China Keemun tea - a great forgotten tea?

For those of you who follow my blog, you will already have read about our Darjeeling, Assam and Ceylon offerings. Yesterday we tasted our Keemun tea, a tea that I hadn't tasted for some time. The problem for tea growers today is that virtually the only option on the supermarket shelf is the ubiquuitous and anonymous tea bag. Tragic if you are trying to offer something a little special. I believe that China Keemun falls into this category.

Keemun is a black tea, with very little of the "tippeyness" of the classic Indian teas.

We found that it infused to give a more malty flavour than its Indian cousins without any unpleasant bitterness.

Keemun is the English name for the "Qimen" precinct in the Anhui province in the South Eastern part of China.

From my research I found that Keemun is a relatively new tea, first produced in 1875. It was a development on from Green tea that had in the past been traditionally produced by the Chinese.

Although we don't use it in our Breakfast tea blend, Keemun was in the past a prominent ingredient. When you taste it you can understand why. It offers a great full bodied flavour.

Although this tea can be drunk black, it does come up well when milk is added.

You can buy China Keemun tea from our website, and whether you're a keen tea drinker or just experimenting you won't be disappointed.

The only thing that disappoints me is the lack of information available on one of the world's great teas.

I've got more Bars than you!!!!

We've just had an instance of a customer querying the bar pressure of an espresso machine he recently purchased from us. He read in the manual that the pressure generated by the machine was 15 bars, however on the internet he had read that it should be 18 bars of pressure.

I was amazed that he should be so concerned about such high levels of pressure.

The mazimum level of pump pressure required to achieve a perfect espresso extraction is between 8 and 10 bars. When I talk about pump pressure, I mean the pressure at which the coffee machine drives the water through the coffee.

If the pressure is higher than this, the water will be driven through the coffee too quickly, and a poor extraction will be achieved. To counteract this you would need to grind the coffee finer still, however this would in turn put a strain on the coffee machine's pump.

I then reflected as to whether this huge bar pressure was necessary to generate steam? But of course it isn't, steam will be generated when the internal pressure of the boiler is just 1 bar.

The only thing I can therefore think of is that the machine manufacturers are in some kind of race to potentially achieve the highest pressures possible, much like the speedometer on your car.

Your car speedometer can go to a maximum of 180 mph, however most of us will never get above 70mph.

So although the pump can be set to 15 or even 18 bars of pressure this fact is unimportant, you only actually need a maximum pressure of 10 bars.

So please machine manufacturers can you explain this to the buying public, as at the moment there is total confusion. In your attempt to sell machines, you're using spurious information that only mis-informs your potential customer.

In conclusion to this blog, I would point out to any potential purchasers of espresso machines, that if the manufacturer states that the maximum pressure is anything less than 8 bars, you will never achieve a properly extracted coffee.

Who moved my cheese?

This afternoon I was due to give a presentation to the Jersey branch of the British Institute of Innkeepers who, faced with the prospect of smoking being banned from their pubs in the near future one would have thought might just be interested in some innovative ideas about how to use their Espresso coffee machine to maximum effect.

Sadly despite plenty of notification from Simon the branch chairman, not one person from the 100 plus pubs across Jersey showed up. How, I ask myself will they survive in the future battles for their customers spend which will also include a Goods and Services Tax? With the amount and quality of competition increasing I fear they will be asking the question "Who moved my cheese?" as per the famous book.

So if there are any of you out there who just might be interested in the things I had to say, here is a resume.

Presentation to the Institute of Innkeepers


MAXIMIZING PROFIT OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH THE EFFECTIVE USE OF YOUR ESPRESSO COFFEE MACHINE

Why do you need to consider other sources of revenue?

Changes in Government legislation – smoking laws
Drinking and driving
Changing attitudes towards binge drinking
Health impact

Who are your customers and what are their expectations?

Retired and traditional drinkers
Younger generation of pub goers
Greater female participation

The younger generation will expect –

Cleaner environment
Healthier drink options
Good quality and good choice of beverages
Ethical issues


WHO ARE YOUR COMPETITORS?

