Tregothnan – Tea School Masterclass
You know yesterday I said that the Tregothnan Cornish-grown tea couldn’t be as good as Darjeeling or Assam tea because Cornwall doesn’t have the elevation that those places have? Well scrub that. I was young and foolish and uneducated way back yesterday and didn’t know what I was talking about. I’ve been to Tea School since then.
Tregothnan Tea School Masterclass is a one-day tea-based experience for budding tea buffs hosted at the Tregothnan Tea Estate near Truro.
I attended the Tea School Masterclass yesterday and this is where I learnt that elevation is not a necessary requirement for tea production. The main reason that tea is grown in hilly regions is that they tend to be the cooler parts of places like India and Sri Lanka. Also, the areas that are not hilly are used for growing other crops so it makes sense to put tea bushes (which will carry on growing for decades or even hundreds of years) in the less accessible places.
(This wasn’t the only thing I learned yesterday but as it directly contradicts something I said yesterday, I thought it best to get that correction out of the way early on.)
The session was run by Jonathan Jones who is basically a Tea Yoda. But taller, less green and more jacket-wearing. Also he talks in properly constructed sentences. (So not a lot like Yoda at all, really. But it’s hard to let go of these things once you started.)
The day started with English Breakfast tea and there were tea samples throughout the session. I tried black teas, green teas and an amazing oolong. There were some herbal tisanes as well because Tregothnan grow herbs as well as Camillia sinensis. I am, as you know, no fan of herbal teas but it was still interesting to see – and smell! – a field of chamomile flowers during the tea tour. I learnt that chamomile serves as a useful companion plant for proper tea. Growing chamomile for a year before tea bushes are planted helps prepare the ground and growing it alongside tea for the first few years means that the taller chamomile plants protect the young tea plants from the wind.
I hitherto had a very low opionion of chamomile (it tastes horrible and smells like wee) but now I know it’s beneficial to proper actual tea production, my estimation of of it has increased hugely.
The full day at the Tea School Masterclass included a talk about the history and production of tea in general and Tregothnan tea in particular. There was also tea-tasting, lunch, a tour around the tea fields and afternoon cream tea.
The tea tour was the best bit. It was really exciting to see actual tea growing from the actual ground, like it’s a real life plant and not something that just magically manifests itself inside tea bags in Sainsbury’s. We were encouraged to pick our own tea tips – the top two and a bud. I now have some fresh tea leaves that I’m going to endeavour to turn into something drinkable.
Cornwall is an ideal place to grow tea. In fact, it is probably one of the very few places in England where tea could be successfully commercially grown due to its milder climates. In the words of our tour guide, John (a different chap from non-Yoda Jonathan), “You can grow anything in Cornwall.”
After tasting a wider range of Tregothnan tea, I am blown away by the variety, breadth of flavours and quality of the tea they produce. A lot of their tea blends contain tea from estates outside the UK, so I ensured I bought some Single Estate Tregothnan so I could full appreciate the true flavour of the teas I saw growing in the fields.
I came away from my Tregothnan Tea School Masterclass more knowledgeable and – although it scarcely seems possible – even more enthusiastic about tea than I was already. I may not be a Tea Master just yet but I did, for a day, get to hang out with some.
