Last week I was invited by the tea brand Dilmah to participate in the first ‘School of Tea’ in the Netherlands. In the majestic Landgoed Duin & Kruidberg I drank countless cups (or to be precise: wine glasses) of tea, tasted numerous creative flavor combinations and most of all: intensively improved my knowledge of tea. The Dilmah School of Tea usually takes place in Sri Lanka, over the course of four days. And although we only had one day of classes, the fairly intensive program completely compensated that lack of time. Several employees of Dilmah – amongst them owner Merill J. Fernando and his son Dilhan* – were flown in to speak about their products. “It is tea, but not as you know it.” There were talks about the history of tea: from the alleged discovery by the Chinese emperor Shen Nung to tea as a currency and the American invention of tea bags. About the production process, that’s incredibly intensive and precise because: “quicker is not the right way”. That professional tea tasters taste about 10.000 different teas each month, every tea with its own aroma and strength. About the different kinds of tea that exist, from the almost […]