Other pubs and specialist bars, e.g. cocktail bars
Coffee shops
Informal restaurants

What difference then can a properly used espresso machine make to your business?

1. Drink range

COFFEES –

A full range of Espresso based drinks – this means Americanos, Cappuccinos, Lattes etc.

A full range of the above in a decaffeinated version –

A full range of Liquor Coffees

TEAS –

Traditional English Breakfast tea

Herbal Infusions

Fruit flavoured teas

CHOCOLATE –

Drinking chocolate


HOW TO DELIVER PREMIUM QUALITY AND GREAT PRESENTATION

1. Proper staff training

– Do your staff know what the various drinks should look like?
– Do they care? – We offer tours around our factory
– Which drinks are served with milk, which not

Presentation

- Are you using the right cups, what are the right cups?

Promoting your offering

- Tea / Coffee menu
- Specials of the day
- Drink and food offering

Equipment properly maintained and cleaned – money well spent

That's it in a nutshell. I hope the above is of benefit to any young budding Innkeeper who is keeping his or her eye on the cheese.

Ministerial Question Time - More questions than answers?

The Jersey Chamber of Commerce organised the local equivalent of the BBC's "Question Time" at the Pomme D'Or Hotel tonight. To a packed audience Senators Le Sueur, Walker, Cohen and Ozouf faced a broad range of questions from GST to Pensions.

Compared to the real question time, this one proved to be a rather tame affair, there seemed to be a lot of consensus between the ministers and if there are any divisions internally they certainly weren't going to let the paying public know about them.

For me there seemed to be a lot of "Jam tomorrow" rhetoric from the ministers. Given that ministerial government is still very new it was hard to argue against their optimism. Maybe we need to wait 2 or 3 years for a clearer picture to emerge.

Freddie Cohen though almost inadvertently put his proverbial foot in it towards the end and left the audience with that slightly uneasy feeling that we all need to keep a very close eye on what our political masters are up to.

Following a question about the current state of play on the Waterfront, Freddie was at pains to highlight the importance of "sinking" the main arterial road that divides the waterfront from the main town. Freddie told us how when the latest planners suggested that this road should be sunk it dawned on everybody that this was the solution to the problem of joining the waterfront development to the main town. It was "such a simple and obvious solution"!

Now this begs the question, if it was such an obvious solution why hadn't previous planners thought of it. Well of course two of those who sat on the previous committee were Messrs. Le Sueur and Walker. Freddie didn't quite point his finger and say "it was them", but the point was highlighted by the compere of the night James Filleul.

Senator Walker made some lame excuse at not being a very good planner, and Senator Le Sueur made some comment about different advisors having different views. But of course the main point is that these individuals who had been talking about how badly the past had been run were the very same individuals who were telling us how great the future is going to be and that they had simply been hamstrung by the old system.

Isn't the real answer that Jersey Plc. has had a wakeup call from the rest of the world and now we've all got to get our act together to ensure our future properity. But then that would be taking credit away from our politicians wouldn't it?

Response to "Under pressure" blog

Following my blog of Wednesday the 11th October about the build up of the water pressure in machines that aren't constantly in use, I had a response from "Fracino", the leading UK manufacturer of espresso coffee machines. As you will read from the following, they acknowledge that they did experience an issue in the past, however they have now modified their machines. Older machines can have a simple modification made to them to eliminate the problem. The power of the Blog!

Reply from Adrian Maxwell Director of Fracino

"This is not really a problem but just a question of settings. This must be an old machine ie more than 2 years as we now as standard fit the temperature control on all machines as people are now much more aware of " Italian style espresso" which is a good thing. In the past people always wanted very hot milky coffee. The second thing that probably happened is that the Barista over heated the milk because this would make the cappuccino far hotter than the group temperature. The other solution is to fit the temperature control parts which is very simple. This consists of replacing the 2 heat exchanger dip tubes for longer ones and fitting 2 PTFE restrictors into the the top heat exchanger fittings. This will then act as a brake slowing the water flow down and thus cools the group. The smaller the orifice the lower the temp. With this mod the group will run at 89-92 degrees c and makes perfect espresso with any coffee.

