Watch out Tetley, look out Taylors of Harrogate and mind your PG Tips, there is a new kid on the block and they have come to take you on at your own game. Cornish Tea with their premier quality black tea blend ‘Smugglers brew’ is one of the newest tea companies in the UK but they believe in their product and think their new everyday tea ‘Smugglers brew’ provides the best cuppa in the UK. Here at Best cuppa in town we tried ‘Smugglers brew’, giving it a thorough testing under rigorous conditions involving a comfy sofa, Victoria sponge and Garibaldi biscuits and we must concur it is a fabulous cup of tea. We talked to one of the Directors of the company Tom Pennington to get his story and find out a bit more about ‘Smugglers brew’.

A lovely new brew to go with your biccy

Tom is a business graduate of Cardiff University but has actually spent a number of years in the restaurant trade as both Chef and Manager before moving into creative marketing for a London based Recruitment Company. Following success in both of these ventures he returned to his Cornish roots and was persuaded by his Uncle Duncan to use his combined expertise in business and the culinary arts to establish a new tea brand. Duncan Bond of course has a highly successful career in sales and marketing behind him and has been the driving force behind a number of well-known high street brands. After years of launching successful brands for other people Duncan felt it was time to do something for himself. With the combined expertise of Duncan and Tom the Cornish Tea Company was launched in early 2012. Now a little over a year later I talked to Tom and tried to find out what the ‘journey’ has meant to him.

Cornish Tea from Gods own country

BC: So tell me what has this new business taught you?

TP: The last year has taught us so many lessons in so many different ways it’s almost impossible to summarise without going through each and every one.  We have been challenged both personally and professionally and even though we are still only breaking the surface its unthinkable just how much we have learnt. We have managed to combine a love of an honest cuppa with the love of a county with the desire to be creative and buck the trend wherever possible and produce something that is really giving pleasure to so many people each day! This is something I would never have imagined doing and is something that really means so much.

TP: We have learnt to ‘follow your heart’ and ‘listen to your gut’. No matter what the world is saying you must sometimes take that risk to find the answer. Trust your instincts and most importantly take care when being given ‘advice’ by the experts and professionals. No one has done what you are doing right now but you and the only person who is an expert on you…  is you!! (oh and possibly your mum!)

BC: What made you decide to launch a new tea brand into a relatively competitive market? The margins must be tight when competing with the likes of Tetley or Taylors?

TP: If we had listened to people in the know and within our current industry I would not be sitting here talking about ‘Cornish Tea’ today. Everyone said we were mad to compete with the ‘big boys’ but we both have a certain attitude towards life which is don’t tell me I can’t do it. If you show me ‘then’ I might believe you!  After extensive research we saw a gap in the market for exactly what we are doing today. Yes it was madness to go up against these giants of industry and yes margins can be very tight, but we don’t have the excessive overheads that our competitors have, we are not as profit driven and we can react to the market very quickly without the normal constraints.

BC: Can you tell me where you are aiming the new brand?

TP: We are aiming our brand at all those people in the world who drink a good honest affordable cuppa on a daily basis, but also those that want a tea that is not showing the lack of quality brought on by corporate demands for reductions in cost and maximising of profits.

BC: Who do you regard as your typical customer?

TP: Our brand appeals to all, anyone who drinks everyday tea and can hopefully afford a few pence for a good, tasty cuppa.

BC: Recent surveys suggest that tea is regarded as being old fashioned. Do you think your brand can step in and rejuvenate the market by providing a new interest in tea?

TP: Far from it, we’ve found that tea is having a massive rejuvenation, what is lacking is a company like us for people to identify with and meet this eager revival for the nation’s beloved cuppa. We feel that our brand definitely has the ability to rejuvenate the market, many of our customers mention that their children also LOVE our tea, this is due to the branding appealing to their eyes before they taste it, we think this is excellent although don’t recommend too much tea for the really little ones as it does of course contain some caffeine! We are the freshest everyday tea brand to hit the shelves in over 20 years

BC: What was the driving force behind you setting up the company?

