Tea AMA: Ana Dane and Sebastian Beckwith of In Pursuit of Tea

Hi there, welcome everybody!

SB: Tea blending is a real skill; most companies do it for consistency, to always provide a standard product. In Pursuit of Tea doesn’t blend lots of tea, but we do have a few selections that could be called a blend (such as our Earl Grey, Classic Chai and Crimson Chai). The tough part about these offerings is having to adjust the recipe based on the specific characteristics of that particular lot of tea, spice or herb. For instance, hibiscus flowers- which we use in our herbal blend Scarlet Glow- can vary greatly in tartness, sweetness and color. Every batch is different, so when we move to a new one, we often need to play with the amount of stevia leaf, lemon verbena, and other ingredients in this mix so as to keep the characteristic balance.

AD: I’m incredibly spoiled, because I’m so surrounded by delicious teas every day that it’s hard to pick just one favorite! I think a lot has to do with the environment in which you’re tasting a tea- if it’s a pleasant place and you’re sharing it with a close friend, it will be the best tea you’ve ever had.
One that does come to mind is Darjeeling 2nd Flush. I can’t even recall the estate right now, but it was the first one I’d ever had that was properly made, and the spicy-sweet notes transformed how I viewed black tea. It really opened my eyes to how nuanced and and beautiful black teas can be.

SB: Luckily, my favorite tea changes- but some of my frequent favorites are in the oolong category, due to the range of flavor and fragrance. Right now, I’m marveling at our Spring Fortune, an oolong from Taiwan, but I’ll be in the tea gardens of north India soon, and my new favorite then will probably be a fresh Darjeeling First Flush.

SB: The biggest problem that we have in the tea industry is that teas are known by such general names. Think about wine: imagine if a restaurant just listed a wine as “northern Italian red” with no other information on the menu. The way tea is referred to in the west now is basically like that.
The range and variation within Assam, Darjeeling, Sencha, etc. is incredibly wide; the price will vary depending on the overall quality of the lot (based on aroma, flavor, scarcity), and this can be quite dramatic.

AD: A good quality, artisanal tea can’t be that inexpensive, when you consider the amount of work it takes to produce these traditional, looseleaf styles: Most of the teas we offer, for example, are still hand picked and undergo much hand processing. That labor and expertise has a price attached to it, one that I feel is worth paying for.

Of course, lower priced teas can still be great tasting- production may be more mechanized, or processing may be simpler, so the end cost to the customer is lower.

Great question. I’m anxious to hear a response here.

We had the pleasure of working Chef Melanie Franks- who was a Chef Instructor at the French Culinary Institute- on a series of dinners where all the courses incorporated several diiferent tea elements- hojicha soba noodles, salad dressing with sencha, mushroom and pu-erh broth, matcha flatbread were a just a few of her very skilled creations.

Chef de Cuisine Eddie Leroux, at Restaurant Daniel here in New York, also poached a fish in our Anhui Yellow tea, which was fantastic.

What proportions of water and leaves do you use?

I’ve been better pleased when using a flat tablespoon tea to 6-8 oz water. I think I like strong flavors. In everything :)

The number of infusions you can extract from a tea will vary by tea type: oolongs and pu-erhs, especially, lend themselves to multiple steepings because of how the leaf is processed.

We prepare most of our teas gongfu style, which means using a lot of leaf, small quantities of water, and short infusion times. This often yields up to a half dozen or more flavorful infusions, with a high quality tea.

SB: I’ve traveled throughout India and the Himalayas since the late ’80s, when I first went to the region as an adventure travel guide in Bhutan.

Now I usually focus on Darjeeling, Sikkim, Assam and the Douars- northern India. I haven’t yet made it to the Nilgiris, in the south.

SB: The most difficult tea to source was from a small garden planted by the second king of Bhutan, in the 1950s.

I had to first find the overgrown plants (which people said had been cut down), and then work with a local family and the Ministry of Agriculture to establish a small production- one that requires constant attention, and that still isn’t producing enough quality tea for me to sell!

To learn to comment on wine, one sits around a table, all drinking the same wine and commenting together. One learns to speak the language, “when it tastes this way I say oaky.” But don’t we drink tea more often separately? Taste is personal. Anything I say about what I’m tasting is a projection, just like the rest of reality, isn’t it? Your question really gets to the bottom of our experience. Thanks for it.

Why are there no ‘like’ buttons? I like this question. I like it a lot.

SB: Sadly, the tea industry has no standard labeling- which means it’s very difficult for you as a consumer. You have to buy teas from various vendors (who should be able to answer all your questions about their products), and then taste and trust your palate.

AD: Many people ask us this very question. We have been working with cafes, restaurants, and the hospitality industry for over a decade and have seen many incarnations of tea selling- and have seen many of the mistakes.

The most important piece of advice involves training. Make sure you know your teas- where they come from, and how to best prepare them- and that you’re able to convey and share this with your customer. The western tea market is still fairly young, so I think there’s a lot of room for high quality tea shops, and we hope to see more opening!

There are many. If you want the history of tea in a readable book, I enjoyed and learned much from this: http://www.amazon.com/All-Tea-China-England-Favorite-ebook/dp/B0030CVQKI/ref=sr_1_4?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1389313311&sr=1-4&keywords=history+of+tea

http://www.amazon.com/Tea-Lydia-Gautier/dp/0811856828/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1389316970&sr=8-1&keywords=tea+lydia+gautier

I like this one but I probably didn’t pay this much. Lots of pretty pretty pictures. Also makes a nice mouse pad when I’m missing mine.

The True History of Tea, by Victor Mair and Erling Hoh. It’s a wonderful book, and while not an encyclopedia, captures much of the history of tea- and it has some great tea-related artwork and photos.

AD: yellow

SB: green

How could it be anything else- check out my most recent photo on Instagram (sebastianbeckwith).