“A great tea is connected to a terroir“
Delicate tea leaves, cultivated in a grand cru style, appear in the greatest restaurants. Still shy, the trend announces a real gastronomic revolution. LHCH interviewed two European insiders in this world of Tea Sommelier. One in Belgium, and one in Spain
Ground, bagged by the English, tea was drunk as a tea time version. Today, with the opening up of China and the change in our eating habits, new quality standards are emerging. A true “grand cru” tea is cultivated in very small gardens sloping in the mountains. But what he loses in quantity he gains in subtlety for gourmets.
It was again the Anglo-Saxons who coined the expression tea sommelier. In 1998, the New York restaurant Heartbeat hired an aficionado of “therapeutic” tea, James Labe, to offer alcohol-free pairings with a diet menu. Ten years later, the prestigious Paul Bocuse institute created the first tea school near Lyon. Food and tea pairings are born … A « Lapsang Souchong » with smoked duck prosciutto with Lapsang, melon and roquet ? A Pu Er fermented tea with curry-braised pork, maple hoisin sauce and fermented condiments ?
“Tea is adorned with the culinary art to indulge in an explosion of flavors, aromas, according to the register of the six colors of Chinese tea: green, white, yellow, oolong, red and post-fermented, explains Chi Wah, the tea sommelier at the starred Yam’Tcha restaurant in Paris. But watch out for marketing sirens ”warns the expert. In fact, inspired by the trend, overpriced “tea schools” have flourished for years and “tea sommeliers” have been certified. But often, this science does not have the depth of that of wine. Few reach the level of Frenchman Florent Weugue, who has become “Japanese tea instructor” in Japan! Without talking about the origin of the teas, often from wholesalers in Hamburg …
LHCH’s phone interviews in Europe :
Fabienne Effertz, Brussels
Tea and cheese pairings
Fabienne Effertz, author of a committed book on herve, lived for five years in Switzerland where she ran a creamery. “The Swiss sometimes drink tea with their fondue. This agreement intrigued me. In addition, customers who were resistant to alcohol were asking for new agreements with cheese … Back in Belgium, I followed a training course at the non-profit organization Les Feuilles Vertes run by Maître Weng ».
Mrs Effertz’s “Grand Opus » on tea-cheese pairings will be released in October and will notably highlight nine Belgian cheese producers and the teas that match their product. “But there will also be French or even Canadian cheeses. The idea is to support the last authentic cheese producers but also the last traditional Chinese tea masters. For example, those who use charcoal and not electricity to roast oolong tea ». But how does tea meet cheese? “Off the beaten track of wine, we have experienced obvious mergers but also clear contrasts where one awakens the other. »Example? The full-bodied aspect of alpine Gruyère, with its herbs and mountain flowers, pairs wonderfully with the invigorating, vegetal, floral, slightly toasted side of the king of green tea, Long Jing!
César Romàn, Oviedo
The great converted sommelier
The 2015 Gault & Millau sommelier had the chance to serve his first teas at L’Atelier de Joël Robuchon in Taiwan in 2009, then to follow a training course at the prestigious Maison des Trois Thés in Paris.
“It is essential for me to make a great tea accessible by telling in an attractive way its history, its character. Without tedious ceremony, it should be served to bring out the maximum of flavors and aromas, in harmony with the dish », explains César Romàn. « But we are discovering a new adventure. I remain cautious and serve the plate. Each customer reaction constitutes an “input”. In fact, while « tea sommelier world » is trendy, few Michelin-starred establishments are already taking the risk. I avoid the exclusive term ‘tea sommelier’, as well as the parallels in tasting vocabulary between tea and wine. My job is to know all the liquids served at home and also to offer pairings with beers or vegetable juices ”, humbly specifies César Romàn who, one day between tasting two Bordeaux vintages of the 1940s, had tasted the noble power of a great Pu Er tea, these fermented teas that are left to age like the greatest wine vintages. “I then understood that a great tea is linked to a terroir, to an ancestral practice, that it has a historical and evolving side like wine, while keeping this element of mystery due to the complexity of the subject, its oral tradition and the few existing books in our language ».
