The Tea Lover's Treasury at 40

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mbanu
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Thu Jan 20, 2022 12:49 pm

It looks like James Norwood Pratt's first tea book The Tea Lover's Treasury turns 40 this year!

I'm not certain if it is true, but it is credited today with starting the 1980s loose-leaf tea revival in the United States, following the slow decline of the Seven Sisters style teas that had been the dominant tea culture in America up into the 60s and the pivot to herbalism and herbal teas in the 70s.

So, I thought maybe a dedicated thread might be nice. :)
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Victoria
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Thu Jan 20, 2022 1:30 pm

There might be some truth to what you say @mbanu. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Norwood Pratt on many occasions during the yearly tea festivals here in LA, he’s quiet a stylish and erudite character. A real southern gentleman living in San Francisco who came into the world of tea after decades writing about wine, such as the The Wine Bibber's Bible. One of his newest books, a Tea Dictionary, is a large compendium of tea history, marketing, trading, cultivation, processing as well as tea classifications. His web site James Norwood Pratt seems to be down, hope he’s ok. He also most recently rereleased and annotated William Ukers 1936, The Romance of Tea. Hope to see him again when and if we ever have another tea festival here as covid canceled all that for the past two years.
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mbanu
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Thu Jan 20, 2022 9:25 pm

After following the tradition of tea books to start with several pages of tea-history, the first actual tea the book discusses, surprisingly, is a Scottish breakfast tea, "Breakfast" by Drysdales of Edinburgh. I'm not actually certain that "Scottish Breakfast" as a named blend even existed in 1982... Mr. Pratt mentions English Breakfast, and Irish Breakfast, but other than Drysdales is silent on "Scottish Breakfast".
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In the mid-1990s, Drysdales was bought out by coffee-tea conglomerate Brodie, Hamilton, Melrose & Company to become Brodie, Melrose, Drysdale & Company, which is still around, but they only sell teabags now: https://www.brodies1867.co.uk

Next is Russian Caravan tea, which Pratt pointed out right up front was not actually representative of Russian tea, but was a sort of tea for overseas Russians in America that created its own mystique as time went on. He specifies that American and British blends are distinct, but still seems to be trying to figure out why. Of the two American companies mentioned, John Wagner and Mark T. Wendell, Wagner's is gone but Mark T. Wendell is still around: https://marktwendell.com/

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(Their Russian Caravan is actually more similar to the smokeless British variety -- their Victorian Afternoon is their smoked Caravan.)

I think it's interesting to compare this dynamic with the teas popular with overseas Chinese vs. tea-culture in mainland China itself, as it seemed to mirror the same pattern for many years, but now has started to reverse itself as mainlanders self-consciously adopt overseas Chinese practices to fill the gap left by the shutting down of the old teahouses during the Mao-era efforts to create a new Red Flag tea-culture.
Last edited by mbanu on Tue Jan 25, 2022 3:18 am, edited 1 time in total.
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mbanu
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Fri Jan 21, 2022 10:05 pm

The next section is a little unusual today, it is on "O'Clock Teas", which seemed to be Pratt's category both for "afternoon tea" and (presumably) lower-caffeine teas meant for the evening. No American examples are given, it is framed as a British and French thing.
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The first example is "Indar Boudoir Tea", which is a French blend from Compagnie Coloniale: https://compagnie-coloniale.com/en/ A little interesting that it was not included under the "Earl Grey" category, as it is scented with bergamot -- perhaps because it is French? I don't know very much about this tea, sadly.

Then it mentions a bunch of examples from Jacksons of Piccadilly, who has since been bought out by Twinings and is now mostly used to sell Fair Trade herbal teabags. Similarly Ridgways was bought out by Typhoo and only sells teabags now rather than their own loose-leaf blends.

However, the final seller mentioned, The Tea Planters & Importers Company of Hampshire, is still around: https://www.teaplanters.com It looks like they still only offer tea blends by time, the only name-change being that Evening Tea was dropped and "Bedtime Tea" was added.
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mbanu
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Sat Jan 22, 2022 8:35 pm

