Now it’s always teatime in Manila

Taha Bouqdib grew up in a house next to the Chinese Embassy in Morocco. His father worked for the King of Morocco and traveled the world over with the King and the royal family. As a child, Taha saw how tea was served in the royal palace — not just with sugar and milk but with amber, musk and all the expensive perfumes, because “when you drink it, you want to smell it as well.”

Years later he would bring this sensibility in his manner of speech: quietly, elegantly but convincingly and passionately.

Taha is talking about tea.  As his destiny.

Away from Morocco and after studying law in Paris, he decided to become a tea man, having spent 15 years in Paris’ tea industry.

He would later create a tea flavor for his own company, TWG Tea, called the Royal Moroccan Tea, in honor of all those childhood experiences in his home. This would be one of hundreds of teas that Taha would passionately create, pursue, and search the world’s tea gardens for the finest tealeaves. 

This, in essence, is the TWG Tea experience — it’s tea as a special, luxurious, drink, albeit a daily one.

In Asia, where pots of tea are practically given away for free in Chinese and Japanese restaurants, introducing luxury tea and teaching people how to make and drink it — the way good wine is consumed — was the challenge TWG faced but one that it surprisingly overcame quickly. In the year when the world economy crashed, no less.  

TWG Tea, founded in Singapore in 2007, is a story of passion and creativity. Between the founders, they have more than a hundred years of experience in the tea industry. Taha himself has over 21 years of luxury tea experience in France, the UK, Thailand and Japan.

And, now, TWG Tea Salon is opening in Manila — at Greenbelt 5, Resorts World Manila and Rockwell Power Plant Mall — courtesy of Stores Specialists Inc., the country’s purveyor of luxury brands from around the world. 

TWG Tea is the only brand that Harrod’s carries apart from its own. “Harrod’s has 150 years of tea experience,” says Taha. “No other tea brand was allowed except for TWG. They loved our products so much they decided to introduce TWG Tea as the other tea brand in the Harrod’s Tea Hall.”

For its UK branch, TWG created the Grand Harrod’s Tea when they opened in London.

But there’s another, more interesting TWG story that comes out of the Harrod’s Tea Hall via an artisanal tea garden in Japan.

“In Japan, the people are incredible consumers of their own tea. You have 96 percent of tea produced in Japan consumed there, which is why the real Japanese green tea, if you buy it anywhere else in the world, is very expensive.”

TWG works with very small artisans in Japan and last year Taha managed to negotiate to take out three kilograms of tealeaves out of Japan, so you can imagine how limited it is. Taha created the TWG Tea Imperial Gryokuro, which was sold at Harrod’s for 9,000 British pounds (P600,000) per 50 grams. That’s GBP450 or about P29,000 per cup of tea.

And you thought only vintage wine could cost this much.

Okay, so that may be the most expensive tea in the world but on the opposite side of the scale, you have loose-leaf teas that cost only SGD$40 per 50 grams, or SGD$11 per pot at TWG Tea Salon.

The range of TWG Tea is incredible. The company works with over 800 different single-estate harvests and exclusive blends from every tea-producing country in the world: hundreds of tea flavors that evoke the smells and tastes of just about any good memory you may have.  Its Christmas teas smell of Christmas morning, its Tea No. 5 is reminiscent of Chanel No. 5 because it uses the same flowers that go into the perfume that Marilyn Monroe took to bed, its Tea No. 12 has coffee beans in it, and its Pu-Erh tea is the tea that Victoria Beckham consumes by the gallon to keep her slim figure.

The choices may be confusing, but just ask any of the TWG wait staff in their tea salons to explain to you what the tea is and they will gladly give you a quick lesson. That’s the way Taha and his wife Maranda Barnes, director of business development and communications, have trained their staff. (The TWG Tea staff in Manila flew to Singapore for hands-on training and a lot of the staff in Singapore are also Filipinos.)

The tea list is divided into country and region of origin: India, Hilamaya, Nepal, Ceylon, China (which has the widest range divided into provinces), Formosa, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Burma, Papua New Guinea, Laos, Persia, Turkey, Georgia, Argentina, Brazil, Australia, Kenya, Rwanda, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi, Tanzania and South Africa. Then there are the Grand Classic teas such as Earl Grey and all its varieties (white, chocolate, French, breakfast, etc.); Classic Teas for the Morning (such as Paris Breakfast tea, Singapore Breakfast Tea; Valentine Breakfast Tea); Classic Teas for the Daytime; Classic Teas for the Evening; Solo Teas, Exclusive Tea Blends; White Tea Blends; Theine-Free Tea Blends; and Tea Flowers.

During our tea-tasting session, Maranda explains to us the process of how our tea comes from the tea plant (camellia sinensis) to our cup. It’s an intricate process that is very similar with wine making, from how the leaves are picked by hand, to the processing and blending.

We realize we have so many things to learn about tea — and things to unlearn, too. For instance, never use boiling water because it loses its oxygen content, which means the tea will not be infused properly. It doesn’t work either if you boil water and let it cool down because the oxygen has been lost by then. When you see the first bubbles developing on the bottom of your kettle, that’s roughly the right temperature, which is 70 degrees.

Also, different teas require different temperatures and steep time. Black tea is around three minutes, green tea is two to three minutes,  except for the freshest green tea from Japan which requires only a minute and a half. And tea leaves should be used only once.

Taha is the master blender of TWG Tea, a role he loves with a passion. He also sources the raw material. “I go to the tea gardens myself, I’ve known these growers for many years. We are very friendly but when we go to the tasting room for the new flush — everybody knows it’s not friendship anymore. Otherwise, if I try to be polite and say it’s good but I will not buy it, he will not understand. Instead I taste it and if I don’t like it, I say, I am sorry I will not buy this year but next year if it is better I will buy from you. I cannot tell my customers, sorry this year is not as good as last year. We need to have consistency, the same quality and spirit each year.”

This  dedication to quality can also be seen in the food TWG Tea Salon serves (it has one of the best Eggs Benedict I have ever tasted), which is known for its all-day fare ranging from breakfast items to sandwiches, pastas, its French macarons, and luscious chocolates.

“In our first six months in Singapore, we were working from 8 a.m. to 3 a.m. the next day. We didn’t have a store yet. We opened the first one in 2008. People said, why is the tea very expensive? In Asia, when something doesn’t work the product immediately discounted, but we didn’t.  We said, we need to give people time, to share with them more and more. And they did come. We opened a week after the financial crisis. Our store was full. The bankers needed to find solutions, talk with people… they did it in our tea salons. We opened the second one, at Ion Mall, it was phenomenal. I never had any doubt. I always believed that if you don’t play with customers, they will be your loyal patrons.”

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TWG Tea will open at Greenbelt 5, Resorts World Manila, and Rockwell Power Plant Mall. Stores Specialists Inc. is holding a grand launch of TWG Tea at Greenbelt on Nov. 8.