Tea as Tourism

Sri Lanka Turns to Tea to Lure High-end Tourists

With its stunning views over Sri Lanka's rolling green tea hills, the Norwood Plantation Manager's bungalow was designed to compensate British tea planters for their lonely lives far away from home.

The plantation remains, but the bungalow has been refurbished and converted into a boutique hotel to woo high-spending tourists who want a few quiet days sampling the colonial tea estate life.

''We have had mostly British visitors,'' says Asela Wavita, manager for Tea Trails, a firm set up by Sri Lankan tea company Dilmah to manage the bungalows.

''I guess it's the concept, the British colonial feeling, that appeals to them -- they can experience what their ancestors enjoyed.''

Tea Trails has refurbished four former managers' bungalows set in well-kept gardens, deep in the hills that have produced Ceylon tea since the 19th century.

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Tea as Art

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Tea Recipes #4

The hottest culinary trend is using tea, both in brewed and leaf form, as an ingredient in entrees, desserts, hors d'oeuvres, and more. As the saying goes, "tea isn't just for drinking anymore." Cooking With Tea by Robert Wemischner and Diana Rosen is a fabulous resource for tea basics (types of tea, brewing, cooking with tea) and tea recipes. As an added bonus, the appendices are as entertaining and informative as the rest of the book. Topics include:

• Pairing Teas with Food
• Seasonal Menus
• Glossary of Words Used for Tea Tasting
• Resources for Unusual Ingredients
• Resourced for Connoisseur Teas and Teapots

A few of the enticing recipes:

RATA-TEA-OUILLE serves 4

• 1 T. Darjeeling tea leaves
• 3 c. water
• 4 Japanese eggplants
• 2 medium tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and cubed
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 medium zucchini, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• grated fresh ginger root to taste (typically 1 T.)
• pinch of chili powder and sugar, optional

Brew the tea in hot water for 3 minutes, then drain through a fine-meshed strainer pressing hard on the leaves to extract as much infusion as possible. Set aside.

Char the eggplants on the stovetop or under the broiler. Split lengthwise keeping halves attached. Place in baking pan and stuff with tomatoes, zucchini, and onions and season with salt, pepper, and grated ginger. Pour the brewed tea over all and bake uncovered at 350, basting occasionally. Cook for approximately 30 minutes. Add chili powder and sugar as desired.

HONEYDEW GREEN TEA FRAPPE serves 4

• 3 T. loosely packed green tea leaves of your choice
• 2 oz. crystallized ginger, roughly chopped
• 4 c. cubed ripe honeydew melon
• 2 c. ice cubes made form distilled water
• superfine sugar to taste
• garnishes: thinly sliced honeydew melon, crystallized ginger in long pieces, and fresh ginger juice

Chill 4 tall glasses. Brew the tea leaves in 1 quart of water and allow to steep 4 minutes. Pour the tea through a fine-meshed strainer, pressing hard on the leaves to extract all the liquid. Add the crystallized ginger to the brewed tea and let cool about 15 minutes. Chill in refrigerator until cold. Pass liquid through sieve to remove ginger pieces.

Puree the melon and ice in an electric blender. Add tea/ginger infusion and process just to blend. Pour into tall chilled glasses and sweeten to taste with superfine sugar. Add a dash of fresh ginger juice (optional). Garnish with a thin slice of honeydew wrapped with a slice of crystallized ginger.

JADE SHRIMP IN DRAGONWELL TEA serves 4

• 2 quarts water
• 1 oz. loose leaf Dragonwell tea
• 1 lb. peeled and deveined medium shrimp (tails on)
• 1 T. sesame oil
• 1 large clove garlic, peeled and smashed
• 1 oz. fresh ginger root, peeled and thinly sliced
• 2 lbs. fresh spinach leaves, stems removed, washed and dried
• salt to taste
• 2 T. sesame seeds, lightly toasted
• garnishes: julienned yellow and red peppers and finely slivered scallions

Bring water to just under a boil. Add tea and shrimp and cook over low heat at a bare simmer for 3-4 minutes or until shrimp are opaque. Remove from heat and let stand until cool, then refrigerate.