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Next up is Earl Grey, which Pratt describes as sounding "like a stock-car driver from Appalachia". :lol: Instead of suggestions (Pratt is not especially excited about Earl Grey due to it being one of the most popular loose-leaf teas in America at the time of the book) it gets a bit of dedicated history on its disputed origins and the long feud between Twinings and Jacksons of Piccadilly over who had the original recipe. (Twinings won the argument through purchasing Jacksons, as mentioned previously.) I don't have any figures off-hand, but I suspect that Twinings Earl Grey is more popular than ever, as Twinings is often available in American grocery stores that will not carry any other loose-leaf tea, flavored teas generally are still what American tea-culture prefers, and Earl Grey has been considered a gender-neutral tea since it was featured as the favorite drink of Captain Picard in the popular TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation. :D The main difference today is that the tea in the tin was most likely packed in Poland rather than the UK, I think, although apparently there has been more modification with the UK formula, leading to a call-out in the tabloid the Daily Mail: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... t-tea.html

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After that, instead of talking about Lapsang Souchong generally, Pratt focuses on Mark T. Wendell's Hu-Kwa particularly, which is interesting. I suppose this was because at the time the Chinese tea industry was nationalized, so there were really only two choices for smoked tea, Hu-Kwa or Hu-Kwa style tea from Taiwan or the two styles of Lapsang Souchong from ChinaTea, regular or tarry. However, Lapsang Souchong does get a dedicated section later in the book under "scented teas", where along with personal stories of drinking Lapsang, he mentions that the ChinaTea variety is available from China Products Northwest (which grew from Northwest to China Products North America, to CPNA International, but now importing Chinese honey rather than Chinese tea) or First Colony Tea & Coffee in Virginia (bought out by Tidewater Coffee, who re-sells loose bulk Lapsang, primarily to businesses: https://tidewatercoffee.com/product-lists/loose-teas/ Their favorite packer is TeaSource in Minnesota, it seems.)
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mbanu
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Sun Jan 23, 2022 9:25 pm

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The next one in is a surprise, because it was a tea that was only offered in teabag form, "Ch'in Ch'u Oriental Blend", a mixture of Keemun, Oolong, and Pouchong with other unspecified black teas, developed by Bert Hauser of Servit Foods, that was commonly found in grocery stores. Why was it included, I wonder... it does not seem the same as the other loose teas focused on. The blend was developed in the 1950s, so this would probably have been made with Taiwanese duplicate Keemun rather than Chinese Keemun due to the U.S./China trade embargo.

The company that made it is still around, but has changed their name to Bromley Tea to focus on their current flagship product, which was the first decaffeinated tea in the United States. Bromley and Servit/Eastern were originally separate companies, not sure which bought out the other.

They also seem to have quietly retired Ch'in Ch'u, I imagine because the Orientalism of the packaging that drew in older drinkers enticed by a trip to foreign lands through a teacup was seen as embarrassing by younger generations. (Taiwanese Keemun also seems harder to find now.) It will be interesting to see if the same pattern happens in the future with pu'er tea, American children pleading with their parents to just leave their tea-pets in storage when their friends come over, not bring out the "Year of the Rat" pu'er with the rats circling in a yinyang shape, or offer to break apart a new cake with their "tea sword" pick. :lol:

Then it goes on to talk about Lady Londonderry, a Jacksons of Piccadilly blend that was retired by the Twinings buyout and that nobody seems to have made any attempts to copy, despite being frequently mentioned in later tea-books, and another named blend, Morgan Blend, made for the banker J.P. Morgan, a kind of Earl Grey & Russian Caravan hybrid. Still offered by Simpson & Vail (https://www.svtea.com/), but not really focused on despite being one of their original blends -- I'm guessing that drinking a tea named after a Gilded Age banker is not really as fashionable as it might have been in the 1980s.

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It ends the section with groupings of proprietary teas that he didn't think needed their own section, such as Connoisseur blend, a China/Ceylon mix from Grace Rare Tea (https://gracetea.com/), or Boston Harbour Tea, whose maker Davison Newman & Co in London had had some of their teas dumped. (The blend itself is not of Chinese teas, however.) That one is also still made, although it is no longer quite clear who owns Davison Newman as it dissolved in 2018. Mark T. Wendell runs their U.S. website (https://bostonharbourtea.com/), perhaps they bought the blend?

