The more I read the news about tea the more I begin to worry about the supply, especially since tea is seeing a resurgence in the U.S.
Our source today talks about the tea output in the Kericho district of Kenya which has been severely affected by the post election violence and by the prolonged drought. In fact, five of the six tea processing factories that Unilever Tea Kenya owns in the area have been shut down. Whereas in good times, these plants could process/crush 700,000 kilos (2.2 pounds in a kilo) a day, they are only processing 100,000 daily now.
Not only that but the tea pickers for the plantations have been displaced to refugee camps or have moved back to ancestral homes in Nyanza and western Kenya. That’s going to make it hard to find people to get the tea leaves to the factories for processing. These tea pickers are not sure of getting their jobs back. Who knows when the political situation will be back to normal? The factories’ management will have to consult with local leaders as to how to get the workers back to their jobs.
With such little tea being produced in this area, prices will probably reflect this at auction over the next several weeks, maybe till things get back to normal … if they ever do.
Source: http://www.nationmedia.com/dailynation/nmgcontententry.asp?category_id=3&newsid=120833
Filed under Tea by on Apr 10th, 2008. 
The tea news today seems to be pretty much more of the same, such as the news about Sweet Leaf Tea’s expansion into the ready-to-drink iced tea markets now that it has new funds from Catterton Partners to do so. They are already in 6000 stores and hope to double that with expansion funds of $18,000,000. having done very well in Texas, Colorado and parts of California and in the natural foods market.
Since this is the type of tea news available right now, I thought I would talk a little about a tea I picked up on a trip a couple weeks ago. It is a Republic of Tea Chinese oolong called “Ti Kuan Yin – Strengthen the Spirit Tea”. Although my local Vitamin Cottage carries the Republic of Tea brand, it does not carry this particular product.
This oolong tea, when you open the canister, consists of balls of tea leaves. When boiling water is poured upon the balls, they open up into the biggest leaves of tea I have seen in a tea yet. Most real tea lovers have probably had more experience than I with oolongs, or even all the other teas, so have seen such large leaves before. But these were a real treat in my experience.
It is a lovely golden color in the cup. There is a slightly nutty scent underlying the tea. The tea I can only describe as very smooth though I did sweeten it a tad. What I like best about this tea is that I could infuse the leaves again and again for more interesting cups of tea, each as delightful as the first cup. Although I have read about this, this is the first tea in my experience that I was really able to do so and have as fine a cup of tea as with the first infusion.
Source:
http://www.statesman.com/business/content/business/stories/other/04/03/0403sweetleaf.html
Filed under Oolong Tea by on Apr 11th, 2008.
Australians finally get their own tea. Twinings, after several tries and several months of work, have developed a new tea just for Australian tastes.
According to Twinings, only about five or six other countries in the world use milk in their tea like the Australians prefer to do. This required the right blend of teas that would work well with milk but also would be a bit “softer and more well-rounded” the way tea is preferred by Australians. This is different from the British preference for a very strong tea.
These were some of the things Twinings discovered about tea drinking peculiarities around the world. Among the above, they uncovered that 90% of Australians use tea bags as do most people in the U.S., whereas Chinese tea drinkers prefer loose leaves.
The new tea blend for Australians from Twinings is called “Simply Tea”.
Source: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,23528497-662,00.html
Filed under Tea by on Apr 14th, 2008.