Posts Tagged ‘tea from Europe’
December 8, 2011 | 
Author I received an unexpected package in the mail a couple days ago from a David somebody somewhere in Ontario, Canada (the name and address weren’t completely readable). When I opened the package there was one packet of each of the four looseleaf teas produced by Gorreana as well as some tea bag samples. Those of you who follow my blog probably know something about Gorreana; for the rest of you, here’s the scoop: Gorreana is a family-owned tea company founded in 1883 and located on the island of São Miguel in the Azores. These mid-Atlantic islands belong to Portugal; this makes Gorreana (at least until I hear otherwise) the only tea commercially grown in what is politically, at least, Europe. Turkey grows tea, but that’s in the Asian part.
This gift of tea prompted me to revisit Gorreana’s website at http://www.gorreanatea.com/. The website is much improved. It’s easy to navigate and contains beautiful photos of tea growing on São Miguel. The four types of tea produced at Gorreana are Pekoe, Orange Pekoe, Broken Leaf, and Hysson. The first three are black teas and hysson, of course, is green. What remains a little unclear for me is the difference between pekoe and orange pekoe. Pekoe is supposed to consist of two leaves and a bud, and orange pekoe is the same thing named for the Dutch royal house of Orange. The claim on the Gorreana website seems to be that the orange pekoe is grown near exotic flowers which impart floral notes to the tea. We’ll find out, I suppose, when I report on the tastings. So far, I’ve just brewed one of the pekoe tea bags. You can see through the bag when it’s wet that you’re dealing with broken tea rather than fannings or dust; however, the resulting tea was too light for my taste, even when steeped much longer than usual. I’m looking forward to the looseleaf tastings where I can control the amount of tea I use.
Roland at Tea & Treasure
Gorreana Tea
Posted in Tea from Europe, Uncategorized | 
Tags: Azores tea, Gorreana tea, Orange Pekoe, Pekoe, Portuguese tea, tea from Europe | 
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Pekoe Grown in Europe
I’ve reported on Gorreana before, but now I’ve actually tasted one of their teas. This tea is grown on the Atlantic island of Sao Miguel, one of the Azores islands that belong to Portugal. Physically, the Azores are not part of Europe, but politically they are. Tea was imported into the Azores from the former Portuguese enclave of Macao (Portugal has returned it to China).
I tasted the Pekoe. This is a large leaf tea with just a few stems in it. The tea brews up into a light pale orange brew with just a hint of bitterness even after a five minute brew time. The tea emits a woodsy smell but there’s just a hint of it, along with some fruitiness, in the flavor. The tea flavor is very nice, similar to Turkish tea, and like Turkish tea it is definitely best without milk.
I wish I could tell you where to find this tea, but the company I ordered it from had less in stock than the four 100g bags I wanted. Not only that, they took forever to mail the tea, and it’s over a year past the “consume preferably before” date.
Roland at Tea & Treasure
Posted in Tea from Europe, Uncategorized | Tags: Gorreana, Pekoe, tea from Europe, Tea from the Azores | 5 Comments »