It is claimed more than two billion people drink a cup of tea every day. And the heat of the UAE doesn’t stop us from being part of that statistic. A nice brew, the urban myth goes, is the perfect drink for any temperature and climate – it warms you up in cold weather and (supposedly) cools you down when the weather is hot.
Even though scientific evidence to support this is sparse, it’s still a belief that prevails.
Tea also plays an important part in the lives of the expat communities in the UAE. The British and people from the Indian subcontinent are the two groups most commonly stereotyped as being dedicated lovers of a cuppa. What’s more, in local Arabic culture, taking tea is a popular pastime and important custom for displaying hospitality or friendship.
So it’s no surprise we have our own tea supplier here in the UAE – the Lipton Tea factory based in Jebel Ali in Dubai, which opens a new wing this month. Always on the hunt for a lovely cup of Cha, TOAD made our way to Jebel Ali to find out exactly what happens to the raw leaves that end up in our brews.
Connoisseurs will tell you the perfect cuppa is all in the preparation. And much of that takes place even before you reach the factory floor.
First we actually had to get inside the building, which involved filling in all the necessary papers and waiting anxiously at the checkpoints in the industrial hinterland that is Jebel Ali. Then we were given a full safety brief before being allowed inside the factory. Then finally – and this was the best part of the preparation – it was time to dress up. With the whirring and buzzing of the factory floor stifled behind heavy glass doors, we layered up with all the necessary safety gear – hefty black shoes, thick socks, a baggy white jacket (a cross between a cut-off lab coat and chef’s whites), a high-visibility tabard, a hairnet, a hard hat and earplugs. Looking like a visitor from Mars, we were ready for the factory tour.
As Larry and Essam, our guides for the day, pushed open the doors to the factory, the noise (even with our ears protected) and the heat (especially with all those extra layers on) were oppressive and overwhelming. Yet the red-suited Lipton factory workers looked cool, calm and collected as they packed the gold bars of Yellow Label tea into boxes.
Our tour started with an examination of the leaves. Larry and Essam took us to see the huge sacks of tea from a variety of countries around the world – including Sri Lanka, Vietnam and Kenya – lying on the factory floor waiting to be blended. Tea, Larry explained, is a complicated recipe. ‘If you make a chocolate cake, perhaps you have a recipe that is generations old and that never changes,’ he said. ‘You will always use the same ingredients in the same quantities and will always get the same chocolate cake.’
Not so with commercial tea brands, he was quick to point out.
The outcome – the final look, taste and smell of the tea – must always be the same and at Lipton, they use the acronym TIM, referring to the tea’s, ‘taste, intensity and mouth feel’, to describe this. However, since it’s a natural crop which is susceptible to changeable growing conditions such as weather, the crops that comes in from the same plantation can be remarkably different each time.
As a result, companies like Lipton will take in shipments of tea from a variety of plantations from around the world. Each will provide, to varying degrees, the characteristics the company requires to produce a standard and reliable final product.
The characteristics of this final product, according to Larry, are like the chocolate cake: the outcome must always be the same. But this doesn’t mean the ingredients are the same: the quantities will be different for every blend. Lipton uses a blend of 16 different teas, and always in varying mixtures, to create what we get in our bags. But premium flavours such as Darjeeling, added Larry, are effectively like ‘a blend in themselves’. They can be relied upon in taste and aroma, without being mixed. They’re also expensive, which means they’re not suitable for use in blended teas.
Approximately 33,000 tonnes of raw tea arrives each week at the factory in Jebel Ali from plantations around the world. Each time this occurs, samples are sent to tea taster Kurush, who tests each one for its TIM characteristics. Each is given a numerical score, which is then calculated to produce the recipe for that shipment’s blend. This is then sent from on high to the factory floor, where the blend is mixed up on a larger scale. Essam explained that since tea is ‘an agricultural product’, it must be carefully sorted before blending, to remove any debris such as twigs. This is done simply via an industrial-scale vibrating sieve and is the only process of treatment the leaves undergo. Tea is an entirely natural and also stable product that does not require much interference, according to Kurush.
A fresh, woody and damp smell like cut grass hit us as we passed into the room where the tea is blended and stored in huge silos. Again, as we approached the area where the flavoured teas are blended, an exotic barrage of vanilla, cinnamon and lemon wafted through the air from the tiny temperature controlled room at the back. Here, the process isn’t as natural and the temperature must be kept low to prevent the added flavourings from becoming ‘sticky’.
Once the tea is blended it’s ready to be packed and fed directly from these silos into an unassuming looking machine, which contains an ultra-complex and convoluted series of levers and wheels (worthy of Wallace and Gromit), which Larry slowed down manually to illustrate just how complicated the system is. The loose mixture of tea, muslin sheeting, cotton thread and those little yellow labels are fed into this machine and in seven steps (performed in the blink of an eye), the components are pushed out of the other side as a neat row of teabags, already boxed together in groups of 25. The boxes are later sheaved in gold-coloured foil for freshness. The quantity of tea in each box is measured in ‘gold bars’, according to Larry.
The gold bars whizzed off around the factory floor to their various packaging destinations, pushed via air pressure through a serious of tracks that sped, buzzed and spiraled everywhere we looked, it was like trying to keep up with a huge, complicated session of dominos winding around the room.
Among the other fun-looking games on the factory floor were plenty of shiny, toy cars and a cuddly looking monkey. Inspired by a Japanese management technique, these are used as less intimidating visual signifiers to illustrate issues that will slow down production (such as a jam), instead of glaring, flashing lights. The Japanese have long had a hand in the perfection of tea, with chado (or ‘the art of tea’), but this is not quite the Japanese influence TOAD would have expected to find.
It was a pleasure to take tea (metaphorically) with Larry and Essam. Their passion for the product was inspiring. But even just observing the factory in action was thirsty work. In fact, we could have murdered a cuppa.
Tea: the facts!
Tea is made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis.
Tea is thought to have originated from China, over 5,000 years ago.
The first book about tea was written in 800 AD by Lu Yu.
Tea was first brought to Europe by Portuguese Jesuit priest Jasper de Cruz in 1560.
In 18th-century Britain, tea was so expensive and considered such a luxury that it was routinely locked away in boxes called tea caddies.
Health benefits from tea include prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Tea is a natural source of fluoride, so it’s good for your teeth and gums too.
In India, tea is the second largest industry, after tourism.
The most expensive tea bag was made by famous tea company PG Tips for its 75th anniversary.
It contained 280 diamonds and premium tea leaves and cost Dhs42,900.
