CHAPTER 3
CLARIDGE’S HOTEL, LONDON
The bed tea in hospital came in a soft plastic cup meant for cold water that buckled in my hands as the hot liquid destabilised the sides. It was insipid, tasting mostly of watery milk. I couldn’t drink it and I couldn’t think how I’d get better. After surgery I needed tea more than ever. I needed to get out of there. I know other people’s illnesses can be extremely tedious and I won’t go into every gory detail. But bear with me through the uncomfortable bits if you can. Or skip ahead a few pages. I wouldn’t blame you. It’s a tricky path you don’t have to follow, to get to the beautiful place I’d like to show you.
Cancer has a way of shaking things up a bit. It can take over not just your cells and your energy but everything around you.
The first time, it began abruptly. The cancer was spreading rapidly and I had to begin chemotherapy within days of discovery. It was back in 2004, and I had just started Rare Tea. I returned from securing the first harvest contracts in China to a breast cancer diagnosis. I got through chemotherapy; then the surgery, which reshaped my body a bit; then radiotherapy. Next came a new intravenous treatment not available on the NHS that an oncologist friend in America had strongly advised I get if I wanted to stay alive. I had to pay to start the treatment: tens of thousands of pounds I didn’t have. My partner at the time fund-raised the money and thanks to the kindness of strangers at his work, I began. I campaigned hard to get it funded by the NHS, and won. That was followed by five years on another daily drug and constant monitoring. The ravaging chemotherapy had dealt with my tumour but had also damaged various parts of me I still have problems with.
All that swallowed a lot of time. So many tests and appointments and waiting rooms and treatments and more tests – it took over, and its toll. Alive on the other side, I promised myself I wouldn’t be ungrateful or disappointed or miserable ever again. I’d had a 30 per cent chance of surviving. I was so bloody lucky. But I lay in bed and cried. I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t see how to live. I was physically weak – like a thin, grey mouse. I looked okay at the start, all cheekbones and stubble-headed, but it’s hard to pull off chemo chic for long. My life in tea was still in its infancy. The original business plan taunted me with all its hope. I’d achieved so little. All my savings to fund the plan were gone.
But at least there was something. There was the possibility of adventures ahead. There was tea. That saved me. There were places to go. A business to build. I could be the Tea Lady, not the sick lady.
When I finally managed to get up, I threw myself in deeper. It did feel a bit like I was knocking my head against a brick wall in those early years. No one wanted loose-leaf tea. Even very decent restaurants served only half-decent tea. After a meal came coffee, as a matter of course. There was probably a dusty box of teabags on top of the coffee machine for the few freaks who demanded it, but they were certainly not encouraged. There were even fewer teapots. And where there were, even Michelin-starred places and grand hotels used bags inside the china.
I had to start stirring things up a bit. I suggested they might serve tea that was rather better than their guests could get at home instead of something that was arguably inferior. If they offered instant coffee, they wouldn’t sell much of that either. I had to force people to take notice and I had to open up a market that didn’t exist. It was that or abandon all my tea dreams and go back to working at something I didn’t love, for the money alone. The cancer shaped me; formidably, some have said. It had left me with a new courage, or perhaps a lack of fear. What was the worst that could happen?
Ten years later, cancer threatened again. By that time I had a life rich in tea and a business that was thriving. It suddenly all looked so fragile.
Bear with me: I’m getting to the good bit.
After the operation to remove the cancer, opening the silver scars that had almost vanished, I went to Claridge’s. They invited me to stay, and they had my tea. The NHS had saved my life, again, thanks to the incredible skill, hard work and kindness of its staff, but I didn’t want to hang around. Looking not terribly attractive, with four tubes coming out of me, each attached to a bottle draining fluid from my wounds, I took a black cab with the aid of a good friend. The cabbie drove at an almost funereal pace to avoid any painful bumps.
As I walked into the lobby, the hotel manager and his team were all there to greet me, as though I were an important guest. I was embarrassed by my tubes, tried to hide them in the folds of my skirt. They pretended not to notice and helped me gently into the lift. There is a sofa in the lift at Claridge’s, so you can sit down.