Also included are Schapira Flavor Cup (they only do coffee now), Sarum's Countess of Salisbury (gone), and a few more extinct blends from First Colony, Drysdales, Ridgways, Melroses, and Jacksons, wrapping it up with some existing blends from Fortnum & Mason (https://www.fortnumandmason.com/), such as their Queen Anne and Fortmason.
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Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:35 am

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Going into descriptions of black tea generally, Pratt starts with Assam -- puzzling over the rarity of first-flush Assams, and, interestingly, relying on coffeeshops that sold tea as suggested sources, as dedicated teashops were still so rare back then. He suggests The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf (https://www.coffeebean.com/), Pannikin (https://pannikincoffeeandtea.com), and "Starbucks of Seattle", before the Starbucks-ification of the coffee scene transformed these types of places into their modern forms. In 1982, Starbucks had just opened its first store with a coffee-bar (its fifth overall) for trying already-brewed coffee. For British imports, he falls back on Drysdales and Fortnum & Mason.

He does, however, mention the option of imports from Indian companies, suggesting Duncans, Maya, and Makhams Sindbad.

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Duncans is still around (https://www.duncanstea.in/), although I'm not sure if they have a North American importer anymore. Not sure about in the 1980s, but at the moment their Assam blends are all crush-tear-curl -- I had assumed for some reason that the book would be negative about CTC blends, but it is actually fairly neutral, emphasizing that the grade of tea is related to its size rather than its quality. Not sure about Maya, as the Maya Tea that is active today is an unrelated company, while Makhams Sindbad is not mentioned anywhere at all.
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mbanu
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Mon Jan 24, 2022 11:17 pm

For Ceylon tea, Pratt mostly relies on vendors previously mentioned -- Twinings, Pannikin, Mark T. Wendell... However, he also suggests writing to the Sri Lanka Tea Board (https://www.pureceylontea.com/), as they were selling tea directly through mail-order at the time. While this is not true today, they do provide a list of recommended direct-sales online shops, which provide a few familiar and unfamiliar names.

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In the U.S., they suggest Dilmah (https://shop.dilmahtea.com/our-teas/by/ ... e-leaf-tea) who some might not realize also sell loose tea.

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However, they also suggest packers I had never heard of before, such as Halpé (https://shop.halpetea.com/) and Zesta (https://www.zestaceylontea.com).

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For the UK, they suggest Mackwoods (https://mackwoodstea.com) and Robert Wilson's Ceylon Tea (https://wilsonfamilyteas.com/).
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mbanu
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Tue Jan 25, 2022 2:43 pm

The section on Darjeeling reflects the quirks of the time. In 1982 it had already transitioned to the new greener modern Darjeeling, which was very popular in Germany and Russia, selling for "as much as forty dollars the pound" ($118 in 2021 money), which made it "easily the world's most expensive tea". He also mentions in passing the struggles that Darjeeling was having with former British packers selling counterfeit Darjeeling made elsewhere, as "four times as much Darjeeling as the district could possibly produce is marketed each year." (This problem would eventually be solved through getting many countries to agree to give Darjeeling tea a Protected Designation of Origin.)

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For vendors, Pratt suggests Grace Rare Teas' Darjeeling Superb 6000 blend (https://gracetea.com), but cut with Wagners as he finds it too astringent, Fortnum & Mason if available, Mark T. Wendell, Twinings, Duncans, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf... or for another coffeeshop that sells tea, Northwestern Coffee of Milwaukee (https://www.northwesterncoffeemills.com ... 5/Tea.html), who still sells tea today, but not Darjeeling. Another suggestion is O.H. Clapp, a wholesaler who also sold tea retail up until May of 2021 through TeaImporters.com (https://www.teaimporters.com/shop/), along with reproductions of William Ukers' All About Tea. The website is down at the moment, sadly, so I'm not quite sure what has happened to them... It seems to be up again now, though -- must have just been a temporary interruption. :)

As with Assam and Ceylon, Pratt also suggests buying direct, this time from "R.N. Agarwala & Son, Nehru Road" in Silguri. I can't find a successor to this company, although the Silguri Tea Traders Association (https://stta.in/Members.aspx) does publish a members' list that includes many sellers on Nehru Road. He also says that "should your dealer invoke the name of Balasun, Mim, Thurbo, or Margaret's Hope -- Darjeeling's most famous estates -- ask no questions and buy the tea." :D

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Balasun sells tea directly now through their owner Jayshree Tea (https://www.jayshreetea.com/loose-leaf/balasun).

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As do Thurbo and Margaret's Hope through their owner Goodricke (https://goodricketea.com).
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mbanu
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Wed Jan 26, 2022 8:55 pm

The next section is on Formosa oolong -- it seems like by 1982 awareness of oolong generally was low enough that it needed more explanation than other teas. "It's not a Black Tea, like Assam, Ceylon or Darjeeling, but I put it here because it's not a Green Tea either."