This would also explain why you have noticed this on some machines but not others. We are getting in Dip tubes and restrictors for any one who requires them."

Menu de Terroir or the incredible produce of Jersey

I am a member of a slightly unusual club, namely the "Countryman's club".

Given that I've lived in the town of St. Helier for the first 20 years of my residence on Jersey it does seem a little odd that I should be invited to become a member.

Originally the club only considered those individuals who worked in the countrside, however as people left the land, so the recruiters needed to become a little more pragmatic in their approach.

Today we're a group of individuals who meet up about once a month at various restaurants around the Island, enjoying the food and each others company. On many occasions we invite a speaker to share their thoughts with us.

Last Wednesday, the 18th of October was one such occasion, however this meeting was particularly special.

The venue was the Atlantic Hotel, and the menu was made up of produce either grown or manufactured on Jersey. The guest speaker was the First Minister Frank Walker.

I was priviledged to sit alongside the minister, along with some of the suppliers of the produce we consumed. There was Kevin Keen of the Jersey Dairy a sponsor of the evening, who incidentially is also the president of the Jersey Chamber of Commerce. Tim Crowley from La Mare Vineyard, whose company provided the locally grown wine and complimentary chocolates. Two gentlemen from Woodside Farm who provided the Jersey beef, finally my business Coopers who supplied the coffee, a single estate Brazilian coffee roasted by us here on Jersey.

Other farms had supplied the fresh vegetables and fruit for the desert.

All in all it was a fabulous meal and to think that it had all been provided by local businesses, located in an Island that is only 9 miles by 5 miles in size.

As Senator Walker pointed out, we should be immensely proud of our Island, we are very priveledged to live here.

In an age where globlisation, the destruction of rain forests, global warming etc. seem to be overwhelming us, this was a great reminder that there really is no need to look further than our own backyard. Think of all those food miles we save, and how that benefits the long term ecology of our planet as well as our economy.

Jasmine Tea - Deliciously delicate!

As someone once said, "there are as many varieties of Jasmine as there are Commune wines in Bordeaux". It is quite extraordinary the level of sophistication applied to this particular tea.

Being traditionalists though, we like to supply a truly authentic drink, so use the "K.I.S.S." approach, "keep it simple stupid!"

The quality of Jasmine tea is determined by the quality of the green tea used as its base, and how effectively it has been scented. The best standard is 9301, and naturally this is the grade that we have selected. It has an even-sized leaf with wonderful whole blossoms.

Our tea comes from the Fujian province which is situated along the south east coast of China.

The leaves are plucked from early April to late May. They are then steamed to produce green tea. The tea is now stored until August when the leaves are mixed with the blossoming Jasmine flower. Interestingly, the scenting operation is usually carried out in the evening, when the plucked but unopened buds begin to pop open and release their fragrance.

Traditionally layers of Jasmine blossoms were placed between the green tea. Over time the Jasmine scent permeated the tea. However today the process is a little less romantic. Hot air is passed through the Jasmine blossoms and then filtered through the tea so that the blossoms can be re-used. The exhausted Jasmine blossoms are then used to decorate the tea.

Finally the leaves are refired to remove the moisture in the blossoms and preserve the taste.

The result is a tea that has some of the characteristics of green tea, but is lightly fermented.

We brewed some at work the other day and it was heavenly. The secret is not to use too much tea, and to be really strict on the brewing time, the danger is always to overbrew and this can turn a heavenly scent into a very bitter taste.

You can buy this truly refreching product from our website.

The problem with coffee grinders........

So many things happened today that it's difficult to know exactly where to start. So I've decided on this blog to focus on two coffee grinder issues and refer you back to a couple of my earlier blogs.

The first was a customer in our shop who has a house in Spain. He was telling me that he usually bought a very high roasted coffee from the local Supermarket, and with his "blade" grinder was able to achieve a great taste. He had worked out the amount of time required to grind this coffee so as to achieve a perfect extraction. However now he was using a different coffee that was a bit lighter roasted, he was experiencing problems with the level of extraction.

