A few weeks ago, I was shocked to read that Russia far outstrips the UK in Indian tea imports. Perhaps I should not have been that surprised. The Russian tea tradition is as old as the British one.

Tea arrived in Russia in the early 17th century�??a present to the emperor from crafty Chinese ambassadors who must have wanted to use it as a trade tool. They succeeded beyond their expectations. The Russians became enamoured, and leaf-bearing caravans trekked for more than ten thousand miles to quench the country�??s thirst. Of course, the longer the journey, the higher the price and, for a long time, tea was the preserve of the Russian elite, though now it is a cross-class drink.

Tea masters soon started developing their own blend, usually mixing different China leaves. Over time, the Russians also developed their own brewing technique. They make a highly concentrate tea�??much as we would do to make iced tea�??then cut it with boiling water from the samovar. The proportions of tea concentrate to water determine the final taste.

I don�??t have a samovar, so my attempts at recreating Russian tea are by necessity approximate. But I gave it a shot by making a tea concentrate�??steeping 2 tablespoons of a China and Indonesia blend from Kousmichoff in 26oz water for ten minutes�??then diluted it with freshly boiled water (just under half a cup tea concentrate, and the rest hot water). The results were interesting.

I had had the Kousmichoff tea before, brewed the British way, and found the Russian version somewhat stronger in flavor, though, inexplicably, it was slightly less aromatic in the nose. I wonder whether this is because the hot water dilutes the scents more than the taste. Still, it made for an excellent tea, with a florally spicy nose and a distinct spice note in the mouth. Incredibly elegant and well balanced, like a Seurat painting. If this is any close to what the Russian court sampled in the early 17th century, I can see why they got hooked on tea.

On the tea stakes, Ireland wins. Although Britain is the country most closely associated with tea after China and India, the Irish drink a lot more gallons every year than their easterly neighbors. And a heck of a tea it is too. Just like you could almost slice Irish beer, so you can almost slice Irish tea.

I had never realized quitehow strong it was, though, until I did a side-by-side comparison between English and Irish blend yesterday. To celebrate the last leg of my tea tour, I brewed myself a cup of English and Irish Breakfast. The English Breakfast was to British tradition�??a blend of Assam, Ceylon and Kenya�??rather than the American Keemun-based version. The Irish Breakfast had the same three teas with a sprinkling of Indonesian leaves.

I steeped both in boiling water for four minutes. The cups looked similar, though the Irish one was redder�??a clear sign of a higher proportion of Kenya tea. But boy, what a difference in the mouth. The English version had a good body and a rounder flavor, with a distinctively Assamey finish. The Irish one was even fuller bodied and went for strength all out. Taste subtleties were perhaps lost, but it had sheer raw power. It reminded me of Schiele to the English Breakfast�??s Klimt.

Stepping into a café in Sidi Bou Said, the interiors are pitch black after the dazzling sun that plays on the whitewashed houses in the streets. As soon as my eyes adjust to the dark, the vague shadows I saw at first resolve into men lifting dainty glasses full of an amber green liquor. It looks good, so I find myself a seat at a round table and order: �??Un the à la menthe, s�??il vous plait.�?� And I fall hopelessly in love. With the tea, that is.

Though it feels like yesterday, it was a winter many moons ago that I went to Tunisia and had the first of many mint-flavored teas. I know this apparently contradicts my blanket statement that I hate flavoured teas, but it doesn�??t really. Thing is, unlike most flavoured teas, in the North African blend the tea comes across quite strongly, though mint and a rather liberal use of sugar give it a comforting quality.

I have always wondered how North Africa developed such a passion for mint-flavored green tea. It must have undoubtedly come to them through the Ottoman empire, but Turkish tea-drinking habits centre around straight black tea. Nevertheless, I am very grateful to the mysterious Arab who first came up with the idea of mixing gunpowder tea with mint.