They had given me not just a room but an original art deco suite with two doors – 116 and 117. I was shown from room to room in happy bewilderment.
(It’s safe to come back now.)
The bed tea I was served during my recovery at Claridge’s was the best of my life.
Waking up in a really good hotel and ordering breakfast in bed is surely one of the greatest luxuries life has to offer. It’s a pleasure you can wallow in, right up to your neck. In a hotel there is no need to get out of the warm nest and make it yourself. At home, returning to bed alongside a semi-snoozing companion to drink the tea I’ve just made puts me a little out of kilter, like a puppy sharing a basket with an old dog. To have tea brought to you in a sumptuous hotel room, with someone else doing the work, allows you both to stay longer in that delicious drowsiness.
The problem is, room-service tea isn’t always very good. In fact, mostly it’s terrible. The worst is when they bring a cup of hot water with a teabag lying enveloped on the saucer. By the time the waiter has brought the tray up from the basement kitchen, through the service passageways, up in the lift, down the corridor to your room and has then waited for you to open the door, the water is, at best, tepid. However hurriedly you dunk the bag, it lies there on the surface. You attempt to sink it with the teaspoon, but it bobs. Pale clouds seep from the bag and vaguely colour the cool water. It’s all but impossible to get much flavour going – the concoction tastes mostly of paper bag.
Marginally better is the sloshing pot. Some tea has been spooned into a teapot in the kitchen and then filled with hot water. The breakfast tray then makes its way from the kitchen to your room. The tea continues to brew all that time. Given that a tea’s best flavours, as a rule, dissolve in the first ninety seconds, your tea will probably be very over-infused. You pour the first cup and its subtleties will likely have been subsumed by the tannins.
Tannins are a type of flavonoid molecule in tea that contribute two characteristics: bitterness and astringency. The astringency – that dry feeling in your mouth – comes about because the tannins attach themselves to proteins in your saliva that would normally help lubricate. Tannins really do dry out your tongue. But they also bind to other proteins and fats, so the presence of milk in your tea or cream on a scone reduces the effect.
If you use milk to balance and dilute your tea from the over-stewed pot, it might be okay. But the milk is cold and the tea has been sitting cooling for a long while. When you add the milk, it makes your tea cold. If it’s a green tea, it’s utterly ruined before it reaches your room.
There is a solution, of course. The dry tea is weighed into a pot in the kitchen and the water is poured into a thermos flask to keep it at the ideal temperature. The room-service waiter then brings it to the room and doesn’t pour the first cup’s worth of water onto the tea until he’s put the tray down on the bed. You can then infuse the tea to your desired strength. With the thermos of hot water, you can reinfuse the leaves repeatedly as you enjoy your breakfast. Each cup will be perfect: hot and delicious. Wherever you are staying, ask to have your tea made this way. The effort of explanation will pay dividends in delight.
I devised this service method for Claridge’s. Since becoming their Tea Lady, I have ventured into the depths of the kitchens to work with the chefs. I’ve seen all the back-end operations. But I never imagined I would get to road-test the ro
om service from bed.
The first time I ever ventured inside Claridge’s, the doorman opened the door for me and smiled warmly, greeting me with a ‘Good afternoon, madam’ as if it was the most normal thing in the world that I should be there. That’s the genius of the place. No one looks you up and down or judges you by your shoes. They truly understand gracious hospitality.
The yolk-yellow walls of the lobby were lit by an open fire and lamps cast a warm glow across the chequered marble floor. Directly ahead was the dining room, crowned by an enormous Venetian-glass chandelier and festooned with an abundance of flowers. The tables were set for afternoon tea and the room was full, though not crowded, never crowded. As I waited to be escorted to my meeting with the visiting chef I was doing a project with, I observed the service. I couldn’t help but notice the tea was being left to steep for too long in the teapots. I tried not to interfere, I really did, but I couldn’t help it. The manager was at the entrance to the dining room. I went over to him and asked about the infusion method. He seemed interested, probably just being polite, as I started to explain the essential, missing elements of perfect flavour extraction.