What he has experienced is what we as roasters experience every day. Different coffees require to be ground slightly differently in order to achieve perfect extraction. This is largely because of the level of oils emanating from the coffee. Lighter roasted coffees are effectively slightly drier than their darker roasted cousins and therefore as a rule of thumb tend to need to be ground slightly finer to achieve perfect extraction.

However because coffee acts like a sponge, so its characteristics will change even over a 12 hour period. A very humid day will result in the grind needing to be slightly different to a hot dry day. All very scary indeed, but very useful to know when you are experiencing problems.

As to choosing the right grinder have a look at my blog of Friday 18th August in the archive for full details.

The second issue was that of blunt grinding blades, and the impact that they can have on the quality of the coffee being delivered into the cup. It is sadly one of the most neglected areas in espresso production, but again vital to monitor to ensure drink consistency.

I refer you to my blog of Thursday 21st September which goes into more detail.

Never under estimate your customer

I had a real reminder yesterday of how peoples attititude and perception of coffee quality has changed in recent years.

We had a call from a customer of ours saying that they had had a complaint about our coffee. "It was tasteless and bitter". Of course the alarm bells start to ring and I immediately went out to see them and check out what had gone wrong.

Thankfully, by the time I got on site, the problem had resolved itself. It would appear that for some reason the espresso machine hadn't been quite up to temperature and as a result the water when it hit the coffee wasn't extracting the flavour properly.

However what really interested me was who was doing the complaining. It was a group of retired individuals. They were out for their weekly morning bowl, after which they have a coffee and a chat.

The reason I was surprised was because this group of individuals are from what I would call a "Nescafe" generation. A generation who really didn't understand coffee quality and who had been brought up in a culture of tea.

But how wrong I was, not only were they identifying the fact that the coffee didn't taste right, they were also making their views known to the management.

So it shows you, everybody has an opinion on coffee, and today will vote with their feet if you're not up to scratch. That's fantastic for my industry, and given the amount of effort that we and our suppliers put in makes it all worthwhile.

Long live retired folk!

Too hot!

I was out for a meal last Friday at one of my favourite beachside restaurants. The meal had been excellent, however the cappuccino was awful, and, yes it was our coffee. I was mortified, the coffee tasted thin and burnt, and on top of this I had to wait 5 minutes before I could drink it because I was in danger of getting 3rd degree burns; it was so hot.

This troubled me all weekend trying to work out what was wrong. I knew the coffee itself wasn't particularly darkly roasted, which sometimes can be a problem, no something else was going on here.

When I arrived on site today, I was expecting one of three scenarios. Firstly that the machine was building up excess pressure when not being used, and this was then firing the water through the coffee too quickly, burning it, and giving it this thin taste.

Maybe the grinder was set incorrectly and this was resulting in badly overextracted coffee.

Or thirdly the machine and its group handles were badly in need of a clean.

Well it turned out to be none of the above!

The machine was perfectly clean, there was no apparent excess of pressure when you first made a coffee, and the grinder seemed to be set correctly.

The give away was the temperature of the water coming out of the group head. Thankfully I had a thermometer with me, so by sticking a probe up inside the group handle I was able to check how hot the water was when it hit the coffee.

All things being equal, the water should be coming out at anything between 88 and 92 degrees Centigrade. As I ran the water, the numbers just kept going up and up. The thermometer raced through 88 degrees, and didn't stop rising until it had reached 96 degrees, before falling again as cold water replenished the boiler.

Eureka! - At this temperature, the water was simply burning the coffee and delivering it straight into the cup.

The problem tends to occur only when the machine has not been in use for some period of time. The temporary solution is to ensure that a good couple of cupfuls of water are run through the machine before making a coffee. The long term solution is to reduce the average temperature of the boiler which is easily done by an engineer.

Finally the other point to highlight is that if you are just making a coffee for one person, ensure that the portafilla is full of coffee. That may sound obvious, but in the heat of the moment it can be easily overlooked.

When words become barriers

Despite having had a reasonably good education and being fairly literate, I was surprised by an article in last Saturday's Independent newspaper that contained at least 10 words that I had never before heard.