I like the entire mint tea ceremony as much as I like the tea itself. Tea leaves are placed in a pot and covered with boiling water. After steeping for two minutes, sugar is added, then more boiling water and fresh mint leaves. The tea is left to steep for a few more minutes, stirring it regularly. The proper way of serving it is to pour it into small glasses from far above to create a light foam. Yesterday, however, I was in a rush and thus had to dispense with the ceremony. I simply steeped a teaspoon of Le Palais des Thes�?? mint tea blend in 7oz boiling water for five minutes. It was nearly as marvellous as the real deal.

And although the weather outside was a muffled gray, and I was standing in a messy, toy-strewn kitchen, for a magic moment I travelled back in time to that small, unforgettable day in Sidi Bou Said.

Sharp, painful, but mercifully short in the finish. A sip of Ile Maurice was all I needed yesterday to remember why I dislike flavored teas. It is not so much because many of them taste oily and artificial. Cheap teabags do, but this loose-leaf package, from Le Palais des Thes, had honest aromas. It�??s because you can�??t get so much of a whiff of tea.

A blend of Mauritius tea with vanilla and citrus fruit, Ile Maurice had citrus and the nose and vanilla and citrus in the mouth. The tea lent a beautiful dark red color to the cup, but that�??s the extent of its contribution. Despite brewing it to instructions�??steeping 2.5g in 7oz water for five minutes�??I simply couldn�??t find any trace of leaf in the mouth. Which, of course, defies the whole point of drinking tea for me.

I might as well have a citrus tisane and be done with it. Which, incidentally, I did, later in the evening. It was by Celestial Seasonings and used hibiscus for color. In all honesty, it wasn�??t that different from the Ile Maurice, except this one had no vanilla and came across as more lemony.

What a difference with the Kenya Marynin FBOP I had today. Now that is a tea with muscle. Marynin is one of the few estates in Kenya that still produces tea by the orthodox method when most have switched to CTC, a process where leaves are cut, torn and curled by machine. Steeping 2.5g in 7oz boiling water for 4 minutes gave a rich red cup with a strong flavor with a hint of nutmeg.

It was not as sophisticated as an Assam, but it was good breakfast material. Like a Jackson Pollock canvas, it was bold and energetic. And mercifully long.

New Year�??s Gift. Sometimes I wonder what�??s behind the name of an estate. Perhaps this one�??the first plantation in Zimbabwe, according to Twinings�??opened on New Year�??s Day?

What�??s sure is that it was a lone enterprise for a long time. Tea was first grown in Zimbabwe from the 1920s, but it only boomed in the Sixties, after modern irrigation systems countered the effects of scarce rain.

Like most of Africa, though, Zimbabwean tea is mostly used in blends and tea bags. I could tell why when I tried Le Palais des Thes�?? Mukumbani Fannings yesterday. Le Palais calls it très corsé.

And it is indeed powerful. Some 2.5 g steeped in 8oz boiling water for five minutes gave a lovely red brown cup with a nice, warm scent. It had sheer strength, like a Boccioni sculpture. But it went little beyond a good caffeine kick in the mouth. Definitely a good tea to support a blend�??s architecture, but it does need more aromatic leaves to give it some grace.

Though I am usually not a fan, I had a lot more joy from South Africa�??s Rooibos with lemon verbena, which I had today. Rooibos is not tea, of course. Of all things, it�??s a legume, though thankfully it doesn�??t taste like beans stock. Like tea, however, its leaves can be oxidized after harvest to make red rooibos, or it can be drunk green. Also like tea, it has plenty of poliphenols, minus the caffeine.

I often find it a bit too sweet, with a slightly metallic quality. But this version, by Les Palais des Thes, has lemon verbena added, and its fresh, grassy flavor took the sweet edge off the rooibos. It was remarkably soothing, and I could see myself drinking it regularly in the evening. Not quite Easter�??s Gift, but passably close.

Once again, it was the British who did it. After starting plantations in India and Ceylon, they took tea to Africa in the early 20th century. The Germans and French soon followed suit, and production boomed.

