Tasting notes

Henrietta Lovell is on a mission to make you ditch the humble builder’s brew

Why we should learn to love loose-leaf tea

HENRIETTA LOVELL WANTS to start a revolution. The Tea Lady (‘People really do call me that,’ she says. ‘It’s what I do and who I am’), who founded Rare Tea Company in 2004 and has since become Britain’s foremost expert on the subject, is leading a call to arms. ‘Choose good tea,’ is her battle cry. By which she means ditch the industrial, mass-produced bags and reach for a different cup, produced by artisan teams for the best flavour. ‘It’s hard for people to abandon something they’ve drunk every day, but there might be something else out there that will bring you more pleasure – and it would have a huge impact on those who make it.’

Lovell has spent the past 15 years travelling the world to find the finest loose-leaf tea, having first launched her business at a time ‘when there was absolutely no market for it’. Gradually, she wooed chefs (Mark Hix was one of the first) and sommeliers (Katie Exton, then at Chez Bruce) to offer leaves as well as beans after dinner. Just as with wine and coffee, she argues, tea deserves to be valued more highly.

Lovell’s own tea tales, from her search for white silver tip in the mountains of Fujian, south-east China, to blending a single-estate breakfast tea in Malawi (via the death of her father and two bouts of cancer), are recounted in an enchanting new book, Infused: Adventures in Tea (published on 6 June by Faber & Faber, £20). It’s both travelogue and tribute to growers, pickers and leaves. Hard to go back to builder’s.

Clockwise from top left Pluckers harvesting at the Amba Tea Garden, Ravana Falls, Sri Lanka; the perfect brew; Henrietta Lovell; the Emerald Green harvest in Guizhou, China