The journalist Deborah Orr was interviewing the French intellectual Bernard-Henri Levy and in it she used such wonderful words as "mountebank" and "chimerical" plus many others which for me were totally obscure, however upon looking them up in the dictionary they proved to be very appropriate. It made me appreciate once again what an amazing language English is, and how important it is not to "dumb it down". But of course it's not just one language it is a hybrid of many different langauges whose history for one reason or another appears to be being lost in the annals of time.

The problem with the loss of this knowledge is that when more unusual words are used in an everyday context they become a huge barrier to getting people to understand what is being said, not unlike someone speaking a foreign language.

Today for me was a classic example. I went to my local Church this morning and was struck as I read through the order of service just how many words that seemed so familiar to me didn't actually make much sense. The Church seems to assume that its members have a close affinity with Latin. Now given that Latin hasn't been taught at many schools for a number of years this appears to me to be a rather great oversight and maybe reflects why so many people feel alienated by the Church.

Could the word barrier, although probably a small factor in itself be just the thin end of the wedge?

So I've taken it upon myself to "translate" some of the language used in today's order of service which I hope those of you who read this blog will appreciate.

MATINS, means "Morning", in the case of the Church of England, the daily morning service

VENITE - this word is combined with "EXULTIMUS", and means "o come let us (venite) rejoice (exultimus). In the Church service, the Venite is the 95th Psalm from the Bible.

ANTIPHON - Alternate chanting or singing. A type of Church music sung by two parties each responding to the other.

EPISTLE - Something written or sent to someone. In the case of the Church it is a letter to the Church from usually one of the Apostles.

JUBILATE DEO - To shout for joy for or with God.

COLLECT - A short prayer conveying one main petition.

CONCORD - Harmony

Prayers of "INTERCESSION" - The act of pleading on behalf of another.

I hope that the above helps anyone lost by the language of religion. If you have any words that are used in your Church and which you don't understand please send a response to this blog.

Infamy in the Jersey Evening Post!

Infamy, infamy, they've got it infamy! once famously said I believe by Frankie Howard is my immediate reaction to a small article in tonights JEP about my Blogging activities.

For those of you who haven't blogged before, it is a wonderfully cathartic experience, particularly when it comes to my political comments on this Island. I would also add that my reactions to various topics is immediate and therefore might on some occasions seem rather strong.

In an earlier blog I gave Julian Green our new Airport director a hard time following one or two comments he was quoted as making to the press. Following some discussions with my colleagues in the Jersey Chamber of Commerce this commentary has been developed a little more thoughtfully and I hope a more balanced article will appear in the not too distant future in the Chamber on Line magazine.

Given the huge changes currently taking place in our Island at the moment and the uncertainty that that causes, it is important that we all take part in the various debates. Hopefully that means a pat on the back sometimes as well as the more familiar kick.

I've come to the conclusion that it isn't good enough to simply sit back and take what Government throws at us, we need to be proactive and influencing the decision making process. If that happens then our Island will be all the better for it. Everybody has a part to play.

Assam Tea - A true classic

Assam is located in the very north east of India. It is squeezed between Bhutan to the north, Nepal to the west, Bangladesh to the south and Burma (Myanmar) to the east. In fact it's quite hard to see how it has remained part of India. (I hope that doesn't start a fight!)

The Assam tea we currently offer a tea estate called Itakhooli which is found in the Assam valley. The estate is owned by Williamson Tea Assam Ltd. who own some 17 tea estates in this region. This company was founded way back in 1869 by two undividuals, namely Williamson and Magor. Today the company produces around 21 million kilos of tea for both the internal and export markets.

This tea is an FTGFOP. That is, the leaves are quite large with light tips. It has the classic malty taste of Assam teas. When brewed its produces a deep red / brown liquor, yet drunk without milk it tastes wonderfully balanced with no sign of any harsh notes. Simply a great tea.

You can drink this tea with milk, but before you do, savour its wonderful malty aroma and think classic English tea.

Under Pressure!

