Some Information And Tips About Teapots And Teacups

Some questions have been asked about why is the shape of a teapot different from a coffee pot and how does a teacup differ from a coffee cup.

The teapot is designed with a lower rounded body to allow the tea leaves the proper room to expand, some call it the 'dance' of tea leaves, during the infusion process. The lower placement of the spout on the vessel allows for the tea to be poured without interfering with the leaves.

And when hosting an Afternoon tea session, the tradition is to place the teapot such that the spout faces the hostess or pourer.

A teacup is designed to hold 6 ounces of tea, about 3 1/2" in diameter and 2" to 2 1/2" in height, whereas a coffee mug holds 8 to 10 ounces. A teacup is shallow and wider than a coffee mug or cup, giving the beverage a chance to temper before drinking.

"Light Teas" of Sri Lanka

Despite its diminutive size Sri Lanka manages to produce an astounding variety of teas. The black-leafed, deep coloured, thick, malty low country teas that are the backbone of blends in every country from Iran to Libya are produced less than 50 miles away from the light, bright high grown teas of Nuwara Eliya much valued by the Japanese and Germans.

What the tea trade call "light-bright teas" are grown on the slopes of Mt Pidurutagala, the island’s highest mountain, these teas are given virtually no oxidation time which makes for a distinctive rawness in the finished product. The taste is incredibly fresh and brisk, a product of the slow growth associated with the altitude coupled with minimal oxidation time ensuring that the teas retain as much of the character and flavour of the original green leaf as is possible. Mango and other tropical fruit aromas are clear on the infusions, and (without milk) the tea is astonishingly refreshing.

The way to consume Ceylon tea like a local is with a chunk of jaggery. Jaggery is an intensely sweet, solid block of sugars derived from the reduction of coconut. It has the consistency of Kendal Mint Cake and a sugary-fudgey character that makes it an ideal accompaniment to the intensely thick, strong, smaller-leafed teas favoured by the local market. Without jaggery, these teas would be a real trial to drink but much like the consumption of a sweet chestnut in Japan alongside the steamed green tea, the sugars counteract the strength and bitterness of the tea and ensure an energy boost to keep the drinker going until lunchtime.

An Interview With Anselm Perera, Managing Director of Mlesna Tea

~ How product innovation in tea brings the strong aroma of business success ~

Mlesna tea, a household name in Sri Lanka today, enjoys iconic status in the highly competitive area of local value-addition teas. Its distinctive taste is enjoyed today in more than 50 countries and its onward penetration of newer and newer markets is powered by bold experimentation in new product designing.

"You forge ahead in this competitive arena by improving your product and innovating; by simply doing new things," explains Mlesna (Ceylon) Ltd's Founder and Managing Director Anselm B. Perera in this thought provoking interview:

Q: Your's is one organisation which has caught the imagination of tea consumers. Could you describe in brief, its origins and development ?

A: I started off with a small team in 1983. Prior to that, I worked at Brookbond's from 1969 - just after leaving school - until 1978. I shifted to Shaw Wallace's for a short time and launched my tea business subsequently, just before the ethnic violence of 1983. The first year was difficult but we persisted.

Right throughout my years at Brookbond's, what we saw was that the product was exported in commodity form. It could not be helped at that time because multinationals were organised that way and we learnt everything from them - the blending, the packing, the teatasting, the whole business. We used these practices as our basis and the rest of it we developed as we went along.

My ambition, when I moved out, was to bring out a value - added product, not to merely export the commodity.

The majority of exporters were just shipping the bulk at that time. Because the amount of work you have to do in this operation is limited. You blend it up, pack it, put a tag on it and export it. Value-addition, however, is our organised purpose - packaging, designing, marketing. It does not end up in just doing the product. You market it as well. From the point of export, until it reaches the consumer you are responsible.

For our country value - addition is the key. If you continue to do bulk only, you just don't add enough value. It is time the trade wakes-up to this.

Everyone has a different way of doing this. Tea bagging is a big thing today. Everyone in the world would eventually use tea bags for convenience.

There is this new concept of making leaf tea in tea bags - new pyramid-style bags and party bags and so on. These will also take a certain place in the market.

