #60partners60days stories.  Our next destination is Japan the fascinating country where many of our best loved teas are produced.  We first travelled here in 2009, young, tentative in our exploration fascinated and delighted in equal measure with everything we encountered.   On this first trip we explored the Uji tea region while also visiting Kagoshima, Takayama and the Noto Peninsula >>             ..it was also on this trip we first experienced chanoyu at cultural centre in Kyoto       Returning in 2012, again to Uji, we focused...

Hi, its Rob here.  I thought it might be interesting to share a number of short blogs from my trip to South Korea - so here goes with day 2.  Any questions please do just get in touch!  Cheers Rob _____________________ . After breakfast on day 2 I accompanied Seong Il on a visit to potential exhibition space in a private gallery in Gangnam-gu, an affluent area of Seoul, made famous in the west by ‘Gangnam style’, a track by Psy. Incidentally he is far from a one hit wonder in South Korea! . Following this fascinating insight we travelled...