I've talked previously about the grind of the coffee, its freshness etc., however I haven't said much about cofffee machine pressure, that is the pressure in the boiler and the pressure delivered by the pumps.

I was reminded of this issue over the last couple of days following a site visit to one of my customers. I pressed the button to drive some water through the group head before making a coffee and was met with this intense spray of near boiling water. I checked the gauge on the machine to see if the boiler pressure was significantly above 1 bar pressure, it wasn't, I then checked the pump pressure and this too was correctly running at between 8 and 10 bar pressure. So what has gone wrong and why is it important?

Well if the water flows at a constant rate, the barista can set up the grinder to grind the coffee to a fineness that will allow him or her to make a perfectly extracted espresso in 20 or 30 seconds depending upon the characteristics of the coffee.

If however the water blasts out of the group head on one occasion and steadily on another there is no way that the taste can remain consistent. Water that is under undue pressure will force its way through the coffee resulting in a thin and underextracted brew; you might even end up with a burnt taste.

Now I don't experience this on all machines, but it does appear to be prevalent at sites where coffee throughput can vary dramatically throughout the day. For some reason and I hope a machine manufacturer takes note there can sometimes be an excessive build-up of pressure in the boiler which effectively means that the machine needs to be "bled" before making a cup of coffee.

I have found that this tends to happen when the machine has not been used for a while. The important thing as far as the barista is concerned is to be aware of the condition and to ensure that he /she runs the machine until a steady flow of water is established and then make that coffee.

As a customer said to me recently, great coffee isn't just about one or two things, it's about a whole series of little things any one of which can cause the whole structure to collapse. Never a truer word said.

Ceylon Tea - Help!

Today we continued our tasting of teas, this time moving on to Ceylon, or Sri Lanka as it is now. Somehow tea from this country has retained its old colonial name which I think adds to the romance of this wonderful origin.

Sri Lanka has 6 tea growing regions or districts, within which are found literally 100's of estates:

Dimbulla
Nuwara Eliya
Uva Highlands
Galle
Ratnapura
Kandy

Because there are so many estates and so little information it can be quite difficult to identify from which district a particular tea comes. This I discovered to my cost today and hence the reason for the title of this blog.

I'll start with our Ceylon B.O.P. from the Dotel Oya estate in the Uva Highlands. This tea produces a deep red liquor. It has a full tea flavour without being overbearing. I would describe it as a classic English tea taste. If you were to picture cucumber sandwiches and tea cakes this is the tea you would choose to compliment the ocasion. Can be drunk with milk without fear of loosing its wonderful flavour.

Our Ceylon O.P. is a bit more of a mystery. We are advised that it comes from the "Nawagamuwehena" estate, however we're unable to discover in which district this lies. So if there is someone out there who has better information, please can you respond to this blog.

The tea has a wonderful black twisted long leaf. The brew is a gentler version of the B.O.P., still quite a deep red colour, however I think a more refreshing classic English tea taste. There is even a slight hint of lemons. If you like milk in your tea you'll want just a dash, otherwise you will destroy its wonderfully subtle tones.

Once again two great teas, but quite different from the Darjeelings we tasted yesterday.

Darjeeling - The Champagne of teas

As I promised yesterday, my staff and I today tasted our Darjeeling offering.

A First flush Darjeeling from the Pattabong or Puttabong (also Tukvar) tea estate, and a Second flush Darjeeling from the Chongtong tea estate which is found in Darjeeling east.

Did you know that only 77 tea estates are allowed to use the Darjeeling name? No wonder similarities are drawn with Champagne!

These teas contrast hugely, first of all there is the price differential. First flush Darjeeling is nearly four times the price of Second flush, but is it worth the money?

That's a very difficult question to answer as the teas taste so completely differently.

First flush is the first growth of leaves after winter, in fact to be precise it is the first two leaves and bud only. Because only the new growth is used, the tea leaves have a very green appearance, which in the cup makes for a very light infusion.

It's a mile away from a gutsy Assam or Ceylon B.O.P., however it delivers a wonderfully refreshing drink. Light, fragant and delicate Muscatel flavours all combine wonderfully on the pallet. No need for any additives.

