The Herb Farm
John North at The Herb Farm‘s obsession with Chinese tea and tea culture happened quite by accident. He hadn’t had a cup of tea for many years having found that, since being diagnosed with IBS, tannins negatively impacted his gut — and yes, that also ruled out red wine!
However, he was overjoyed when a friend suggested a gentle Dianhong style black tea from Yunnan, China. Using only first and second flush leaves picked high in the mountains in March-April, the difference to the typical English “breakfast” tea was overwhelming. Yunnan is the birthplace of tea, and was where the British East India Company went for seedlings, knowledge and even workers to smuggle into India. Darjeeling actually traces its origins to Chinese tea plants and techniques secretly transferred to India by the British in the 19th century!
And so Chinese tea opened like a book for John, and soon he was exploring delicacies such as Pu-Erh and Liu Bao, aged and fermented teas pressed into cakes and matured for decades, and gongfu cha “tea ceremonies” (also known as “kung fu tea”), in which tea is tasted and mindfully appreciated in a similar way you might imagine to a red wine tasting. It seemed only natural that The Herb Farm should use this ancient source Yunnan black tea as its everyday tea, becoming one of the very few tea companies in the UK to do so, and offer shou pu-erh mini teacakes to curious customers too. You can explore Herb Farm Tea at theherbfarm.co.uk
Having a background as a poet, John soon found himself writing about his discoveries and delving into often ancient Chinese literature on tea, tea history and tea culture. He began a poetic translation of Lu Yu’s 8th Century The Classic of Tea (or ChaJing), the first known extant text devoted entirely to the subject of tea. You can read more about that at https://johnnorthwrites.