TP: A love of Cornwall and a sense of adventure. We had the will to do something new for ourselves and to do that without the usual corporate constraints and greed. We wanted to bring to the UK something which pleases everyone and all can benefit from. We had complete belief that it was an excellent idea at the right time, and more importantly we were the right people to do it.

BC: Why did you choose to import tea from Kenya and Malawi?

TP: We have chosen our sources for three reasons. Quality, quality and quality.

BC: Do you have an interest in these tea plantations?

TP: Absolutely, we follow ethical trade initiatives. However to have a personal commitment to certain plantations would be foolhardy, our buyers need to be free to source the tea from the plantations that have had the best crop at the right prices. We can then pass this combination of cost and quality onto our customers

BC: How much tea do you currently import?

TP: Lots!

BC: Who does your blending?

TP: Well we believe we have the best blender in the World so unfortunately that’s a secret but we have all our blending done here in the West Country.

BC: Can you give me any details on your product development? How long did it take? How many versions of Smugglers did you go through before alighting on the definitive product?

TP: This was by far the most crucial and hardest process for us. The product development and sourcing of the blend took many months of intense scrutiny and hard work. This process took us and our relationship through the most extreme of emotions and back again but as with all things you get out what you put in and we think we put in everything we had to give…  and more!

BC: Have you got any more products in development? e.g. decaff tea, hard water tea, cakes, biscuits

TP: Yes but that’s all top secret.

BC: Have you got any nationwide promotions planned?

TP: Yes absolutely. We have some exciting and unique events and promotions planned, the UK will know all about us before long.. just watch this space!

Thanks Tom for answering all of our questions so candidly. BestCuppa wishes you all the best with Cornish Tea and Smugglers brew. It has become a firm favourite in our offices and we think there is no better tea to create a truly brilliant real Cornish cream tea. Go on everyone try some!

Do you like cats? Do you like coffee? Well if the answer to both of these questions is a decided yes! You may be in luck. Based on a successful business idea from Japan, Australian entrepreneur Lauren Pears is set to open her first cat café in London’s East End. The idea is that people who crave feline company can visit the café to enjoy their favourite coffee and cuddle up with a feline buddy. Maybe it could be described as a kind of feline lap club? The new café, which will be called Lady Dinah’s Cat Emporium is expected to open in summer 2013 in Shoreditch. The latest news is that the premises have been obtained and a planning application is being submitted.

Japan has had cat cafes for a number of years

Ms Pears has used ‘Crowd Funding’ to raise the necessary £108,000 to finance the project. Without any additional publicity except for social networking she used the crowdfunding website Indiegogo.com to make her pitch and engage investors/customers. Despite a slow start to the crowdfunding bid, the final 40 hours saw the donations rocket from £36,000 to a massive £109,510 surpassing the £108,000 target within the last hour of the bid. This shows the power of a good business idea and the necessity of social networking.

Cat cafes first opened in Taiwan in 1998 and the idea spread rapidly to Japan with now around 40 in Tokyo alone. The concept has already surfaced in Europe, Cafe Neko (Japanese for cat) opened in Austria in 2012 as did Cat Republic in St Petersburg, Russia.

So all being well a café filled with cats is set to open in London in the coming months. The idea has really captured the interest of hundreds of cat lovers across the country and even without advertising Lauren Pears has received more than 700 applications for around 10 jobs at the cafe.

Picking the right cats will be crucial

The plan is to have around 10 cats in the café at any one time (although they can come and go as they please) along with a maximum of 40-50 people. The cats will be homed from a rescue shelter and will be sourced from the same litter to make sure they get along. Entry to the café will be by ticket only and the tickets cost £5 for a one off, with multiple visits or annual passes also available. Already around 3,000 passes have gone out to the crowdfunding public and the café’s pre-sales of tickets is brisk.

