In Burundi, 80% of the land under tea cultivation belongs to smallholders. This high proportion explains why the plots are...
2 October 2026
All around the world, the same scene plays out. You come across some children walking home from school. They ask you to take their photo, so you show it to…
18 September 2026
What did tea look like one or two thousand years ago along the Silk Roads? Back in those days, tea was compressed into bricks, like this one. To make it…
4 September 2026
I’m not sure exactly what this cup is made of, but that’s not important. In its own way, it is unique. The woman who was holding it a few seconds…
28 August 2026
Tea is a journey. I often share photos here of tea bushes growing in fields and on plantations, close up and from afar. But my work as a tea researcher…
29 May 2026
Several East African countries are among the world’s biggest tea producers. In Burundi, I travelled along the shores of Lake Tanganyika to the Tanzanian border, gazing across the water towards…
26 March 2021
Two weeks ago I promised you that a wonderful Rohini Early Spring would be arriving, and that it would be available after the obligatory food safety analyses. Sadly, we must…
5 March 2021
The teas of Southern India offer an interesting alternative to those in the north when the latter haven’t been able to grow due to lingering low temperatures. In the Nilgiri…
5 April 2019
In general, Japanese roasted teas work very well with food such as shellfish, pan-fried salmon and smoked fish, as well as desserts with red fruit or praline. They are also…
31 July 2015
While you’re brewing your tea, you can’t always imagine how much work has gone into it already, with the harvesting and processing of each little leaf. The manual sorting, done…
