The fourth edition of the international wine event will take place from January 29th to January 31st 2024
Henrietta Lovell will outline the many benefits high quality tea can bring to a dining experience as she calls for a revolution in the way the industry treats tea farmers and the communities around them
Such is the breadth and depth of the international speakers at The Wine Edition Wines from Spain that the focus strays beyond the world of wine. Henrietta Lovell, the founder of The Rare Tea Company in the UK, works with some of the world’s top restaurants and hotels and is an authority on quality and provenance of tea.
She launched The Rare Tea Company in 2004 with the stated aim to source and supply the best loose leaf teas in the world. For the past 20 years she has curated high quality and well sourced tea for clients including Noma in Copenhagen and London’s Claridge’s Hotel.
“Tea has more variety of flavours than wine – there is a richer cornucopia of flavour, especially when including herbal infusions,” she explains. “Chefs who come to our tasting rooms are often overcome because they have not before encountered such a rich playing field.”
Lovell has also become and advocate for the communities she works with and is on a mission to raise the profile and status of the farmers who produce tea and help them thrive just like a vineyard would.
Currently the conditions for those communities are disheartening, with life expectancies as low as the forties for many. But it need not be so.
“Restaurants can make very lucrative gross profit margins, guests can get amazing experiences and business can be done ethically; it just takes a small attitude shift,” she says.
Elevating the status of tea as a beverage in a restaurant is a vital part of her work.
“Imagine in a restaurant I offered you a glass of wine and the only thing I told you about it was its colour – how impressed would you be?” she asks. “Imagine if the wine we were offered in restaurants and hotels was mostly chosen for the lowest price and not flavour How much bleaker would our world be?”
This lack of connection and concern, she says, easily leads to exploitation – if no one knows where the tea comes from, how can they be responsible for the poverty suffered by tea communities?
At The Wine Edition, she says, she will be talking about a revolution, in supply chains, responsibility and in customer experience. “A flavour revolution that is good for everyone, from customer to maker,” she concludes.
Tea Pairings and tea Stories with Henrietta Lovell, @raretealady on how tea can add real value without human cost will take place on Monday 29th January, 1:30pm – 2:15pm
Registration
To register and secure tickets for in-person and online attendance to Madrid Fusión Alimentos de España 2024 and Madrid Fusión The Wine Edition, visit www.madridfusion.net