June 12, 2012 | Central jakarta, Events, JAKARTA
Two weeks ago, I got an invitation to attend the launching of Twinings Royal Diamond Jubilee tea blend held at Hotel Grand Indonesia Kempinski. The launching was attended by Stephen Twinings himself. Stephen Twinings explained to us the specialties of the Twinings Royal Diamond Jubilee tea blend which is created to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s 60 years reign on the throne. Twinings Royal Diamond Jubilee tea blend combines two variants of the Queen’s favorite black teas which are Assam tea from North East India and Yunnan tea from Southern China. The tea is available at Kemchicks stores for 150K per caddy. In my opinion, the price is quite expensive although the tea caddy is very attractive.
After that we proceeded to the tea tasting. All of the teas were served in the beautiful Royal Albert old country roses teacups and saucers. That evening, we tried three variants of Twinings tea:
It was a great evening, but I was left wondering. If the UK, a country which imported nearly all of its teas, can have a very strong tradition in tea drinking and appreciation, when will we start appreciating our own home-grown teas and move beyond Teh Botol? What do you think about this?
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I think there was more appreciation of tea (and coffee) in the past. Think of the stories about ‘drinking tea at 4 PM with snack’ which is similar to British tea time albeit with different snacks. However, the appreciation is perhaps not in the form of ‘tea tastings’. Likewise with coffee. Somehow, this tradition got lost amidst the field of rainbow (cakes) and frappe whatever.