We’ve been blending black teas at Northern Tea Merchants since the late 1930s. My grandfather had a 50lb tea blender that was operated entirely by hand. It was my grandfather who taught my father about the nuances of blending tea, and my father who taught me some 40 years ago.
The blending wheel we use today at Northern Tea Merchants was installed in 1978 by celebrated local engineer Horace Barnett, who also designed and built the Chesterfield Barnett Observatory in 1959. Coincidentally, that was the same year my father started Northern Tea Merchants from my grandfather’s Spire Tea Company.
Our blending wheel can blend up to 250kg of tea at a time. Since its installation, my calculations suggest it has completed approximately 50,000 250kg blends – a staggering 12.5 million kilos of tea!
Interestingly, the only components we’ve had to replace on this piece of machinery are the drive chains and one gearbox in the best part of 48 years.
So, what makes a tea blend a ‘favourite’?
There are four main criteria I consider when producing a tea blend:
- Body or strength
- Flavour or character
- Brightness (colour)
- Price
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Body or strength
To describe the concept of ‘body’, I always like to use the mouthfeel of a tea.
The teas that generally provide the best body are Assam teas and, in particular, those harvested between June and August during the second flush from specific areas of Assam.
Assams are definitely the backbone of any good English Breakfast tea blend. Indeed, they feature in the majority of branded teas perceived to be of good quality.
Selecting my yearly supply of second flush Assam tea is one of my favourite tea-tasting jobs of the year, although it has become more difficult over the last four or five years to find exactly the right teas to maintain the quality of my blends.
Selecting my yearly supply of second flush Assam tea is one of my favourite tea-tasting jobs of the year, although it has become more difficult over the last four or five years to find exactly the right teas to maintain the quality of my blends. This year, I have tasted more than 250 different samples of second flush Assam to select just eight lots. Five years ago, that might have required around 100 samples, and in the 1980s and 1990s, perhaps 50–100.
The reasons for this change are varied. Global market forces play an important role, and demand for tea, particularly within India itself, has increased dramatically. Occasionally, I’ve even found myself in the position of having to offer more money to persuade a producer to export a particular tea.
Nearly all tea bushes in India (and many other tea-producing countries) are clones these days. While cloning has improved drought, pest and frost resistance within the plants themselves, the general quality and strength of the resulting teas has, in my opinion, slightly deteriorated.
You can therefore see why I have to taste so many teas to select the relatively small number of top-quality lots that we actually buy.
Teas from Rwanda and Kenya can also bring body to a blend, although usually in a less noticeable proportion than a good Assam.
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Flavour or character
Flavour (or character) is not to be confused with flavouring or scentiness. As teas age, they lose some of their flavour, which is why some producers offer vacuum packing. The best way to ensure that a tea retains its flavour is to buy as much as you need and to have impeccable storage techniques and conditions. Airtight is definitely the way to go!
Different teas bring different flavours to a blend. Ceylon teas tend (if well made) to bring the most pleasing flavours, however, they can detract from its strength or body, so ensuring the correct proportion of Ceylon tea is hugely important.
It is very difficult to describe a universally ‘good flavour’ because everyone’s palate varies. My definition of what is good may not be what somebody else considers pleasing.
I have always enjoyed Ceylon tea, and it is an important component of some of our blends, but for some people an unblended Ceylon might simply be too gentle.
That is one of the skills of blending: bringing different characteristics together to produce a cup that is greater than the sum of its individual parts.
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Brightness (colour)
Before we taste a tea with our tastebuds we drink it with our eyes. This reel shows this in action.
Whether a brew is made with or without milk, the colour and brightness of the liquor are hugely important.
Not all teas produce a particularly bright liquor, and this especially applies to some Assam and Ceylon teas. Some of the brightest teas, again, widely used in many UK blends, come from Kenya and Rwanda.
Both pure Kenyan and Rwandan teas are very popular with our customers. While they have what I would describe as good body, neither quite measures up to the pungency of a really good Assam. What they do possess, however, is excellent brightness.
Kenyan teas, particularly those produced by the KTDA, are without doubt an integral part of a good-quality breakfast blend, due in no small part to their lovely coppery-gold liquor.
Rwandan tea is often considered the better-quality sister of Kenyan tea and possesses a similar coppery brightness. Rwandan teas tend to be used more frequently in ‘gold standard’ blends, indeed, our own Gourmet Classic contains a healthy proportion of Rwandan tea.
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Price
In these days of food inflation, price is becoming increasingly important. Unfortunately, many cheaper-quality blends are marketed as though they were ‘gold standard’, encouraging consumers to believe they are getting a fine-quality brew.
The cost of tea has increased, shipping costs have increased, particularly recently, and labour costs, both for producing tea at origin and here in the UK, have all contributed to the final price of a blend.
There are other considerations too. Biodegradable teabag paper, for example, is approximately 50% more expensive than non-biodegradable alternatives. Recent UK and European packaging legislation has also introduced costs based on factors including recyclability, compostability, composition and origin.
Many of these additional costs have appeared or increased considerably over the last five years. All of this (quality and price of tea blends not withstanding) ultimately contributes to the price of a packet of tea or a box of teabags.
It is often said within the good-quality tea trade that a good tea blender is always at war with their accountant! I like to think I am often the victor in that particular war, judging by the many comments we receive about the quality of the teas and teabags we produce.
A Note on ‘Reducer’ Quality Teas
I have written this article from the standpoint of blending for quality. However, it is not feasible in today’s world to produce only the very finest quality teas and teabags.
There are many tea-producing countries, including Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Malawi, which produce more economically priced teas that can play a valuable role within particular blends.
Teas in the UK tend to fall into one of five broad quality bands:
- Top quality / Gold standard
- Mainstream standard / Branded teabag standard
- Supermarket ‘Gold’ quality
- Supermarket / Cash & Carry own-label quality (often described as Red or Brown Label quality)
- Value quality (often described as budget quality)
Northern Tea Merchants produces teas across all of these standards except the fifth.
Our gold quality is Gourmet Classic, our branded equivalent is Gourmet Blend, our supermarket equivalent is Premium Blend, and our own-label equivalent is Catering Blend.
I like to think our equivalent qualities are noticeably better than many of our competitors when tasted side by side!
Whenever I am tasting tea, whether cheap or expensive, there is one old tea-trade motto that I always keep in mind: ‘IT PAYS TO BUY GOOD TEA.’
This motto used to be printed on the side of every tea chest and today, you’ll still find it printed on the side of every box of our 40s teabags. After almost 100 years of blending tea at Northern Tea Merchants, it remains as true today as it ever was.
