Tremaine So­ca Warn­er

Tea is trend­ing in ho­tels, restau­rants and homes in T&T. From its nu­mer­ous health ben­e­fits to its sooth­ing ef­fects, many are recog­nis­ing the aro­mat­ic lure of a fresh­ly brewed pot of tea.

Ki­ran Akal, pres­i­dent and cre­ative di­rec­tor of a com­pa­ny called In­fi­nite Worlds, cre­at­ed and brand­ed his own as­sort­ment of pre­mi­um West In­di­an lux­u­ry teas in 2010 called Smaks Be­spoke Teas that have be­come pop­u­lar here and abroad.

The idea came about as a re­sult of Akal's love of tea and a need to re­brand his moth­er's 32-year-old Smaks bou­tique, which spe­cialis­es in fine porce­lain, chi­na and crys­tal ware.

Akal said he has def­i­nite­ly ob­served an in­creased in­ter­est in fine teas in T&T: "Peo­ple are dis­cov­er­ing that tea is just not tea. It's a whole world and it's some­thing that can be a hob­by and a pas­sion. Peo­ple find it a re­lax­ing di­ver­sion from the re­lent­less dri­ve and stress of mod­ern life."

Akal said his goal has been to give tea a West In­di­an iden­ti­ty-to tell the sto­ry of a re­gion which has ex­pe­ri­enced what he calls "a unique col­li­sion of tea cul­tures." He said Smaks lux­u­ry teas em­body the unique his­to­ry of Eu­ro­pean, Mid­dle

East­ern, Chi­nese, In­di­an and African el­e­ments in the West In­dies, as well as the flavours and fra­grances of each.

He ex­plained that for the se­ri­ous tea-mak­er like him­self, the process of pro­duc­ing tea is sim­i­lar to mak­ing a fine wine and it be­gins with the se­lec­tion of large leaf teas from fine es­tates. He said high-qual­i­ty tea con­sists of leaves that are processed by the CTC or cut-clear-curl method. This process in­volves the pluck­ing of the leaves be­fore they are left to with­er. This is fol­lowed by the rolling, ox­i­da­tion and roast­ing of the tea leaves. Akal said the in­ten­tion is to cre­ate a bal­ance of aro­ma and tex­ture and taste.

Tea is not on­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with a more ma­ture crowd. Man­ag­er of the Smaks show­room at the Carl­ton Sa­van­nah Ho­tel in Port-of-Spain, Sharon Ho Wong said, "I no­tice now that a lot of young peo­ple are drink­ing tea. Af­ter­noon tea is a sooth­ing, re­lax­ing way to end the day. You sit, chat with your friends and have a cup of tea."

Ho Wong said their Grenadines Pur­ple and Bermu­da Pink ti­sane blends are par­tic­u­lar­ly pop­u­lar among young peo­ple be­cause of their fruity flavours. A ti­sane is a herbal in­fu­sion of dried flow­ers, fruits or herbs steeped in boil­ing wa­ter with­out the in­clu­sion of any tea leaves. The Grenadines Pur­ple ti­sane con­tains trop­i­cal lemon­grass, hi­bis­cus, ap­ple pieces and or­ange peel, which, when brewed, pro­duce a light laven­der-coloured tea with a tangy flavour.

She said their black teas such as the Caribbean Chai, To­ba­go Af­ter­noon and Trini­tario Dark are pop­u­lar among peo­ple of all ages. She said she is sur­prised to see that a lot of men are buy­ing tea now and many of them favour the His­pan­io­la tea-a brew that has a deep am­ber colour and an aro­ma of vanil­la and malt. Smaks says the His­pan­io­la al­so steeps well in­to rum.

Akal told the T&T Guardian that of­fice ex­ec­u­tives now fre­quent­ly serve tea at busi­ness meet­ings. He said the act of prepar­ing and pour­ing a pot of tea for col­leagues in­volves grace and eti­quette which puts every­one in a great mood for con­ver­sa­tion.

Smaks lux­u­ry teas are served at restau­rants like Bu­zo and The Ve­ran­dah. They are al­so en­joyed by guests hav­ing af­ter­noon tea at the Trinidad Hilton and the Mag­dale­na Grand Beach Re­sort in To­ba­go.?Akal said Caribbean Air­lines serves their lux­u­ry teas to pas­sen­gers on its first-class ser­vice to the UK. He proud­ly added that ear­li­er this year, Smaks teas were pre­sent­ed to Queen Eliz­a­beth II by the Earl and Count­ess of Wes­sex for her di­a­mond ju­bilee cel­e­bra­tions.