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This is a topic that is especially intriguing personally as I'm really not sure what the market for Formosa oolong was like in 1982 other than as an ingredient in tea blends like Ch'in Ch'u or its competitors like Bigelow's (now discontinued) Chinese Fortune Tea. This was apparently a fairly big part of the market, with Pratt saying that (the also discontinued) "Wagners commendable Ch'a Ching Chinese Restaurant Tea is an above average representation of this grade of Oolong, probably falling somewhere between the Superior and Fine grades." I've heard that these Taiwanese oolong blends were the result of the rising popularity in 1960s America of making Chinese-inspired meals at home due to cookbooks such as The Pleasure of Chinese Cooking by Grace Zia Chu, but I'm not sure if that is true.

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For Fancy-grade oolongs, Pratt recommends Grace Rare Tea and Mark T. Wendell, who had a friendly rivalry over their oolongs, with Pratt siding with Mark T. Wendell. (According to Pratt, Fine, Superior, and Fancy were formal grade designations assigned to teas by Taiwan's Tea Inspection Office.)

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In a postscript he notes that as the book went to press he had discovered that Ten Ren had just opened U.S. branches (https://tenren.com/), which he found exciting.
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mbanu
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Fri Jan 28, 2022 9:29 pm

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For Indonesian teas, Pratt notes that it is mostly used as a filler tea in the U.S. for teabag blends, although some loose-leaf is available. The main supplier he mentions, Tiffiny Gourmet Coffee of Mount Vernon, seems to be out of business. A particular estate they sold that Pratt mentions, Bah Butong in Sumatra, is still available, though. Their current owner PTP Nusantara IV has a website for their tea (http://www.ptpn4tea.com), but it looks like they only sell directly through Shopee and Tokopedia.

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Alternately, Pratt is a fan of Mark T. Wendell's Indonesian -- he seems to default to them when in doubt, even though Freed, Teller, Freed in San Francisco (now gone) would have been geographically closer to him.
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mbanu
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Mon Jan 31, 2022 2:36 am

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Kenyan teas following a similar pattern to Indonesian teas. A Tiffiny (now gone) recommendation, one for Mark T. Wendell's "Mountain Kenya", and one named tea, Ragati, coming from the Ragati Tea Factory in Nyeri, a sort of shared factory used by the local smallholders operated through the Kenya Tea Development Authority. The factory still seems to be around, but has no web presence.

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mbanu
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Mon Jan 31, 2022 9:13 pm

Nilgiri is interesting, in that Pratt doesn't have any particular suggestions at all.
James Norwood Pratt wrote:...while I would never turn it down, I don't think I should seek it out again -- this despite a yearning to back the underdog -- unless for curiosity's sake. Although the Indian companies I mentioned earlier generally include a high-grown Nilgiri in their lines, it remains a rarity in this country. Should you burn with curiosity to see if you agree, write Mr. Bedhi of the Tea Board of India, 445 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10022, and he will send you some and bill you.
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The only Indian company Pratt mentions that is still around, Duncan's, doesn't sell Nilgiri, nor does the Tea Board of India, although they do provide a list of the 51 registered Nilgiri tea estates making orthodox tea.

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Chamraj and Korakundah are run by Unitea, who sells online through Chamraj Chai (https://chamrajchai.com/)

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Glendale sells through their own website (https://www.glendaleteas.com)

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Havukal as well (https://www.havukal.com/)

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Kairbetta sells online, but only through a Belgian company, Bittersweet Beverages (http://www.bittersweetbeverages.com/)

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Thiashola sells through their website (http://thiashola.in)

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Pandian and Corsley through theirs (https://pandiangroups.com)

Perhaps the Tea Board would have sent a sample pack. :D
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LeoFox
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Mon Jan 31, 2022 10:16 pm

Found your old thread about nilgiri, mbanu

https://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?f ... 25#p180425
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mbanu
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Tue Feb 01, 2022 5:45 am

LeoFox wrote:
Mon Jan 31, 2022 10:16 pm
Found your old thread about nilgiri, mbanu

https://www.teachat.com/viewtopic.php?f ... 25#p180425
The tea world is so large, eleven years later and so many areas I can still only see in the distance... Well, I suppose the point of tea isn't to know about tea, it's to learn about one another through tea. Trying to understand every tea and the cultures that surround each is as ambitious as trying to understand every language and the communities who speak each. :) It certainly is a fun pastime, though.
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