Q: Any special market compulsions which have led you to deal in value-addition tea bags ?

A: When we were children, tea was sold in a piece of paper. But that is no more. We have to come up with new gimmicks to sell the same product. We have to also upgrade the quality of the product.

If we sell tea as an average product, there is no exceptional value added to the product, to the modern day consumer. Because the modern day consumer is becoming more and more sophisticated, their income levels are increasing and they want something special.

Even if you take an average consumer item, like milk, even there one has value addition now. In the old days one had to boil one's milk and then consume it. Today it is specially packed, in ready-to-drink form. You store it in your refrigerator and consume it at your leisure. Tea is also coming to that.

Ready-to-drink tea is so popular among the present generation because they are so busy. All types of tea bags are becoming popular because of this time factor. The majority of young families do not want brewed tea, they want tea bags. Today, morning, noon and night, almost every consumer goes in for tea bags because they are convenient.

Q: Is the market for tea growing ?

A: The market for tea is growing internationally. The emphasis that tea is a health product or healthy product is greater now than ever before. Tea itself is a totally bio-product. Whatever fertilizer you add to the earth never enters the leaf in the form of chemicals; it comes in its natural form. But you also have this fuss about organic products, where you only add organic fertilizer to the soil and so on.

But if you only use organic fertilizer, the character and quality of the leaf drops. The taste is totally different. You cannot have super quality teas from organically-produced soil, because when the virgin soil is there you will have fantastic quality.

But ten or twenty years down the line, the soil will deteriorate and you will need to redo the soil by using fertilizer. You need fertilizer for good quality tea.

The organic tea market has also grown to a degree. A major slice of the tea market demands organic tea. But we do not ship to that degree. We also have a small line of organic tea. But the world needs to be extremely rich to go in for organic tea because this tea is very expensive. As a result the price of such teas are three, four times the normal teas.

Q: How do you cope with competition in your line of business ?

A: You keep abreast of competition by improving your product and innovating; by doing new things.

Twenty three years ago, when I started, you didn't have many people doing value additions, new teas, flavoured teas, etc. But now you have quite a few people coming into the market.

The biggest problem in this context is that when people copy products they do so in a very poor manner, at a very cheap cost and offer it to the market at a very low price. This is because they lack innovation; they do not have designing or start-up costs.

They are merely copying someone elses product. Then what happens is that their costs are low and they are using low quality material and teas to bring out a look-alike product and offer it cheap. When this happens they bring the whole value of the market down. Bulk tea business has rotted as a result of this. You offer it at $5, I offer it at 4.99 and the next man at 4.90, another at 2 and it perpetually goes down.

Actually prices must go up because of rising, new expenditure in the world. Everyday, expenditure increases. But most of our people insist on cutting it down.

When I started in 1969, a pound of tea was about two rupees, that is four rupees a kilo. Thirty seven years ago a dollar was four rupees. A kilo of tea must have been around four rupees. Today bottom end teas are around the dollar mark and top end teas are around the two dollar mark.

After about 40 years it has gone up by only a dollar. This is most unsatisfactory. Today, tea should be in the region of four dollars a kilo. This is a comfortable price for the plantations. This is the reason why all the plantation companies are suffering. The goose that lays the golden eggs does not get the right price.

Q: Does Ceylon tea continue to enjoy the prestige it once commanded ?

A: Still Ceylon tea is the cleanest and best quality tea. It still commands a high price compared to other teas.

Of course, our cost of production is also high. Because of that, whatever price they get is not enough for the plantations. Cost of production is high because of (a) bad labour (b) our yields are low (c) with the fertilizer subsidy gone people are up against difficulties when it cones to purchasing fertilizer.

Still, the trade continues and it is a trade which provides the biggest employment.

Internationally, we have a very good name and a very good brand. Ceylon tea is still regarded as the best in the world. It has a bright future provided our internal management is good.

Labour in the plantations should be managed better and political interference in their affairs should stop.

~Source: Sri Lanka Daily News

A Brief History of Ceylon Tea

The history of Ceylon Tea goes back to the early 1860s, during which the main crop produced in Ceylon then was coffee. Owing to devastation caused by the coffee-rust fungus, the majority of the coffee plants were killed, which made estate owners to lose interest in coffee and to diversify into the other crops in order to prevent an entire ruin. As the owners of Loolecondera Estate had been having a long-stood interest in tea cultivation since the late 1850s, started sowing of tea seeds in 1867 under the supervision of James Taylor, a recently arrived Scot, who was appointed as the in-charge.