Just before serving, heat sesame oil in large skillet and add garlic and ginger root. Cook for about 20 seconds being careful not to burn. Add spinach and salt to taste and cook just until spinach barely wilts. Drain. Put spinach in a bowl, arrange chilled shrimp on top, sprinkle with sesame seeds, garnish with peppers, sprinkle with scallions.

Teabags: How can I miss you if you won't go away?

The teabag versus loose leaf dispute makes the Hatfields and McCoys look like the Osmond Brothers. When 95% of all tea sold in the United States is pre-bagged, what's to argue? Isn't the customer always right? Well, yes and no ...

Without a doubt, teabags are convenient beyond compare. They're portable, easy to use, and make for non-messy disposal. But flavor is what counts in a cup of tea, and that's where a teabag's dirty little secret is exposed.

Tea leaves are graded according to size. The largest is the whole leaf, the smallest is called "dust" or "fannings." The dust tea is quite literally that; it's the pulverized leaves that sift to the bottom of the tea box. Prior to the invention of the teabag, it had next to no value. But once the teabag came into vogue, and especially the modern opaque paper bag which prevents consumers from seeing what they're drinking, dust became king.

With the resurgence of quality tea drinking's popularity, tea bag experimentation is picking up speed. Different materials such as nylon or silk, different sized bags, and different shaped bags such as pyramids are being marketed as the answer to the whole leaf drinker's dilemma. The unassailable truth remains, however: a tea leaf needs elbow room to unfurl and steep if it is to infuse to its fullest potential. So it's back to the drawing board for teabag designers.

World Tea Expo in Las Vegas On Now

The World Tea Expo is brewing in Las Vegas this weekend. In just its fourth year, the Expo's 200 exhibitor spaces sold out quickly. Officials expect more than 3000 attendees including buyers for tea rooms, supermarket chains, restaurants, and even Amazon.com.

Expo seminars run the gamut from creating blends to fair trade certification to the oolongs of China and Taiwan. Special events include a Chinese Gongfu tea ceremony, a Japanese green tea ceremony, and an iced tea shake-off.

Interested in the hottest and most happening tea trends? Look to bottled ready-to-drink teas, new tea delivery systems such as pyramid-shaped tea bags and pre-packed spoons, turning recycled tea bags into art, hand-sewn flowering teas, even more information about the health benefits of tea, and creative blends using chocolate, fruit, and flowers.

New Tea Books for Spring 2006

The best new and soon-to-be-published tea books...

Cuppa is Official English Icon

A cup of tea is an icon of England … It’s official!

The quest is on to identify England’s cultural icons in a new online project being launched in January 2006.

A Portrait of England, being launched on 9 January 2006, will gradually paint a virtual portrait of the country through an exploration of everything cherished in the culture. One of the first 12 official ‘Icons of England’ to be announced is the humble cup of tea.

It is in good company because the others are: Stonehenge, Punch and Judy, the S.S. Empire Windrush, Holbein’s portrait of Henry VIII, the FA Cup, Alice in Wonderland, the Routemaster double-decker bus, the King James Bible, the Angel of the North, the Spitfire and Jerusalem.

ICONS will identify what makes England what it is in the 21st century. Hundreds more nominations from the public are expected and ‘waves’ of new “Icons of England” will be announced each quarter, as the online collection grows bigger and richer in content. Already, other ‘iconic’ food nominations include Roast Beef, Cornish Pasties, Rice ‘n Peas, Curry and a Pint of Beer.

People are being invited all over England, from every community, to nominate their favourite icons. They can also vote on other people’s nominations and share anecdotes, photographs and memories online. Each official ‘Icon of England’ will be fully probed to reveal its innermost secrets, so people exploring the website can delve deeper into the icons’ history, associations and the threads that connect it to our wider culture.

“ Icons are powerful and really switch people on. What sums up England more than a humble cup of tea? ,” said Jerry Doyle, Managing Director of Icons Online.

Visit www.icons.org.uk to see more.

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