At UK House, set up this week for SXSW, I interviewed Jonathan Jones as he poured a tea that has never before been presented to the public.
“This is the world’s first transatlantic tea blend,” explained Jones, “and we have made a special breakfast tea called Special Tea. And it’s the first time we’ve grown leaves in the United Kingdom and in the United States.
“We’ve teamed up with a South Carolina tea plantation called Charleston Tea: they’ve been going about 100 years. Tregothnan is 691 years old. We’re in Cornwall in England, but we only started growing tea 25 years ago and I’m the tea man. I’m the botanist who started it.
“I write for Country Life magazine in the UK, and I wrote the world’s first in tea column. So many wine columns, everyone knows about those, but the world needed a tea column!
“And it’s the world’s number one drink. Even in America they spend more per capita on tea than we do in the UK, but you drink less here. What a great market!
“So this tea is to celebrate what we know as a special relationship, but we are sort of modest about that.
What it does also celebrate is leaves from a tea bush that Prince Philip himself planted at Tregothnan when he came in 2014. So it’s a lovely royal link and as a sort of nod to goodwill and understanding we are going to invite the American president to plant the tea bush at Tregothnan where Eisenhower visited. He came to the estate in 1945 to meet with Winston Churchill – we think it would be quite a nice moment.
“Tea is not about politics, it’s about people meeting and talking and what I’ve loved about being in Austin for two days is just that people do talk here. It doesn’t matter about their politics, you can all get together, have a cup of tea, and everything’s fine.”
Plans are underway to have the Special Tea for sale in Austin either at Neighborhood Cafe on 6th Street, or Central Market.