The Second flush has a much darker appearance, not only are the rolled leaves more akin to traditional black teas, the taste too has a good deal more body, and the distinct Muscatel flavour is much more pronouced. Simply put it's a wonderful cup of tea. This one you can drink with milk, though no doubt a number of you might consider a slice of lemon as a welcome addition.

Having finished our tasting I realised what a great loss in our tea drinking tradition has taken place over the last 50 years as the UK market has become dominated by a handful of major players, none of whom are interested in the delicate sublities of the different tea estates of Darjeeling.

Isn't it a great irony that in an age when we seem to have endless choice, that the selection of great loose teas has become limited to a select few specialists such as ourselves. Who needs supermarkets!

Tea - In the beginning

We had a family holiday in the UK some three weeks ago, part of which was visiting the sites in London. As we crossed Tower Bridge one could see where the old tea wharfes used to be in the days when Tea was brought up the Thames. Today of course it's all fashionable flats, and this wonderful history that existed prior to striking dockers and the invention of containerisation is all but lost.

However what it did do was to remind me of some of the stories my Grandfather used to tell when he worked in London in the 1920's.

His first job was with a tea brokers, that is a business that used to buy tea off the market and then onwardly sell it to the trade, another line of business that has now virtually died out.

His job in those days was to taste the Assam tea. Whereas today we're lucky to see more than 3 or 4 samples of Assam tea, he used to have tray upon tray to taste. The samples would come in from the auction house and his job was to value the tea, that is establish its worth to his company. He told me that his valuation had to be within a "farthing" of the price paid in the tea auction otherwise he could be in big trouble.

Now for those of you unfamiliar as to what a "farthing" is, it's a unit of old English money, in fact it used to be a 1/4 of a penny. Given that when old money converted to decimal in the mid 1970's you got 2 1/2 new pence for an old 6d, that makes a farthing worth 1/10th of a new penny. Not much margin to play with then!

What it did however do was teach him the value of tea to other players in the market. He knew when to pay more for tea, or if he had bought a tea particularly cheaply. He knew how to blend tea so as to add value to it. He knew what other tea packers needed and how much they were willing to pay.

His expertise allowed him to became quite successful, to the point where he was supplying the world famous P&O lines with all their tea requirements. Bear in mind that this was in a time before tea bags, and all tea was supplied to the docks in tea chests.

After the war he started to do business in Jersey, supplying most of the major Hotels with their loose tea requirements, and in 1964 he bought out Cooper & Co. a business that has been on Jersey since at least 1890, and which I now run, the grandson of the original owner.

So there's a bit of our history. Over the next few blogs, I will endeavour to carry on the family tradition in tea as we taste the different teas and tissanes that we stock today and give you our tasting notes. I will also be giving advice on how to make the perfect cup of tea.

Jersey Airport - Same old story, different storyteller

Mr. Green our new antipodean airport controller was a busy man last week. On Wednesday he spoke at a surprisingly muted Chamber of Commerce lunch where he endeavored to explain what the big issues were when it came to halting the decline in visitor numbers to our shores.

He was adamant that the solution to the problem did not come in the form of low cost airlines, I believe he used the term "prostituting Jersey" in a previous interview. Strong words indeed.

He also made it clear that he did not believe that simply reducing landing fees would have a significant impact in lowering the cost of a holiday to the average visitor. He calculated the saving to be worth just 2% to the average punter, not a "deal breaker" kind of number. That must come as some comfort then to the 21 individuals on £70,000 plus at the airport.

He believes that the solution to the problem lies not just with the ports of entry to this Island, but in fact with all of the different stakeholders. I presume here he refers to Tourism and Hoteliers getting their act together and even possibly a combined effort with the other Channel Islands.

Well not exactly - It was widely reported in the press that Guernsey had agreed a deal with Flybe to re-establish a Paris link. Their approach was considered an inappropriate way for Jersey to spend its money in the eyes of Mr. Green and so Jersey pulled out of the deal. No wonder Guernsey tourism refuse to mark Jersey on their national advertising campaigns. Credit to them for their entrepreneurial approach - at least they're prepared to take a chance for the benefit of the industry.

