Tea Blog

In truly international news, the Darjeeling Tea Board has won a legal battle in Taiwan against Delta, a French lingerie manufacturer. Delta had been selling thongs, bras, bikinis and other undergarments under the DARJEELING brand.  The Taiwan Court of Appeal agreed that tea and lingerie are quite different classes of goods and so there might [...]

Tea Bush – Harvesting Tea   Tea plants are propagated from seed or by cutting from existing bushes.  The art of any plant breeder can be a dark and mysterious one and this is no less true for breeders of camellia sinensis, who strive constantly to improve and develop quality, yields and flavour.  A tea [...]

Caffeine and Tea  Originally called “theine”, caffeine was first discovered in tea in 1827 (it was later shown that theine was in fact the same substance as the “caffeine” which had already been identified and isolated in coffee and the term “theine” was subsequently dropped). While the caffeine in tea and coffee (and, indeed, chocolate) [...]

Kennet Bridges Walk  This pleasant route can be walked in either direction.  There are pubs and parking at each end and plenty of bridges in between.   From Axford, there are any number of possibilities to get going: Hopper’s Lane (R#45), Stone Lane, andCrooks Lane (R#9) each have their charms – and their bridges! – and [...]

  Tea and Food the Best Food Pairings for Tea  Do you ever think about what tea and food work well together?  A piece of toast at breakfast?  A chocolate biscuit?  A dainty sandwich?  All good suggestions, but don’t draw the line there.  Like fine wines, fine teas can be paired with many different foods, [...]

Sound Bottom Walk School Drove/Sound Bottom (Ramsbury Bridleway #8A/Byway #35) Until well into the 18th century, Sound Bottom provided the main coaching route west from London– presumably a better bet than the marshy Kennet Valley to the south.  Even today, it’s a Byway Open to All Traffic, with its fair share of vehicular use.  As [...]

Seven Bridges Walk Seven Bridges (Ramsbury #30) This pretty and well-used footpath connects King’s Ditch (R#18B) with the C6 Hungerford Roadout of Ramsbury and forms part of several popular circuits of the village.  Watch your step – watermeadows can, by definition, be boggy underfoot, and the path has an odd camber in places.  There are [...]

Membury Fort Starting near Balak Farm, head up the byway (R#37 Ballyack) beside the farmhouse.  Past a barn turn right over a stile, and head downhill (footpath R#25A) keeping north first of the hedge and then of the plantation at the bottom of the valley.  There is a small hunting lodge here, next to a [...]

Marridge Hill Walk Lipyatt/Marridge Hill (Ramsbury Footpaths #21 and #32) This path originally linked Ramsbury with the hamlet of Marridge Hill and perhaps also with Lambourn, over the downs.  Just where Crowood Lane leaves Ramsbury, a signpost by a gate points north. This section is Lipyatt (or Lippiat) and takes a shortcut over the hill, [...]

Kings Ditch Walk “Kings Ditch” (Ramsbury Bridleways #18B & 48)  It’s easy to speculate that these bridleways follow the route of a Roman track linking Cunetio (Mildenhall) with the villa at Littlecote.  The Kennet Valley was also an important east-west corridor for the Saxons and, although by the Middle Ages the main road seems to [...]