A tall man in a suit came up behind me and asked if I was Henrietta Lovell. He would take me to see the chef. I asked him to hold on, just for a moment, while I finished my explanation. The gentlemen smiled and indulged me. And having done what I could, but probably shouldn’t, I followed. Through a small door we left the discreet opulence of the hotel’s public areas, descending to the kitchen through the echoing squeak of brightly lit, tiled corridors. There was a buzz of energy, like an industrious hive. We passed a huge room full of florists, flowers and vases; hurrying waiters carrying trays; kitchens gleaming with polished steel. There were chefs, in their whites, wheeling great trolleys of cakes. I followed my guide through the labyrinthine passageways underneath the elegant hotel, something like a rabbit warren under a pagoda.
The tall gentleman asked me, over his shoulder, as I trailed after him, why I hadn’t waited for a staff-training session to discuss tea service rather than doing so in the middle of service. I was grateful he didn’t turn to see my face flush. My stomach dropped. I had clearly annoyed him.
I knew it wasn’t my place to criticise their tea service at all. I apologised and explained I didn’t work with them.
He stopped dead and turned to face me. I tried to backtrack physically and verbally, gabbling. He smiled and turned again, leading me further down the corridors. At the office of the executive head chef, which was full of gleaming silver terrines, he said, ‘I’ll leave you in the hands of the chefs, but I do think we ought to work together more closely here at Claridge’s.’ And he handed me his card. The tall man in the suit turned out to be the general manager. Since then I have supplied and taken care of every aspect of tea in the hotel, helping them make their dedication to excellence look effortless. I am, proudly, their Tea Lady.
I have no real rank, no great wealth or distinction. But there I was, welcomed into a suite and made to feel as though I belonged upstairs just as much as in the kitchen. I could hardly move my arms. I certainly couldn’t lift a kettle. I didn’t need to. The experience was wondrous and otherworldly. That I was off my head on opiates at the time made it all the more so.
I got sent presents to make me better. A little jar of rose miso and another of honey arrived from the hives at Noma in Copenhagen, sent by chef-owner René Redzepi. Fergus Henderson of London’s St John restaurant brought me Eccles cakes, pigeon eggs and champagne. Baker Richard Hart express-shipped a loaf of his bread all the way from San Francisco; his boys sent me their beloved dinosaur fridge magnets that I had admired. Another friend spent weeks preparing small batches of chicken soup and delivered them to me with fruit and vegetables from her garden. My team at Rare Tea sent me cashmere socks and red lipstick. I realised that I had real friends. My life in tea was far more than I had imagined; the people I worked with were more than colleagues or customers.
The Claridge’s experiences stay with me, sharper than the surgeon’s blade. I can no longer feel the pain of the surgery, though I can trace the silvery places with my fingertips. But if I hadn’t been carefully knifed, I wouldn’t have been so tenderly taken care of.
The cancer changed everything again. Some things for the better. I was forced to take time off. I had time to think. I realised that there was more I could do to support the tea farms I work with. I set up a charity, returning a percentage of the revenue from my company’s tea sales to the farms. Rare Charity now funds education scholarships. I worked on this book. I became braver, perhaps, and conscious that I am not alone. Fragile, certainly, but able to appear indomitable with a steel framework of kindness around me.
CHAPTER 4
GUIZHOU, CHINA
The first morning, a friendly, familiar face came softly into my Claridge’s suite and opened the curtains. Gentle arms helped me to the bathroom and made White Silver Tip tea while I put on my lipstick. I wore a pink satin dressing gown. I looked like shit, but I felt like Vivien Leigh. The pain receded like a Norfolk tide, thanks to swigs from my morphine bottle and a constant stream of tea. The executive chef, Martyn Nail, sent up a beautiful breakfast of smoked salmon with scrambled eggs and avocado and served it with perfectly infused Emerald Green, a bright, spring-harvest, green China tea.