Lets just take a reality check at this point. Flying as I have said in the past is no longer seen as a luxurious form of travel. It has become commoditized, by that I mean whether we pay £250 for a flight or just £50, we don't expect to feel lucky to arrive safely based on the amount the flight cost. If we did, businesses like Ryanair would never have got started.

So lets dismantle the first myth, the cost of getting to this Island plays a huge part in the decision making process of the vast majority of tourists. Why am I so sure? Well I talk to my customers most of whom are small businesses and who in turn talk directly to their customers in this Internet driven age.

One hotelier said to me that when a prospective customers rings him, the first question he asks them is "have they made any travel arrangements?" Why? Because he knows that no matter what room rate he gives them, when it comes to the cost of travel that prospective customer will take one look at the numbers and that's the last he hears of them.

What difference can he make? Well if his prospective customer books his / her travel arrangements through the Hotel, the manager can give them a significantly discounted rate, because the likes of Condor gives them a discount, a discount not directly available to the potential tourist.

Now I'm not having a go at Condor for trying to maximize revenues, but it does concern me when I hear that following the demise of Emeraude that the way in which they price their fares could be having a detrimental effect on visitor numbers to these shores.

What Mr. Green seems to fail to understand, is that whilst he's guaranteed his £100,000 plus salary, there are no such guarantees for the small hotelier with a mortgage to pay and rooms to fill over a 7 month period (although this is rapidly shortening)

If there's one thing that Mr. Green is very effective at, it is his ability to use the soundbite to dramatic effect. So far we've had "prostitute", but now I read the departure gates feel "like a meat locker in winter", and the baggage collection area like a "Swedish weight-loss centre". Great prose, but is this one of those cases of a lot of style with very little substance?

Surely what his customers would like to hear is how he intends to get all those security stations operational, so as to get people to those gates, rather than which natty colour of pastel blue he intends to paint the departure gates.

Maybe if we have leather settees in the baggage collection area we'll be the talk of tourists the world over and be in all of those trendsetting magazines?

As one Hotelier said to me, "he thought that visitor numbers had bottomed out 3 years ago and he was hopeful for the future - today that hope hangs by a thread, as numbers yet again show no signs of a significant recovery.

Whilst I wish Mr. Green every success, I and I'm sure the whole of the hospitality industry would much prefer to see effective tangible results that benefit everybody rather than hearing the latest clever soundbite.

It's all about balance

Yesterday after a game of tennis, my fellow players as usual asked me "what coffee are we going to have today David?". On this day I selected a double shot regular (around 8 floz) cappuccino.

John, who works behind the bar at our club must feel under huge pressure to deliver something great when I appear, and I have to say he didn't disappoint. The club uses our Colombian Excelso coffee for all its coffee requirements.

The taste was great for a number of reasons. The coffee was correctly extracted, the coffee shots weren't run too long, the milk had been correctly foamed and overall there wasn't too much to drink.

During the week Ania, who makes the coffee in our shop had shown equal prowess when making a latte for me - usually this is a drink for which I don't have so much time, however as she demonstrated getting all the different elements right really is key to a great drink. On this occasion she used our Bourbon Dark coffee blend.

The problem is that on so many occasions I've had a coffee that has had all of its flavours "stretched" so much that you end up tasting every other flavour apart from the coffee.

It could be that too much water has been run through the ground coffee, which means that you get a load of extraneous flavours that were never meant to reach the cup.

The milk has been overheated, or not correctly foamed, which delivers a thin taste assuming you haven't burnt your mouth first!

Then of course there are the usual culprits; coffee incorrectly ground, water not up to termperature, pump pressure not right, machine not cleaned properly, etc. Seemingly an endless list of problem areas.

So many factors go into making a great cup of coffee all the way from origin to the cup, that it's a wonder we even bother to worry about getting it right all the time. But thankfully we do.

As has been demonstrated to me over the last two or three days, when it's got right there surely aren't very many other drinks greater in the world than a perfectly made cup of coffee.