Off to Vietnam

Off to Vietnam on Saturday evening. Had a real nightmare with my passport and visa - too many stamps and not enough spare pages left - but it’s all come good, and my bags are (nearly) packed. My first visit and really looking forward to it especially as they showed the Top Gear special from there in NZ a few weeks ago - brilliant programme, fantastic country.
I land in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and make my way to Da Lat and the tea estates of the south. I’ll be visiting growers in both North and South Vietnam and hoping to taste some great teas from the new season’s growth. Vietnamese tea has been getting better and better over the past few years, and they’re making some good speciality teas, most of which are exported to China.
After that I head for ShangHai and Zhejiang Province in China. My friend Liu Zhiming at the Shanshan Tea Company has promised me some fresh new seasons green teas to taste, and it’ll be good to catch up with him again. This is where we source our Zesty Green Tea from.
Glen Ryan, our Ops Director, is joining me for the China leg. It’s his first trip to tea plantations and what better place to start, China being the home of tea and where it all began 5000 years ago. We’re hoping to visit the West Lake area, home of world famous Dragonwell Tea. Story goes that many centuries ago the very finest leaves were picked for the emperor with golden scissors. I’m looking forward to travelling with Glen and to showing him around. Back on the 1st June.

Trip to Vietnam + China

Very much looking forward to visiting Vietnam for the first time (even more so since I saw the ‘Top Gear’ special a few weeks ago) and then on to China. I am visiting tea producers in the north and south of Vietnam, really looking to establish and strengthen relationships we have in this relatively new tea growing country. Vietnam is now the 2nd largest producer of coffee in the world so I am hoping to visit coffee growers too.

Its been quite a while since I visited China so I’m really excited to return. Looking forward to seeing my old friend Liu Zhiming again at ShanShan Tea, a great company who supply us with our Zesty Green teas.

Tea prices surge as poor weather hits crops

We’re battling with drought again, and tea prices have risen dramatically during the first quarter of this year due to low crops in Sri Lanka and Kenya (the world’s 3rd and 4th largest producers).
The outlook has been poor too for the new season in Assam, north-east India, the world’s largest tea producing region. Access to credit for some of the producers have meant that less fertiliser has been applied which has, in turn, reduced the crop… bit of a cycle here. The producers in these key areas need some rain to get production back on track. The key as always is the arrival of the “long rains” in Kenya, which are later than the number 26 bus I used to catch to school, but fingers-crossed.

Reason to be Cheerful

I’ve been the Bell Tea Guy for more than 5 years now, the last 2 working alongside David Burton, our Coffee Blend Master. We’ve have a lot of fun together but, it has to be said, we really need someone to keep us in order!

That’s all changed now as Amy Reason has come to join us in the tasting rooms. Amy is our new Assistant Tea and Coffee Taster and will be working with both of us, honing her tasting skills, developing her own direct relationships with our growers to source the best tea and coffee from around the world, and then helping us create the perfect blends back here at the ranch. No doubt keeping David and myself in order needs to be high on her agenda as well!

Amy’s very passionate about tea and coffee, and it was her determination to land the role that really impressed us. She’s already challenging us and throwing new ideas into the arena. It’s great to have her on our team – someone with a fresh perspective - and I’m really looking forward to working with her.

Crooks Road Opening and our new tasting rooms

We moved into our brand spanking new purpose-built facility at Crooks Road in December and it’s great to be here.

As well as bringing all of our Auckland based commercial functions under one-roof we are now able bring the tea and coffee parts of our business closer together.

It’s just so good to have a facility that we are all proud of and to be able to invite visitors to. We had a great turnout for the opening and ran tea and coffee tasting sessions for as many visitors who were interested in slurping and spitting with us.

The new tea and coffee tasting rooms are side-by-side and designed to flow together to give the feel of a bigger space. In reality they are separated by glass with positive air-flow pressure to ensure that the coffee aroma stays within the coffee room and doesn’t affect the tea-tasting which is more aroma sensitive.

Many industry friends and colleagues around the world said it couldn’t be done and we should separate the two completely, but we went ahead and did it anyway and it has paid off! (big nod to the architects and designers here for bringing alive our vision)

We have a good balance of natural light and “natural-light” illumination to ensure as even and consistent tasting conditions as possible.

Its also good to have more storage space for our library of tea and coffee samples.

The tasting rooms look out onto our new staff café which is a real hub of/for the business. This makes it easy for us to pull unsuspecting colleagues into our tasting rooms to try out our new tea and coffee blends!

Trip to America

I may be the tea guy, but I am very aware that a tea drinker is usually partial to a few cups of coffee in any given day. Because of this and our relationship with Burton Hollis, I recently had the pleasure of travelling to America with renowned coffee roaster, David Burton, to attend the SCAA (Speciality Coffee Association of America) conference in Minneapolis (image below).

This is a conference on a huge scale – stands from plantations, producers, roasters and retailers from across the world. It was a complete culture shock for a tea guy like myself. I know that the coffee industry is bigger than the tea one (give it time, people, give it time) but I was not prepared for the diversity of the stands, the growers and the ethnicities that were on display. We take it for granted when we sip our latte that “NZ roasted” covers it all, but a mere coffee bean undergoes a lot before it reaches our shores.

It was an information overload but given the amount of travel time I have given it some thought and these are the observations that I would like to share with you…

Ethical Coffee
The coffee industry has given a lot of thought and energy into the ethics of production. We see Fair Trade a lot here but overseas it is developing into something much bigger and we are seeing new movements like the Rainforest Alliance (www.rainforest-alliance.org ) and Coffee Kids (www.coffeekids.org ) gathering momentum and making a real difference.

Baristas
We went to the US National Barista Championships and felt incredibly patriotic when we learnt that one of the lead technical judges was Chris White from New Zealand. The standards of Baristas in the States is rising quickly and we saw some very theatrical performances – it was like watching a celebrity chef the way they engaged the audience.

Best Cup of Coffee
We drank a lot of coffee (as you would imagine). It is always interesting drinking coffee with David Burton. I agree with him when he says that street coffee in America is very bad. They favour a dark roast and then mix it with way too many creamers and flavours for it to be enjoyed. The best cup was a Colombian coffee, reputed to be the best coffee in the world and now I understand why it is referred to as ‘black gold’. David commented that a trip to America always reminds him that we are doing a good job in New Zealand.

Tea
A tea man cannot survive any trip without a good cup of tea along the way and I made sure to fit in a visit to Harris Tea (www.harristea.com ) in Anaheim. They are the largest private label supplier of tea in the States producing both speciality and mainstream tea and I felt right at home.

Proud to be a Kiwi
I always love traveling and letting people know that I am from New Zealand (yes I am aware that I am a POM, but I still call New Zealand home). What was interesting was how many people related to New Zealand on a more passionate level and for one reason in particular. Not the All Blacks, not the politics, but Flight of the Concords. Those boys have worked some magic with the Americans and we felt the love!

It is good to be home. It is good to be back tasting and blending tea, but I am delighted to have gained more insight into the coffee industry which has given me a new found appreciation for that cup of black gold I have every now and then!

Sri Lanka

Great news – I just booked my next flight to Sri Lanka! I’ll be heading off soon, with the CEO of the Bell Tea Company, Mark Hamilton. This will be his first trip to Sri Lanka and I can’t wait to show him around all the different estates, and introduce him to our friends and tea partners. Sri Lanka is one of our most important tea producers, and we have a really strong relationship with many of the great tea estates over there. So I’m really excited that Mark will be coming.

I’ll be sure to bring back photos for the blog!