There are some concerns from animal welfare charities such as the ‘Cat Protection League’ ( CPL) and certainly a similar cat café project in Totnes, Devon has received some criticism from this quarter. The CPL believes that domestic cats will easily become stressed in this sort of café environment. Liz Dyas who hopes to open the first cat café in Fore Street, Totnes, believes that the major stress for cats is other cats and hers have a tight social group and are used to one another thus making the CPL argument nonsense. South Hams District Council will give their opinion in May 2013.

I am sure this cat-human enterprise will be successful

Everyone involved in both the London and Totnes projects has given their assurance that the cat’s welfare will be put first.

For more information on the cat café go to – http://ladydinahs.com/, or follow on Twitter – @LadyDinahsCats and Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/LadyDinahsCatEmporium

What images do you conjure up when you think of Cornwall? Well if you’re asking me, I would say blue skies, craggy cliffs and sunny days on the beach. Now a lovely cup of tea can join the list. A young company based in Looe, Cornwall is hitting the mainstream with a new brand of tea called Smugglers Brew. The Cornish Tea Company, founded in early 2012 and owned by Tom Pennington and Duncan Bond, has produced a fabulous new everyday Kenyan/Malawian black tea blend, which will delight your palate and stir your senses. Designed to be ‘an all-day and everyday’ type of tea, Smugglers Brew provides a good honest cup of tea that you will love.

The Beautiful Cornish coast

I brewed my first ‘Smugglers’ in a mug with water slightly off the boil for 1¾ minutes, I removed the round bag and then added a modicum of milk. The resulting tea provided an exquisite fresh and moreish tea flavour, which I loved and could definitely use as my everyday brand. Over the next couple of days I tested ‘Smugglers’ as a standard everyday tea and many of our friends and relatives remarked upon its distinctive fresh tea flavour. I found that best results are obtained by using a brew time of 1¾ to 2¼ minutes in a lightly warmed china pot. But whether brewed in the cup or in a pot ‘Smugglers’ certainly provides equally tasty results and has won lots of fans around here. I am now a definite convert. Anna (one of the BestCuppa team) and her family also tried ‘Smugglers’ over a whole weekend and loved it. The whole family are tea drinkers and described the tea as fresh, light and a thoroughly good accompaniment to a biscuit or a slice of cake.

Oh a lovely cup of tea

Currently Cornish Tea is producing a single tea blend, which has been specifically formulated for day-long use. I used it to accompany cake, biscuits, scones and a full English breakfast and it was outstanding each time. This is truly an excellent all-round tea, which is suitable for all occasions. I am sure it won’t be very long before ‘Smugglers’ is available nationwide and everyone can enjoy an excellent cup of Cornish tea to go along with their clotted cream and scones.

A cream tea, naughty but very nice and perfect with a cup of Smugglers

The tea is provided in boxes of 40 or 80 as foil wrapped round bags to keep the tea fresh and fragrant. ‘Smugglers’ is also available in catering packs for commercial purposes such as tea shops, hotels and restaurants.

A fabulous cup of tea

I love cake and when I am out and about exploring across London I like a coffee and a cake at regular intervals. Here I will let you into a few little secrets about coffee and cake in the great metropolis. I am not going to talk about places where you can get the weird and wonderful because that’s not what coffee and cake is about. In my humble opinion I like some good old fashioned pastries, cakes, tarts or biscuits/cookies which bring a sweet treat to complement a nicely made latte. But where can the beleaguered Londoner find such requisites across the great city. I am certainly not going to talk about the super-sized corporate chains such as Star Bucks, Pret or Costa because they all do the same sort of predictable things and while filling an important niche do not inspire.

