I recently had the privilege of going to see my beautiful daughter Francesca in her class, Room 9, at Cockle Bay School in Auckland.

I had sent her in one day with a magazine article on tea to share with the class and she came home with a request from her classmates for the Bell Tea Guy to come in and talk to them about tea. Cockle Bay is a great school and Francesca is lucky in having a superb teacher in year 4, Kirsten Holmes (Miss Holmes to me!). Miss Holmes confessed that she was unable to answer the deluge of questions that she had been asked about tea and that I simply just had to come in and deal with them myself.

Another connection is that Bell's financial controller's daughter Georgia is in the same class. She made it very clear that her dad is the guy who gives me all the money for the travelling I do, and I guess she is right about that!

We had a fantastic time and I don't think I have been asked such searching questions by any group before. The kids were most interested in the travelling that I have done which was a good chance for me to reminisce about some of my experiences over the years. We had a go at slurping and spitting, so much a part of my life, and they got the hang of that very quickly, so my apologies to their parents if they were still practicing in the evening! It was also the only time I have ever asked a group how many of them wanted to become tea-tasters and more than half the room put their hands up! Miss Holmes is now leading a science project for the school and tea may well be part of that.

Keep up the good work Room 9 it was great to meet you all.

The Tailor of Tea

It was a privilege to be part of the Twinings sponsored Mother's Day Afternoon Tea for the benefit of the Nurture Foundation, and no better place to hold it than the revamped ballroom of the Heritage Hotel. For those who don't know, Nurture, through research, are committed to helping New Zealanders have families through the safe delivery of a healthy, full-term baby.

There were a couple of key auction prizes on offer and one was to win an afternoon home cooking/baking class at Allyson Gofton's house with the lady herself. I've known Allyson a little while and she is great, not only a total pro chef but lots of fun and very humble! She is also a committed ambassador for Nurture. We had a right laugh and I of course muscled my way in to make the tea to go with the food. All in a very good cause. The stars of the show though were the ladies who bid for and won the prize, plenty of stories and I was the only guy there!

The other charity prize from the afternoon was a commitment from me to create a bespoke tea blend for the winning bidder. It was very appropriate that Cindy Farquhar outbid all to secure the blend for her husband Geoff. Cindy is Professor of gynecology and obstetrics at the University of Auckland, and a trustee of Nurture. I went along to their lovely Auckland home to interview Geoff and find out more about him in order to create his own very personal and unique blend of tea. It’s just like the concept of a bespoke tailor and Geoff will join the ranks of previous recipients, Allyson Gofton herself, and the illustrious Earl Grey for whom the very first bespoke teas were created by Twinings in the early 1800s.

Watch this space and I'll let you know how this developed......

New season tea

There is nothing better in my job than to taste fresh new season's tea from the best tea crops in the world.

Some of the team (Leigh, Chris, Jessica and Amy) popped in to join me and taste the first shipment of the new season for our India Origin blend.
These are outstanding teas from Darjeeling and Assam and, as you can see, we are very happy with them.

My friend Ashok Gandotra has done an outstanding job for us in India to secure these teas against fierce competition from around the world.

Hong Kong Visit

13th August

I'm on a whirlwind tour of Hong Kong having been invited to the very first Hong Kong International Tea Fair as a guest of the Hong Kong Trade and Development Corporation.

This is running concurrently with The Food Fair and two other exhibitions at the amazing Hong Kong Convention + Exhibition centre. (see picture) There is a lot going on.



The crew from Australia (8 people) and New Zealand (me) are great and I would say we are the liveliest delegation here.

As you can see we found our way to the Fine Wines of Italy stand, with the charismatic Eduardo, 2nd from left, who also owns an organic tea company based in Piedmont, Italy.

Now for me to be tasting 100s of Asia's best teas over a two day period is my kind of heaven, there were 250 exhibitors from 10 countries. I have really enjoyed sampling over 10 top white teas from Fujian province.

I might not be a great personal fan of Pu-erh tea but some of the oldest and most valuable vintage Pu-erhs are about to go on sale. There is 10g of a 109 year-old Pu-erh tea up for US$1000, and a 300g slab of a 1950s Pu-erh going for US15,000, now I wonder if the team back home at Bell might like some.....

