Even if you resumed drinking for February, you may have resolved to consume less alcohol, so the problem remains: what do you do on the days you’re not drinking? Enter an unlikely candidate: tea. And by that I don’t mean a mug of builders’ (though there’s nothing wrong with that), but a drink that has a similar complexity to wine.
Leaf tea accounts for only 4% of all tea sold here, according to the UK Tea & Infusions Association, but, unlike blended teas, sales of speciality teas are increasing – up 7% in the past year. More and more top restaurants now offer a decent selection, among them Claridge’s, which features a range of ambient (cool-brewed) Postcard teas in its Michelin-starred restaurant Fera.
Postcard (of whom my colleague Nigel Slater is a fan) also has an entrancing tearoom at the top of London’s Bond Street, where you can try any tea before you buy it. (The cost is knocked off any eventual purchase.) When I asked for a pick-me-up, they suggested Master Xu’s Rou Gui (Dao Shui Keng) 2016, a roasted yancha oolong of incredible richness and sweetness. At £23.95 for a 20g caddy, it feels a bit like the tea world’s equivalent of Château Lafite, but you can reinfuse each pot several times to get your money’s worth. Less well-heeled oolong fans may find the wonderfully full-flavoured and fruity Mrs Chen’s Dong Ding Oolong, from Taiwan, more their cup of, er, tea: Comins Tea in Bath has that at a more modest £9 for 50g.
If, however, you just haven’t got the patience to wait for your tea to brew and/or can’t face the idea of giving up milk, try the Rare Tea Company’s Speedy Breakfast Tea (£4.99 for 75g Waitrose), which is cut smaller for a faster infusion, but still gives you a really good, strong cuppa that puts your average teabag to shame.
I have recently been converted to green tea by learning to brew it at a lower temperature, namely 85C rather than 100C (leave the kettle to cool for five minutes after boiling, or add a splash of cold water to the cup before you infuse the tea). Marks & Spencer has an affordably priced range, and all of it Fairtrade, if you’re looking to support Fairtrade fortnight, which starts on Monday. I’m particularly keen on the Earl Grey Green teabags (£2 for 25) in which the citrussy flavour of bergamot really comes through much more effectively than in many black teas, but which is not as confected as many lemon-flavoured teas. It’s a perfect mid-morning tea for a non-drinking day.