Covent Garden a great place for a coffee and to people watch

If I am in London on business or visiting for pleasure I love to go to Covent Garden. Although this is a Mecca for tourists there are one or two places which can give cake and coffee pleasure to the nth degree. The first is Patisserie Valerie in Bedford Street; I love their almond macaroons (crunchy, perfect and enormous), their Mille Feuille and their fruit tarts. This is of course a chain of cafes but it still does damned fine cakes, sandwiches and coffee. I met Simon Callow on my last visit and I think he appreciates the serene atmosphere and fantastic sweet treats. Moving on towards Seven Dials my favourite coffee/cake shop here is Monmouth Coffee Co at 27 Monmouth Street and this is not just because of the fabulous flat whites or lattes they do fantastic pastries and cakes provided by ‘The Little Bread Pedlar’, an artisan baker based in Dockley road near Bermondsey. My favourites at Monmouth Coffee are the almond croissant, treacle tart, excellent gooey Valrhona chocolate brownies and yummy fruit and custard tarts. The Little Bread Pedlar can be found at Borough Market and various coffee shops around London they also have their St Johns Bakery in Druid Road, which does a full range of sourdough bread and the best hot cross buns you will ever taste.
If we walk a bit further East towards Holborn we come across another Gem of a coffee and cake oasis called The Fleet River Bakery (71 Lincolns Inn Fields) situated just off the Kingsway. This is a fantastic place where everything is baked on the premises including superb muffins, tarts, buns, Victoria sponge, coffee cake, carrot cake and cupcakes. My favourites here include the scrumptious pecan tart, the luscious lemon layer cake, the almond tart and my absolute favourite a well-made lemon and sultana scone. Check this place out for lunch or afternoon tea and you won’t be disappointed.

My favourite

My wife's favourite treat

If you go slightly further north towards Old Street (213 Old street) you will come across another coffee and cake venue I have often patronised and found to be great. The Shoreditch Grind baristas are nearly all Australian and so here you can pretty much guarantee the best Flat white in London. The cakes are pretty good as well and include chocolate brownies, muffins, almond croissant and a range of proper big cakes. I have almost worked through the entire menu here and my absolute favourites include the excellent banana, pecan and honey cake, chocolate and coffee cake and their lovely blueberry crumble. Well worth a visit to the Roundhouse. Oh and they have their own recording studio as well.

A good cafe at the Roundhouse

My feet are now getting tired with all this walking around London and I really need a cup of tea. I think my final café of the day would have to be The Tea Rooms in Stoke Newington (155 Stoke Newington Church Street, N16). At this cathedral to cake you can get what is arguably the best millionaire shortbread in London. Mmmm buttery, crumbly and luscious dark chocolate are just some of the words to describe this treat. Other highlights here are the bramley apple cake, almond and chocolate cake, coffee and walnut cake and the aptly named red velvet. All in all a cup of tea or coffee here along with a suitable accompaniment is a great end to a day in London.

Oh I do love a Brownie while sipping a nice latte

Lemon tart a treat from the gods

But don’t take my word for it London is full of coffee shops with fabulous cakes just waiting to be discovered. Get out there and discover your favourites and let me know what they are.

I have often wondered when wandering through London’s historic streets contemplating the city’s rich coffee history just what is London’s oldest working coffee or tea shop? Is there an establishment that has served coffee or tea from the 1600’s right through to the present day? Clearly one for the history books, London is constantly changing and it would be nice to know which coffee shop has real history, where have the great and the good had a fantastic frothy coffee? Where can I get the oldest latte in London?

London in 1750's

Coffee shops became popular in the UK in the 17th Century; the first coffee house in the UK was established in Oxford in 1650 by Jacob the Jew at the Angel in the parish of St Peter in the East. By 1652, a Turkish servant named Pasqua Rosee had opened his own coffee shop, the Turks Head, under the patronage of his master Daniel Edwards in St Michael’s Alley, Cornhill in the City of London. Coffee houses had started to take off as social centres. The second in London was the ‘Rainbow’ at 15 Fleet Street, which was set up around 1656 by James Farr who had previously been a barber (now long gone). By 1670 the coffee house was a major element of eighteenth century restoration London with numbers in the thousands.
The first ever coffee shop in London, the ‘Turks Head’ is now a wine bar and restaurant called the ‘Jamaica Wine House’. According to its bar menu it does serve a full range of coffees and so must be a strong contender for the title of the oldest working coffee shop in London. After all, with the patronage of diarist Samuel Pepys in 1660 and being set within a labyrinth of medieval courts and alleys in the City of London it certainly has the history.

