The Background - White tea is quite possibly the most delicately flavoured drink available in the world today. White Teas are generally associated with China, and in particular Fujian province, but for many years India has produced white teas of very high quality. This is a very rare tea from Darjeeling grown at between 6000 – 7500ft above sea level, each leaf is hand selected making Darjeeling White Tip is the of the world’s finest teas. The tea is produced using the two leaves found around a new tea shoot at the very top of the bushes. These are hand sorted and then gently steamed and dried under a soft heat. The result is an incredibly light fresh flavour with mild muscatel notes. Combine the unbelievable flavour with the facts that White Tips contains at least 3 times the antioxidant polyphenols of green or black teas, and has lower levels of caffeine, you really have the most marvellous cup of tea.

The Background – Jasmine Pearls Green Tea is one of the prettiest treasures from the world of tea. It grows in the mountains of southeast China. For more than 100 years, only the finest and youngest leaves have formed the basis for this rarity. While the leaves are not quite dry they are mixed with fresh, delicately smelling jasmine blossoms up to six times, then sieved and rolled by hand into small pearls. When you infuse these pearls in your tea cup, you will see the top two leaves and the bud come to life and you will also see some small ‘hairy down’ on the bud of the leaves - this denotes superb quality and very careful and delicate handling.

The Background - Organic Wuyi Rock Oolong is one of the purest teas from around the world. This rare Oolong comes from Mount Wuyi in Nanping Region, along the border of Jiangxi Province China. In 1999, UNESCO listed the mountain as a World Heritage Site in part owing to its outstanding biodiversity. According to the UN, Mount Wuyi is one of the World’s finest, intact, subtropical forests, and it is also registered with the Chinese Government as a biodiversity conservation zone.  The climate of the region is relatively humid  as Mount Wuyi prevents cool air from entering the valley, and the Nine Bend River meanders  through the valleys below. This whole region is breathtakingly pristine and many of the plant and animal species are unique to the area,.
Here grows the world famous organic rock tea, these tea bushes are ancient, having grown amongst the mountain’s rocky outcroppings for generations. Cultivation of the plants is almost impossible given the topography, so exceptional care is taken when handling and plucking the fresh tea shoots, light cotton gloves are worn when plucking and handling the leaves, which are harvested in small quantities, so as not to tirethe bushes. The fresh leaf is then allowed to naturally semi-ferment. Semi fermentation allows the edges of the leaf to turn while the middle of the leaf stays green. (This is the reason for the slight colour change from the edge of the leaf to the centre.)

The Background - Tea has been grown in Uganda since the days of the British Empire, first planted by Indian immigrants who brought their knowledge with them from plantations back home. Things progressed relatively smoothly for many years and although the industry never reached the size or status of that of neighbouring Kenya, during the mid twentieth century tea became one of the Uganda’s most important exports. All that changed on Aug. 4, 1972 when Edi Amin, who had recently seized government control in a military coup, demanded that all Indians leave the country. This included the people who owned and managed Uganda’s tea plantations. All business deemed to be “foreign owned”, even though much of the Indian population at the time was born in Uganda, their families having come over generations past, was seized and given to non-Indian citizens. The result? In many cases, tea estates came under the direction of owners had no experience and production began to suffer in terms of quantity and quality.
In 1994 the European Union backed a donation of $40 million to help the Ugandan tea growers, but, the road back for the industry has been as rocky as those leading to the tea estates and to this day, many Ugandan plantations suffer from a lack of available electricity and all suffer from high transport costs (Uganda is landlocked, so tea must be trucked to Mombassa, Kenya, for auction). Tea is Uganda’s 3rd largest export after fish and coffee and it provides sustainable employment.
One of the best examples of Uganda’s tea output is grown on Mityana Estate. In recent years, Mityana has begun producing premium loose leaf teas to compete with some of the more famous Kenyans. It is grown at 4000ft  above sea level and is a BP1 (Broken Pekoe 1) with the leaves being cut, torn and curled in the production of this tea.