Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
Issue link: http://freshcup.epubxp.com/i/246997
THE WHOLE LEAF story and photos by Bill Waddington They said we were crazy ... and they were probably right M anufacturing tea is an art. It's poetry in motion, a cross between jazz and agronomy. The tea maker is a farmer, a chef, a craftsman, a mechanic and a chemist, melded into one. It takes years and countless hours to become a master at making tea. A few months ago, I manufactured tea in a conference room in Atlanta, and it's worth noting that many of the tea experts whom I most respect said we were crazy to even try it. And they were right—it was crazy. But son of a gun, the teas actually turned out pretty good. But let's back up a bit: Why would we even try to do this? I've been in the specialty tea business for almost 20 years, during which time I've been very lucky. I have visited dozens of tea gardens, where I've watched and even helped manufacture tea many times (though I was probably slowing down the real tea masters at work). But I realized long ago that because many people selling specialty tea will never get a chance to visit an actual tea estate or tea factory, it could be worthwhile to bring the tea factory to them. 58 Fresh Cup Magazine | freshcup.com And so in late October, I co-presented a workshop called "Processing Tea: An Experiential Workshop" at the World Tea East exhibition in Atlanta. Using next-day air, we flew in just-plucked tea leaves from Hawaii, then over the next two days we (along with the class attendees) manufactured white, green, yellow, oolong and black tea. It may sound like I'm being hyperbolic, but nothing like this had ever been attempted before (except for in June 2013 when we tried a warm-up version of this course at the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas). I presented the class with Donna Fellman of the World Tea Academy (which is part of World Tea Expo), and she and World Tea Expo deserve tremendous credit for taking a huge chance, putting up the cash necessary and providing all the support possible for us to conduct this class. Donna is one of the world's great tea educators and was a co-conspirator in this crazy idea since its inception. Also contributing to the success of the class was Eva Stone, proprietor of Tea Hawaii, who supplied us with the freshly plucked tea leaves. Donna has developed a system of packing, layering and insulating tea leaves using dry ice and coolers. And it works: When