The site of the oldest coffee shop in London

Sign outside the Jamaica Wine House

W. Martyn’s Coffee shop in Muswell Hill is also one to consider. Although it was founded in the Victorian era as a grocery shop and later became a tea and coffee specialist and retailer of fine foods it is still trading nearly 150 years later. The coffee shop was founded in 1863 by a Mr Martyn who moved from Devon to come up to the big city. The current owner William Martyn is the great grandson of the founder and hopes that the shop can carry the legacy of its heritage as one of London’s longest running coffee shops and provide quality coffee to all of its customers.

If anyone knows the oldest still working coffee shop in London please let me know.

Tetley has introduced a new tea flavour into their range called Tetley Redbush. The new tea has been available in the UK since January this year and has rapidly gained popularity because it is naturally low in caffeine, very high in antioxidants and offers an alternative aromatic flavour to conventional tea, which is described as revitalising and refreshing.

Tetley released their new brand of Redbush tea in January 2011

Tetley Redbush is produced from the Rooibos bush (Aspalathus linearis, legume family) found in South Africa on the North Western Cape in the Cedarberg region (8,000 tonnes per year produced). Rooibos is the Afrikaans word for Redbush and was coined because when the green, needle-like leaves of the plant are cut and left to dry they develop a deep red hue. The Rooibos bush thrives in the very poor soil of marginal land and requires no irrigation or fertiliser.

The Rooibos plant, Aspalathus Linearis

The tea first came onto the commercial market in 1904 and first gained popularity during shortages of black tea especially during WWII. There are a whole host of health claims attributed to the tea and as such it has now been widely adopted as a healthier version of the Great British Cuppa. For those who are aware of Alexander McCall Smith, his No1 Ladies Detective Agency series has also helped the reputation of Redbush tea as his main character, Precious Ramotswe, drinks it quite a lot.

The Tetley Teafolk have made a comeback and will be promoting the new Redbush tea

The tea may be enjoyed without milk or any other additive. However a tastier drink may be produced by adding a splash of milk, a slice of lemon or a little honey.  The tea is a lot less bitter than black tea and needs no sugar to be added. It can also be reheated without affecting the flavour so no more stewed tea. It can also produce a fine iced tea or can be mixed with alcoholic drinks for a different flavour. In cooking the tea liquid can be used to tenderise meat and can be added to soups, puddings and desserts. In South Africa there is even an alcoholic version!

Tetley Redbush is available at Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons and Tesco’s for around £1.69.

Back in 2010 following the 2010 Cafe Culture exhibition I was given an Aeropress plunger to test. At the show I had been made some Aeropress coffee by an expert and had to admit I was very impressed, the process was reasonably simple and rapid and the coffee was smooth without a trace of bitterness.

The Aeropress arrived in its characteristic long hexagonal box. The kit included the Aeropress body and plunger, a small pile of filters, a coffee scoop, a stirrer, a funnel and a comprehensive instruction book. Of course if you are an expert and can control six Aeropresses at once you can buy a special stand for the convenience of serving six customers at once and showing off a bit!

The Aeropress is quite simple and rather like a large syringe. The required amount of coffee is placed in the body above a special micro-filter, the water (not boiling) is poured in and the mixture agitated for about 5-10 seconds. The plunger is then used to press a column of air down onto the coffee mixture to push the brewed coffee through the filter into the cup. It’s a bit like one of the old style espresso presses often seen in Italian coffee bars. The results are very good producing very smooth tasty coffee. I would probably favour a coarse grind for suitable coffee; but that is just my preference and I am sure any filter ground coffee will produce equally spectacular results.

I am not sure if it is dishwasher proof but it seems to have been ok so far. So easy to use and easy to clean and produces fabulous coffee.

In short, I loved it, and I now use it every day to make my first coffee fix of the morning. A fabulous concept and a good value gift for any coffee buff on their birthday or at Christmas.