I chose green tea that morning rather than the more traditional black tea blend I had made for Claridge’s because of the breakfast. Really great green tea works well with rich, oily food like smoked salmon and avocado. It melts the oils in your mouth and refreshes your palate between mouthfuls. The green sweetness is accentuated rather than overwhelmed. The flavour is clean and delicate, and the cup is the palest gold, but it has remarkable body, making it an elegant contrast to the fish, but no weedy pushover.
I hear old Chinese love songs when I drink this tea. I can almost taste the heartbreak. But it’s not mine, so it doesn’t hurt unless I let it, by linking it into my own. I can savour the deep emotion without swallowing the pain.
The sorrow belongs to an old man in the mountains of Guizhou province in south-west China. I came across him one bright spring afternoon as I was wandering through the rows of tea, admiring the wild roses that flanked the terraces. Yellow, white and lupin-purple flowers threaded through the tea. Little birds swooped and chattered along the paths with me. Butterflies flopped lazily in and out of shadows. Occasionally I came across small groups of pluckers chatting softly. An old woman with a round face and neat white hair looked up from pulling the tallest weeds from among the bushes to see me standing there. She pointed straight at me and laughed so much it bent her double, as if I was some splendid joke put into the garden for her amusement. There was no unkindness in her voice, just genuine delight at my absurdity. I laughed too, and she clapped her hands together, then held them out to me. We held hands for a moment, smiling at one another.
Some distance away, I could hear music. In all the time and in all the places I’d travelled thanks to tea I’d never heard recorded music playing. I’d heard singing – the lovely voices of friends in Malawi sharing songs in the fields; the soft humming of women sorting leaf in Nepal, heads bowed, lost in their private concerts – but never recorded music until then.
As I got closer, the notes had the brittle sound of a cassette player. And then I saw the old, bowed man. He was working alone. His face was shaded by a bamboo hat and he wore a blue jacket faded to soft indigo, buttoned to the round collar at his thin neck and hanging loosely around his frame. There was no other soul on his patch of hillside, where he was plucking the fresh leaf, working slowly, methodically. The songs drifting across the terraced slopes were slow and sad and old. They were not high-energy pop songs or communist bombast. I could tell these were songs of love and loss, as much from the sound as from the look on his downturned face. Tears dropped. His eyes shone as he looked up at me, bright in a sun-darkened face lined with deep furrows as heavy as tattoos.
I had appeared from nowhere
, unannounced, to break his solitary grief. I am used to being met with surprise and disbelief. Not many foreign women stroll alone through remote tea gardens in China. People mostly back away, shyly laughing, or are shoved, terrified, to stand beside me for a photograph. But this old man just looked up as if he had been expecting me. He shook his head sadly and returned to his work. I stood there for a moment, but his head stayed low over the tea. The music hung between us in the thin mountain air. I walked on quickly until I was out of view, to restore his privacy. At the very edge of earshot I stopped, chewing a tea stem and wondering what the words meant but not really needing a translation.
That tea has been grown in those gardens for many thousands of years, the same varietals on the same land, picked at the same time and crafted in the same way, as unchanged as heartbreak.
Green teas can come from anywhere tea can be grown – from India or Africa, Sri Lanka or Thailand, even from some of the new farms in the US or New Zealand – but my favourites are from China. The Chinese were the first. They have been producing green tea for so many generations, and they’ve got pretty good at it. I always choose whole-leaf green tea. Careful, painstaking crafting that keeps the leaf whole also keeps the flavour cleaner, smoother and sweeter. If the leaf is broken, its chemical compounds start to oxidise, like a cut apple turning brown, and the tea will be considerably more bitter.
Cheaper, broken, mechanically processed green tea can be cat’s-arse puckering and could really put you off. The lowest grades that get swept into bags can produce a bland or bitter brew, to be drunk with fortitude rather than pleasure. But the good stuff is sublime and has myriad flavours: sweet and smooth, sharp and bright, nutty and floral, round and creamy. It can be wonderfully clean too, like the taste of a pea straight from a just-picked pod or a succulent stem of grass.
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