Today, the geography of African tea cuts across the continent from East to West above and along the Equator, then turns down south toward South Africa. It is a vast production, but rarely a quality one. The vast majority of African tea ends into blends and teabags. Several countries, however, have notable exceptions, interesting teas that are worth drinking in their own right. These gems are what I set out to discover as I begin my exploration of African tea.

My journey starts on a nearly clean slate. Beyond some Kenya, which I have tried in the past�??mostly in teabags�??I haven’t really tried other African teas. Or rather, I must have drunk plenty of it in dunk-it-fast teabags, but never on their own. So it is with some curiosity that this morning I approached some Cameroon BOP leaves, which I got from Le Palais des Thes. It is billed as a strong morning tea, and the vendor recommends steeping it for up to five minutes. However, I found slightly shorter times were more to my taste, and settled for steeping 2.5g in 7oz boiling water for three minutes. It gave a beautiful deep amber cup, which made it clear why African teas are so good for blends�??their color is just unbeatable. The scent was good too, and reminded me of a good Ceylon.

The Ceylon impression evaporated at first sip, though. This tea was undoubtedly less refined than a Ceylon, but oozed caffeine power. It was full bodied and flavorsome, like an Assam without the malty note. For its price, it made an excellent early morning tea, full of energy like as Kandinsky painting.

My first foray into Africa was very promising and I was even tempted to add this Cameroon BOP to my line-up of regular breakfast teas, but I have since discovered that plantation workers in the country often labour in very hard conditions with substandard benefits and medical care. I don’t know whether the tea I had today comes from a troubled plantation. But I find it difficult to enjoy a drink if the people who made it for me are struggling for their rights.

Life is calling my attention away from tea and this blog these days, as my son has come down with a particularly nasty bout of flu. I will write more on South America when I can, but, so far, here are my tasting notes on Argentina�??s Flor de Oro FBOP, which I tried yesterday, and Brazil BOP, which I tried today.

Both came from Le Palais des Thes, and I brewed them to instruction steeping 2.5g in 7oz boiling water for 5 minutes (Argentina) and 4 minutes (Brazil). The results were unremarkable. Both cups looked good. The Argentinean tea was a rich brown, with a sweet scent that vaguely recalled Cha Thai. The Brazilian tea was more restrained in both scent and color, which was a deep amber. The mouth was hardly exciting. Flor de Oro was a bit flat and vaguely oily. The Brazilian tea was ever so slightly better, perhaps because it was more restrained, but it still had a slightly oily quality. In all honesty, the only art they brought to mind was some of those rather flat figurative portraits sold by art students at street markets.

Let�??s hope tomorrow will be better�??both in the cup and for my son.

My father distractedly picked up the cup of Kukicha I proffered him. He brought it to his mouth, took a sip then:
�??What is that?�?� he spouted outraged.
Clearly, not everyone�??s cup of tea.
Or rather, not everyone�??s cup if you are expecting a traditional black or green tea.
Since Kukicha is made with the stalks of the tea bush, it has a distinctly unusual taste. But if you are reasonably open-minded about your notion of tea, it is also unusually rewarding. Its warm, soothing flavor makes it a perfect tea for the evening. Having had it for breakfast this morning, though, I must admit I appreciated its gentleness. It�??s a murmured wakey wakey to Assam�??s loud wake up! call.
Because it was morning and I was in a rush, I used a Lima teabag, which was acceptable, although not the best Kukicha ever. I brewed it in steaming water for about two minutes. It took a lovely light copper color and gave out a scent of toasted cereals�??or at least what imagine toasted cereals to smell like. In the mouth, it reminded me of barley coffee, as Kukicha always does, especially in the long note at the end. Rich and enveloping like a Macchiaioli painting.
I tried to explain all this to my father but perhaps my persuasion skills need honing.
He looked at me from above his glasses and:
�??I�??ll make myself an English Breakfast,�?� was all he deigned to reply.