Dhisha Moor­jani, own­er of House of Jaipur in Wood­brook, says the pop­u­lar­i­ty of her tea­room has grown sig­nif­i­cant­ly since it opened in 2003. The House of Jaipur is an In­di­an ar­ti­san show­room spe­cial­is­ing in In­di­an fash­ion, tex­tiles, hand­i­crafts, home decor and teas. Moor­jani said at the House of Jaipur tea­room, the fo­cus is not on­ly on the prepa­ra­tion and serv­ing of tea, but on cre­at­ing a sub­dued at­mos­phere for peo­ple to en­joy their bev­er­ages.

She said over 30 types of tea are served at the tea­room, in­clud­ing black, green and white teas. Most of the tea blends come from tea plan­ta­tions in In­dia, though Moor­jani said some al­so come from plan­ta­tions in Africa and Chi­na.

Moor­jani told the T&T Guardian that ini­tial­ly the va­ri­ety of teas in her tea­room was lim­it­ed, but this changed when the de­mand for more ex­ot­ic tea blends in­creased.

One of the House of Jaipur's most pop­u­lar teas is the In­di­an Masala Chai-a black tealeaf from As­sam, In­dia, which Moor­jani says is usu­al­ly boiled with milk, car­damom and oth­er spices to cre­ate a hearty brew. She said an­oth­er favourite is the Ka­ma Su­tra Chai tea, a strong com­bi­na­tion of In­di­an and Kenyan teas blend­ed with gin­ger, car­damom, cloves, cin­na­mon and black pep­per.

Moor­jani said al­though tea is brewed, served and con­sumed in dif­fer­ent ways around the world, "The bev­er­age sym­bol­is­es com­mu­ni­ca­tion, shared mo­ments, sym­pa­thy, har­mo­ny and friend­ship." "This rit­u­al of tea-drink­ing is usu­al­ly found among women who take the time out of their hec­tic days to re­lax and un­wind from ei­ther their work sched­ules in their of­fices or the run­ning around with kids," she said.

Own­er of the DH Gift chain of stores Di­anne Hunt, said her store has five pre­mi­um tea blends: Mara­cas Morn­ing, In­di­ra's Gar­den, Sug­ar Es­tate, Tas­sa Chai and Sa­van­nah Af­ter­noon. The Tas­sa Chai is com­posed of Cey­lon black tea, gin­ger, car­damom, co­rian­der, cin­na­mon and black pep­per. De­scribed as a "full-bod­ied" tea, it is said to have a spicy aro­mat­ic flavour and great taste when mixed with milk and sug­ar.

Hunt said younger peo­ple tend to favour chai teas while the "old­er and more so­phis­ti­cat­ed de­mo­graph­ic" prefers the af­ter­noon teas. "Teatime is a so­cial ac­tiv­i­ty that has been re­vived in re­cent times," she said, adding that tea con­sump­tion pro­vides an op­por­tu­ni­ty to spend time with fam­i­ly and friends and she en­cour­ages cus­tomers to "share a cup of love".

Hunt said con­sumers are al­so be­com­ing more and more aware of what they con­sume and the health ben­e­fits of tea. In­for­ma­tion of DH Gift's Face­book page says black tea comes from Camelia Sine­sis and is a great source of an­tiox­i­dants and polyphe­nols, which var­i­ous stud­ies show can fight cer­tain types of can­cer. It goes on to say re­search in­di­cates that drink­ing at least one cup of black tea each day may re­duce the risk of heart at­tack and kid­ney stones.

Health ben­e­fits of tea

Oth­er than the feel-good ben­e­fits of tea, some re­search in­di­cates that tea has sig­nif­i­cant health ben­e­fits.

->Many green and black teas con­tain an­tiox­i­dants which scav­enge for cell-dam­ag­ing free rad­i­cals in the body and detox­i­fy them.

->Tea has less caf­feine than cof­fee.

->Tea pro­tects your bones. It is not just the milk added to tea that builds strong bones. One study that com­pared tea drinkers with non-drinkers found that peo­ple who drank tea for ten or more years had stronger bones.

->Tea may in­crease your me­tab­o­lism. Green tea has been shown to in­crease meta­bol­ic rate so that you can burn 70 to 80 ad­di­tion­al calo­ries by drink­ing just five cups of green tea per day.

->Tea is calo­rie-free. Tea doesn't have any calo­ries, un­less you add sweet­en­er or milk. If you are look­ing for a sat­is­fy­ing, calo­rie-free bev­er­age, tea is among the top choic­es.