It is good to see so many Producers here from other parts of the world including our partners in Sri Lanka, Watawala Plantations, and my old friend Vinodh (see picture) from Vintage Teas in Sri Lanka, looks like we are going grey together my friend. Also caught up with Mike Wright from Twinings in the UK, who now owes me dinner on my next visit!

The Auckland Food Show

If you were wondering why the streets of Auckland seemed eerily quiet this weekend, I can tell you it is because most of the city congregated at the Food Show to sample the goods and (literally) rub shoulders with their fellow city-people.

I was at the Show to talk to punters about the two latest Bell blends on the market, India Origin and Zesty Green Tea Berry, and Twinings ever-popular blend (and the original) Earl Grey. With new products it is always great to have a sampling opportunity, and some face time with the public. For this there is no better place than the Auckland Food Show.

This year it was hard not to notice the rise in numbers and the influence of ethnic stands. This is a great reflection on not only the ever diversifying cultural makeup of Auckland, but also the growing influence of and demand for world foods on New Zealanders plates.

India Origin fit beautifully into this environment. We were lucky enough that Peta Mathias agreed to promote India Origin during her cooking demonstrations which focused on combining flavours and ingredients from Rajasthan in India (great show, Peta). Whilst watching Peta, I was reminded again of how blending tea really is like cooking – creating combinations of different teas can often result in something that is greater than the sum of its parts… despite what some of the other brands in the NZ market say!

We were able to draw in many a punter with the tempting aroma drifting from the freshly brewed Zesty Berry. It was great to meet people who are already Zesty Green Tea converts, and the reaction to the new flavour (and the pink colour) was overwhelmingly positive. Again, it was great to get people to sample our green tea as it is so unique and easy to drink in comparison with the majority of the market.

From the company perspective it was great to be across the aisle from Gravity coffee, one of the brands in the Bell Tea & Coffee stable. This year we were conveniently dressed in what we call “Gravity purple” t-shirts, so we dominated our corner of the hall.

Finally, during the show we promoted a competition to win an India Origin hamper filled with goodies. If you want to enter, please do. You just need to click on the elephant on the Bell Tea homepage. Or click on this link

Radio Live Tea Debate

Not sure if anyone caught the discussion about tea on Radio Live on Monday night?
They were chatting about the findings from the research team at Kings College in the UK, which refutes the myth that tea dehydrates. In fact, their findings prove that, not only does it count towards your daily fluid requirement, but drinking three to four cups of tea a day can provide positive health benefits.

At Bell, we have known the positive effects of tea for a long time, including that it contributes to overall levels of hydration, and have been working with the University of Auckland to ensure we have access to independent academic insight on all research findings, so it was terrific hearing it being discussed on the radio.

Hopefully, you’ll now all be inspired to rush to the kettle and your pack of Bell Tea!

Two more new teas from Bell!

Just realised that I haven’t mentioned two new teas that we’ve added to the Bell family over the past couple of weeks – there’s a lot to talk about at the moment!

So, Zesty Berry is the latest addition to our green tea range. As with India Origin, we’re secretly hoping we might have another world-first, since we think it might be the only green tea in the world that isn’t actually green, but pink (or ‘ruby’, as we like to call it).

As with the rest of the Zesty Green range, I source the tea for the new variant from the Zhejiang Province on the eastern Coast of China. If you’ve read earlier blogs, you’ll know that I’ve just returned from a trip there, where I re-connected with my friend and our supplier, Liu Zhiming of the Shanshan Tea Company, and visited the famous Dragonwell estate.

Anyway, if you’ve enjoyed the rest of our Green tea range, please try Zesty Berry. It’s blended with all natural ingredients – raspberry, blackcurrant and blackberry, and of course, you get all the antioxidant benefits of the green tea as well as the taste.



Secondly – and long overdue according to many of you – we’ve released our Kenya Bold blend in leaf tea form. It appears I’m not alone in my love for a stronger brew, and Kenya Bold has developed a real following. However, many of you have had to make do with the teabags (which are still great by the way), when really you’re committed leaf tea drinkers. Well, no longer! We’ve listened, and hopefully Kenya Bold Leaf will be on a shelf near you very shortly.