Ceylon tea from Sri Lanka is often acclaimed as the best tea in the world. The climate of this small and exotic country is ideally suited to producing a variety of delightful flavors and aromas. Ceylon tea is a pure, high quality tea with a distinctive, rich flavor and a bright golden color. Further, Sri Lanka, formerly known as Ceylon, produces the cleanest teas in the world in terms of pesticide residue levels.

Sri Lanka produces tea throughout the year, and the growing areas are mainly concentrated in the central highlands and southern inland areas of the island. Ceylon teas are broadly grouped under three headings according to the elevations at which they are grown. "High growns" are grown at elevations ranging from 1200 meters upwards, "medium growns" between 600 and 1200 meters, and "low growns" from sea level up to 600 meters.

High grown teas from Sri Lanka are particularly reputed for their aroma, rich flavor, and bright golden color.

De-stress With a Cup of Tea

Tea is becoming one of the world's most popular beverages.

There's a large body of research suggesting that a cup of tea has more than just a refreshing taste, the tea plant contains natural chemicals that act as antioxidants. These chemicals, including polyphenols and flavonoids have been studied for their role in lowering the risk of certain cancers, heart disease and stroke.

There are even studies suggesting that tea may be helpful in weight management.

In addition to the health benefits, tea is calorie-free, contains less caffeine than coffee and can certainly be part of your recommended daily intake of fluids.

We often think of tea as one of those relaxing drinks that seems to make you feel better after a stressful day. Now, a new study suggests there may be some truth to this.

When you are faced with a stressful situation, your body responds in a number of ways, including an increase in heart rate and blood pressure and the release of stress hormones such as adrenalin and cortisol.

These responses prepare your body to defend itself. When the stress subsides, the levels return to normal.

In this study, researchers in London divided a group of men into two. One half were given a fruit-flavoured caffeinated tea mixture that had all the components of a cup of black tea. The second half were given a similar tasting drink, identical in taste but missing the active ingredients of regular tea.

They all drank their drinks over a six-week period, and at the end of the time they were given a series of tests designed to raise their stress levels.

The scientists found that both groups experienced a rise in heart rate, blood pressure and the stress hormone cortisol. However, the cortisol levels of the tea drinkers fell more quickly after the stressful tests than the levels did in the non tea drinkers.

The researchers suggest that although tea doesn't appear to reduce the actual stress that you experience, it does seem to help you recover and de-stress more quickly.

Black tea, Oolong and green tea have comparable health benefits. They all come from the same plant Camellia Sinensis but have been produced differently.

Source: Health Canada at http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca

Tea by the numbers

6.2 Billion: US Tea Industry sales (US Dollars) in 2005.

3 Billion: Approximate number of cups of tea consumed worldwide every day.

200 Million: Approximate number of kilos of tea exported by India in 2005.

3.2 Million: Number of tons of tea produced worldwide in 2005.

800,000: Number of tons of tea produced in China in 2005

80,000: Number of tons of tea produced in Vietnam in 2005

342: Number of chests of tea dumped into Boston harbor during the Boston Tea Party.

65: Number of countries that India exports tea to.

4: Number of types of tea. Black, Green, Oolong, White. No, rooibos and herbal teas are not really tea.

1: Number of plant species that produce tea. Camellia sinensis.

[Sources: Tea Association of the United States, The Economist, Wikipedia]

Green Tea and Black Coffee - An Unlikely Pair of Healthy Beverage

Coffee or tea? There's a growing body of research to suggest that both are probably good for you.

We've heard a lot about the health benefits of tea, especially green tea. It is high in polyphenols--compounds with strong antioxidant activity that in test-tube and animal models show anticancer and heart-protective effects. Good clinical studies are few, however, and although I and other physicians tell our patients to drink green tea, there hasn't been any definitive proof of the value of that advice.

Full Story at TIME.com: Green Tea, Black Coffee -- Sep. 25, 2006