Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
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44 Fresh Cup Magazine | freshcup.com GOOD & PROPER TEA London | Emilie Holmes, owner B Y R E G A N C R I S P CAFÉ CROSSROADS here is nothing more British than tea. Emilie Holmes knew this, but she also knew London was lack- ing in good, properly prepared tea; the city was stuck in a rut of teabags and supermarket CTC. Primed by an early exposure to tea cultivation (she lived in India as a child and recalls visiting plantations there), in her early twenties Holmes started looking deeper into tea's roots and quickly became preoccupied with Britain's lackluster tea offerings. It seemed a shame that a culture cel- ebrated as "tea-drinking" would enjoy such a rich third wave in coffee, but fail to advance the beverage on which it was built. When the frustration became too much to bear, Holmes set out to fix the problem herself. She began sourcing teas from China, India, and Africa and cooked up a plan to re-introduce tea to Londoners in a style that is especially British, albeit uncommon. Her business, Good & Proper Tea, ser ves single- estate, loose-leaf teas and artisan crumpets out of a retrofitted, classic 1974 Citroën-H van dubbed, fit- tingly, Watson. The mobile brew bar allows Holmes to peddle her carefully sourced teas across London in a f lex- ible and eye-catching way. Watson can be spotted at King's Cross or the Brockley Market, with Holmes timing a row of rich Assams, sec- ond f lush Darjeelings, and exquisite green teas. Keeping things familiar, she doesn't shy from tea with milk and toasts up outstanding crumpets alongside homemade cakes and jams. With the country's tea culture on the cusp of a rebirth, Holmes and Watson are working diligently on the mystery of London's so-so cuppa. We spoke to her about her van and her plan. Q: Where did the idea for Good & Proper originate? A: The whole thing was originally based on my own personal frustra- tion. It's an extraordinary thing that although in Britain we're famous for tea, and all we drink is tea, and forty percent of what we have in our body at a given time is tea, there strangely is nowhere to get a decent cup of tea when you're out and about. We're sort of stuck in the instant coffee era of tea here, and it's always slightly baffled me . . . I didn't understand how I was being given something with a floating teabag in it, yet the person I'm with is being given this amazing, barista-crafted coffee. I guess from there it became a bit of an obsession. T The mobile brew bar allows Holmes to peddle her carefully sourced teas across London in a flexible and eye-catching way. May14_magazine.indd 44 4/18/14 10:44 AM