Preaching the good news and healing the sick
in New Zealand, Nepal and the world
Ilam - the best tea in the world!
After church I set off on the back of the pastor’s motorbike to visit a tea estate. The church has a small tea shop on the main street of Nepaltar village, and sells their tea. ‘Not far,’ I was told. It probably wasn’t, but the road was so bad it took an hour. Horn blaring, we roared off up the serpentine hill, then dived off piste. Many times I had to dismount as we negotiated washouts, huge ruts, giant cobbles or mudslides. By now we were in the clouds, and arrived at last to a gaggle of sheds on a broad hilltop. Tea was all around us, rolling away to the jungle and remote, blue hills. Cell phones seem to work everywhere in Nepal, and we were expected.
First we were shown the drying room – a pair of large cabinets with gauze false floors, connected to a furnace, with fan-forced air pumped through the leaves. Here the fresh leaf is spread 150mm thick, and turned by hand every 30 minutes for three hours. To one side stood a scored wooden board on which the 75% dried leaf is then rolled by hand to bruise it. By now losing its colour it is returned to the dryers for a further 30 minutes to remove the last of the moisture, when it finally graded through fine sieves before being bagged into three grades.
The very best tea is ‘Super Fine’, just the unfurled tips. They charge Rs3,000 (NZ$60) per kilo for this. It has a wonderful light grassy perfume, and looks like short dried pine needles! The next grade (Rs2,500) is ‘Silver Tips’, much larger, and a silvery grey-green. The final grade is ‘Grade A’ which is large and dark.
This estate has been organic for ten years. The bushes are little more than knee or thigh height, and the organic regime means the leaf, and yield, remains small and of extremely high quality. From 1.25 hectares they produce just 300 kg per year, and only 100 kg of this is ‘Super Fine.’
We were then taken into the tasting room – a wooden shed housing an open fire on which boiled a traditional kettle, blackened from years of wood smoke. Our host the tea gardener put a small handful of ‘Silver Tips’ into a small stainless bowl and poured on a little boiling water. He stirred it, covered it with a steel saucer, and left it to brew. Poured into waiting glasses, the tea was a bright amber, which he then moderated with a little more hot water.
The smell alone brought an instant grin! This was a whole new tea-drinking experience! And then the taste – I had never tasted tea this good, and I have tried a lot of teas. It was clean, fresh, pure, rich in flavour without any tannin, and instantly refreshing. And like a good wine, the flavour lingered in the mouth for a long time. Perhaps it was the setting; perhaps the anticipation, but I have no hesitation in saying this was the best tea in the world. Thank you, Jesus, for giving me such a wonderful experience, when you know I love tea!
And on the impossibly rough ride home, fiercely clutching my bags of samples, a black eagle floated on the updraft past our heads, tilting its broad black wings to the wind, and slipped away – a perfect end to a perfect day.
First we were shown the drying room – a pair of large cabinets with gauze false floors, connected to a furnace, with fan-forced air pumped through the leaves. Here the fresh leaf is spread 150mm thick, and turned by hand every 30 minutes for three hours. To one side stood a scored wooden board on which the 75% dried leaf is then rolled by hand to bruise it. By now losing its colour it is returned to the dryers for a further 30 minutes to remove the last of the moisture, when it finally graded through fine sieves before being bagged into three grades.
The very best tea is ‘Super Fine’, just the unfurled tips. They charge Rs3,000 (NZ$60) per kilo for this. It has a wonderful light grassy perfume, and looks like short dried pine needles! The next grade (Rs2,500) is ‘Silver Tips’, much larger, and a silvery grey-green. The final grade is ‘Grade A’ which is large and dark.
This estate has been organic for ten years. The bushes are little more than knee or thigh height, and the organic regime means the leaf, and yield, remains small and of extremely high quality. From 1.25 hectares they produce just 300 kg per year, and only 100 kg of this is ‘Super Fine.’
We were then taken into the tasting room – a wooden shed housing an open fire on which boiled a traditional kettle, blackened from years of wood smoke. Our host, Monkumar Rai, put a small handful of ‘Silver Tips’ into a stainless bowl and poured on a little boiling water. He stirred it, covered it with a steel saucer, and left it to brew. Poured into waiting glasses, the tea was a bright amber, which he then moderated with a little more hot water.
The smell alone brought an instant grin! This was a whole new tea-drinking experience! And then the taste – I had never tasted tea this good, and I have tried a lot of teas. It was clean, fresh, pure, rich in flavour without any tannin, and instantly refreshing. And like a good wine, the flavour lingered in the mouth for a long time. Perhaps it was the setting; perhaps the anticipation, but I have no hesitation in saying this was the best tea in the world. Thank you, Jesus, for giving me such a wonderful experience, when you know I love tea!
And on the impossibly rough ride home, fiercely clutching my bags of samples, a black eagle floated on the updraft past our heads, tilting its broad black wings to the wind, and slipped away – a perfect end to a perfect day.
Above: Ilam Silver Tips - quite the best tea I have ever tasted!
Below: Organic Santidada estate is at the top of the world
Bottom: Tea grower Monkumar Rai in red with helper, and the drying bins (click to enlarge)
