Tea

I like a good brew of tea, we usually have Yorkshire tea, bags, but I do have a caddy full of loose leaf in which I maintain a mix of Assam and the so-called English Breakfast – they are only supermarket teas but my “special mix” as I like to call it, does produce a rich and satisfying brew and I stir it up a bit every now and again by the inclusion of a different brand or region – Kenyan teas are quite good…

Watching the old telly box a while back and there was Michael Portillo travelling around Europe by train. This time he was in Georgia, the country not the US state, and he was ‘discovering’ (as was I) that Georgia had and still has various tea plantations; the plants having come from China, were mainly left to grow wild and harvested as ‘wild tea’.

Intrigued, I immediately went on-line (yeah, get me eh?) and searched for Georgian Tea to buy and ordered myself 100 g of “Georgia (Grusinia) Wild OP”, sat back and waited for it to arrive…
OP I’m guessing standing for Orange Pekoe, certainty not Theakston Old Peculier.

The next day I received an email telling me that they only had 32 g of the Georgian tea and would I like to choose anything else to make-up the order.

I perused the website, https://www.itstea.co.uk/ and chose “Royal Breakfast Strong” which, it said, was a blend of Assam and Kenyan black teas. I closed by remarking, “…or any good, no nonsense black tea of your choice.”

Two days later the teas arrived, the Georgian, the Royal Breakfast and something called “Yunnan Imperial” which is another fine black tea but from Yunnan in southwest China, as you may have guessed.

Of the three, the Georgian was the most disappointing, OK but a bit lacklustre. The Yunnan gave a decent brew, but the best was the Royal Breakfast Strong and I intend to buy more of this wonderful stuff!