I love Caffe Culture, what a show! The World Barista championships have really been a draw and the number of new products has been amazing. I have been so impressed by produce and coffee that I can only mention a few until I really get around to ploughing through the vast quantity of info I have collected. My highlight so far has to be the brilliant display of cakes and savouries from bakers Peck and Strong who are based in Devon. Also the new coffee from Green Cauldron has proved that Australia not only produces great wine but also sublime coffee. I will be back at the show on Friday to see the result of the WBC and I hope that I will be able to get a go at using the Aeropress coffee maker. So see you tomorrow for lots of lattes and macchiato’s.

Exactly who first discovered that coffee beans that have been passed through the digestive tracts of a Vietnamese weasel is tastier than the ordinary varieties of coffee is unclear, although the whole concept sounds like a bad Monty Python sketch! The first time I heard about this was on an episode of the James Whale Radio Show on ITV in 1989 but then it was portrayed as wolf poo coffee (never heard of a wolf eating coffee cherries before but hey, in desperate times, who knows?) Well it turns out that the coffee passes through the gut of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphrodites), a cat/weasel type creature and close relative of the mongoose that simply loves to eat bright red ripe coffee cherries. The animal presumably obtains some nourishment from the flesh of the coffee cherry and then the indigestible pit (the green coffee bean) is passed out in its poopy and collected by the chief weasel herder…

Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphrodites)

Seriously though the Kopi Lowak coffee is produced across southeast Asia from Indonesia to Vietnam (Sumatra is the largest producer). The coffee bean (commands a price of some $600 per pound) is affected in some way by the digestive enzymes in the gut of the civet – it is thought that proteolytic enzymes effect the excreted beans getting rid of some of the proteins causing bitterness and finally giving the coffee a richer, syrupy, smoother more chocolaty taste with earthy overtones (worth some £50 per cup). Beans, which can be arabica, robusta, liberica or excelsa, are collected clumped together with the faeces of the animal and are then thoroughly washed and dried prior to roasting. Some producers in Vietnam produce their Civet coffee using a process that requires roasting the beans lightly with a particular type of ‘chicken’ fat and also wine and this produces a special flavour (the product is called cà phê Chồn in Vietnam).

Kopi Luwak coffee is very popular in southeast Asia and there are major importations of the beans to Japan. Many tourists who taste the coffee are actually drinking a synthetic version that was first produced in 1996. The Trung Nguyen Coffee Company in Vietnam uses six digestive enzymes and a patented soaking system to produce the simulated Kopi Luwak, which is called Legendee (some say it is a very close match to the genuine article). Other versions of Kopi Luwak use high quality roasted beans and added flavour components.

When all is said and done Kopi Luwak is a much sought after product with a premium price that many think is the best tasting coffee on the market. All I can say is I have not tried it because I tend to shy away from products that come from faeces, although I have been assured that the exhaustive washing and roasting process means that Kopi Luwak coffee is not riddled with  E. coli and a health hazard. If you can afford it try it … and let us know what you think.

Belated congratulations to John Gordon of Gorilla Tampers for winning the UK Barista Championship in 2010 with a score of 687 points (including best espresso, best cappuccino and best signature drink). The contest involved a competition between the 20 best baristas in the UK at the Hotelympia show in London, which was held at the start of March. Second place went to Dale Harris of First Choice Coffee with 675.5 points and third place went to Neil Le Bihan of Exchange Coffee in Lewisham market with 651.5 points.

John will now represent the UK in the WBC and the SCAE World Championships at Cafe Culture in London during June 23-25.

John Gordon, August 2009

BestCuppa in Town interviewed John in 2009 following his triumph as the UK Latte Art champion and he told me he would become UK Barista champion – he has the drive and ambition and I think I may have a little bet on him to take the world title! He also told me of his newly found wood turning skills and his new venture Gorilla Tampers, which produces custom crafted hardwood handle tampers for the serious discerning barista who wants to avoid repetitive strain injury.

Demonstrating why John was the 2009 UK Latte Art Champion