Common tea. It conjures up images of a chipped cup with a murky liquid of ignoble taste. Whereas Sencha, common tea in Japanese, has a delicate sophistication a natural elegance, which is anything but common. I wonder whether the Japanese, who culturally prize modesty, came up with the name as an understatement. Or perhaps they called it common simply because the tea is extremely popular.

Although it is the most widely served tea in Japan, Sencha is a relatively new creation. Like Gyokuro it is a product of the Edo era, when a Buddhist monk from Saga, Baisao, ditched powder for leaves and started selling his new tea.

Sencha quickly became the symbol of the country�??s artistic renaissance, the drink of choice of the writers, calligraphers and intellectuals that flourished between the 17th and the 19th century. Among them, it became the embodiment of freedom against the stuffy, formal culture of traditional matcha. But as it often happens with revolutions, Sencha drinkers ended up adopting the behavior they had initially rejected�??to the point that the way of Sencha appears as formal as chanoyu to the uneducated eyes of this westerner, although experts assure me that it is more relaxed.

The principle behind the Sencha ceremony is to useprescribed movements to achieve a zen-like state. Perhaps I should have given it a shot today, as some zen calm would have done me a world of good. Instead, I caved in to my Western mind and made a quick Sencha on the hoof while working. I steeped one teaspoon of the leaves I had got from Soana a few weeks ago in 6oz steaming water. Luckily for me, magic happens quickly and it took just three minutes for my cup turned into a meadow of golden grass dotted with wild irises. The mouth was sweet and light with an ever so delicate vegetaley note in the end.

It was as beautiful, calming and relaxing as Monet�??s waterlilies. And though I didn�??t quite reach complete harmony between me and the wider universe, I went very close to it.

Tradition and ultra-modernity meet in Japan more than in any other culture I have come across. And this unusual marriage emerges just as much in tea as it does in architecture. The same country that has been following an incredibly elaborate tea ceremony for nearly six hundred years has also adopted an entirely mechanized tea production process. Unlike China, where a human hand takes tea along much of the journey from the bush to the cup, Japan makes extensive use of machines for harvesting and processing leaves. But then an eye for innovation is in itself a tradition of Japanese teamaking.

Over the centuries, Japanese producers developed new teamaking techniques that gave us teas of the calibre of Sencha. But it is the invention of Gyokuro that fascinates me the most. I can almost picture a tea grower from Uji, eyes shaded by a wide-brimmed hat, glancing up at the sky on a very bright day and wondering: �??What would happen if I shaded my bushes for twenty days? Let�??s give it a shot.�?�

Whatever prompted him to have this thought, he was in for a winner. Gyokuro went on to become Japan’s most expensive tea. To this day, canvas, straw or bamboo mats shelter tea buds for about three weeks before picking. This ensures the leaves are a darker shade of green and imparts a unique flavor to the tea. A flavor which is very easily ruined. The hardest part about Gyokuro is brewing it correctly. I know this because I did it wrong the first time I tried it and ended up with a mouth-puckering, bitter liquor that reminded me of bile.

My mistake was getting the water too hot. The key to brewing a good Gyokuro is to keep water temperature to a maximum of 130F. When I made it yesterday, I steeped 9g leaves for 7oz for about two and a half minutes, though tradition dictates using even more leaves�??as much as 10g for 2oz. My cup was pale green, with a delicious scent of wild meadow, and a strong vegetaley sweetness in the mouth.

What a contrast with the Bancha I had today. While Gyokuro is picked at the beginning of the season, Bancha is picked between summer and autumn so its leaves have a much coarser appearance and milder flavor. The one I had today was a convenience cup made with a Lima teabag, so it wasn�??t, strictly speaking, proper tea, though it was highly enjoyable for a commodity drink. It yielded an amber cup with a strong aroma of toasted cereals. In the mouth it was sweet with a long barley-ish end. Where Gyokuro had the vivid and fresh nature of a Renaissance painting, Bancha had the darker, subdued appeal of the Baroque.