Stop Press

New Website for Edinburgh Tea and Coffee Company!
Published: Friday, April 22nd, 2010 at 8.05 am, Edinburgh Tea & Coffee Co.

Here at Edinburgh Tea & Coffee Company, we are thrilled to have our new website up and running!

Take a look around our site to learn more about our passion for tea and coffee.

A Nice Cuppa Tea
Published: Friday, July 31st, 2009 at 6:01 pm, Lothian Life Magazine

www.lothianlife.co.uk

We all know that a cup of tea is the cure for everything – no Scot would welcome a visitor without offering the traditional cuppa, and a cup of sweet tea is the perennial prescription for someone who has had a shock. No wonder then, that the Edinburgh Tea and Coffee Company blend tea specially to suit Scottish water.

Edinburgh Tea and Coffee Company’s history dates back to 1812 when sailing ships brought delicacies from the New World directly into Leith. The company was the subject of a management buyout in 1991 after which it moved to new premised in Portobello.

The story of tea goes back thousands of years and there are various legends surrounding its origins. Perhaps the most famous is the Chinese story of Shen Nung, the emperor and renowned herbalist, who was boiling his drinking water when leaves from a nearby tea shrub blew into the cauldron. He tasted the resulting brew, and the beverage of tea was born. By the 3rd Century AD a new Chinese character, ch’a, was developed to refer specifically to tea. This suggests that tea had become such a popular drink that it needed its own character.

Tea Transport

How tea was prepared for tea drinkers has changed over the years too. In the 10th century moulded tea bricks that were easily transportable were the main way of preparing tea for market. By the 17th Century, as Portuguese traders started bringing tea back from the Far East, tea manufacture had evolved into curing loose leaves for boiling water. The types of tea we know and love today – black, green, white and oolong had all been developed.

Edinburgh Tea and Coffee Company have always sourced their products from the very best estates and co-operatives and blend their teas specially for softer Scottish waters. Tea taster and blender John Thompson explains.

“Tea grows best in warm, slightly humid regions where it likes deep, acidic and well-drained soil. As a general rule those teas grown at higher altitude, up to 6000 feet above sea level, have the potential to produce a better brew than those grown at sea level. To get the best possible quality tea, only the top two leaves and a bud from the bush are hand plucked every 7-14 days. It’s very labour intensive. I particularly like the character of teas grown on the east side of the rift valley rather than the west rift in Kenya. The east rift has bright, yellow golden teas suited to soft water but the west rift tend to offer teas which are thicker and redder in colour and more suited to harder water.”

Production

Once produced, tea is most commonly sold at auctions and The Edinburgh Tea and Coffee Company have a number of intermediaries they work with. Tea is affected by different seasons and John’s job is to select teas that will make your cup of tea taste exactly the same throughout the year. This involves slurping a lot of tea, especially at the moment, as the Assam season is in full swing.

“Assam teas are very important to us,” John explained. “They add body to teas brewed in Scottish waters and have a fantastic rich, malty character, perfect for breakfast teas. The quality season is very short in Assam too, so at the minute a lot of my time is spent making sure I select the very best teas that will then last until 2010. These Assam teas will be carefully blended to a secret recipe at our factory in Edinburgh before being packed for you to drink.”