TEA AND CHEESE PAIRING WITH KYLE WHITTINGTON

Tuesday 21st January 2020
6.30 - 8.30pm

25 Lavington Street, London, SE1 0NZ

£25 per ticket (Incl. VAT)

Tea & Cheese might just be the best kept secret taste sensation. More than just flavour combinations that you get with other ‘Cheese &’ pairings, when paired with Tea, the cheeses not only take on new flavorous in the mouth with each sip of tea but even textures change and develop. Add to this a perfectly clean and refreshed palate for each consecutive pairing experience and you really do have a match made in heaven.

Drawing from a wide experience of pairing Teas and Cheeses, Kyle will share six of his favourite pairings over the evening. Expect taste sensations that’ll leave you wondering why you never tried this before.

About Kyle: Kyle Whittington has run numerous tea tastings and pairing events over the last 6 years and was the first to run monthly tea & cheese tastings for several years in London. He has also ran afternoon teas and tea supper clubs. He now mostly focuses his time on his Japanese Tea Ceremony practice and is currently launching an online Tea Book Club.

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PUER TEA TASTING WITH JUYAN WEBSTER

Wednesday 5th February 2020
7 - 9pm

25 Lavington Street, London, SE1 0NZ

Join UK Tea Academy and Juyan Webster (The Chinese Tea Company and UKTA’s tutor for Chinese teas classes) for this exciting opportunity to learn about and taste the most mystic type of tea - PUER.

Dive into the world of Puer Tea, this often-complex variety of Dark Tea exclusively grown in Yunnan Province, south west China. There is no other tea like it in terms of processing, storage and taste. Different factors such as origins of the raw materials, soil, altitude, time, storage conditions affect the taste of Puer. The flavours of Puer can be sweet, bitter, floral, mellow, woody, astringent, sour, earth, watery, or even tasteless. A combination of tastes appears in one single steeping and make it such a fascinating type of tea.

Juyan travels to various parts of China every spring to select teas for her business and will share her knowledge and experience of the regions she has visited over the years in order to buy the best from the different provinces. For this tasting event, she has selected four teas to present you what the main flavours of Puer are and how the taste changes as the tea ages.

Juyan travels to various parts of China every spring to select teas for her business and will share her knowledge and experience of the regions she has visited over the years in order to buy the best from the different provinces. For this tasting event, she has selected four teas to demonstrate the main flavours of Puer and how the taste changes as the tea ages.

We will taste the following teas:

• 2018 Ancient Tea Tree Raw Puerh
• 2002 Bulang Mountain Lao Man E Raw Puer
• 2017 Ripe Puer
• 2013 Ancient Tea Trees Ripe Puer

Places sell fast and are limited so book now to secure your place in our new studio.

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JAPANESE TEA CEREMONY EVENING

With Kyle Whittington

Wednesday 4th March 2020
6.30 - 8.30pm

25 Lavington Street, London, SE1 0NZ

Tickets £25 each (Incl. VAT)

So you’ve heard of the Japanese Tea Ceremony. Maybe you’ve even been to Japan and had a Tea Ceremony experience. But what is it really all about?

During the evening, Kyle will briefly introduce the history and development of Chanoyu and discuss how and where it sits in the world today, both in Japan and the west. Following this the highlight of the evening will be a demonstration of a ’Temae’ (the practice of preparing and serving a bowl of matcha) which guests are encouraged to enjoy in meditative contemplation after which we will have an open discussion where Kyle will answer your questions about Japanese Tea Ceremony. Every guest will enjoy a bowl of matcha accompanied by a sweet.

Kyle’s personal favourite matcha and a selection of utensils will be available to purchase on the night.

ABOUT KYLE: Kyle Whittington is part of a new wave of international Chanoyu practitioners making the practice of Chanoyu accessible in a global context. Kyle has studied two different schools of Chanoyu and currently studies and practices the Ueda Sōko Ryū of Chanoyu as part of Sōmu Shachū. Kyle takes Chanoyu out into the world with his ‘Landmark Tea’ series, doing Tea Ceremony in front of landmarks in the UK and abroad. Kyle is also currently building a chashitsu ’Japanese Tea Room’ at his home.

For more information on the Ueda Sōko Ryū and Sōmu Shachū visit https://www.uedasokochanoyu.com/

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UK TEA ACADEMY AT CAFFE CULTURE

The UK Tea Academy played an important role at London's Caffe Culture Show in October by organising events designed to raise awareness of good quality, well-brewed tea.

We're delighted to say the second round of the UK Tea Brewer’s Championship attracted a number of inspiring, enthusiastic and talented brewers. Each contestant had to brew three teas – a Japanese Sencha, a Taiwanese High Mountain black tea, and a Phoenix Honey Orchid oolong from China (all difficult to brew well). They also had to present a signature drink containing tea.

Brewing styles varied and demonstrated the thought and care that goes into the successful brewing of hand-crafted tea. For the signature drink, all the competitors showed impressive creativity and skill and the judges were delighted by the effort that went into each one.

The semi-final and final of the Championship will take place at the first London Tea Show in March 2020 - again at the Business Design Centre in Islington. For more information please click here

UKTA’s other prominent involvement at Caffe Culture was the Tea Theatre where a programme of talks and workshops took place throughout the two days of the show.

Presenters and their topics included:

• Jennifer Wood of Canton Tea (The Value of Tea Training)
• Erica Moore of Eteaket Tea Edinburgh (Learn the Art of Tea Mocktails & Cold Brew Tea)
• Carri Hecks, Tutor and Chief Brewer at UKTA (How to Brew Really Good Tea)
• Kyle Whittington, Japanese Tea Specialist (Matcha Basics)
• Alan Wilkinson, The Franchising Centre (Steps to Franchising your Business)
• Jane Pettigrew, Director of Education at UKTA (Current Tea Trends)
• Bernadine Tay, European Tea Society (Capitalising on Tea Trends)

We look forward to organising a similar programme of events at next year’s London Tea Show to be held in March at the Business Design Centre, Islington.

THE UKTA EVOLVES

Three years ago, we established the UK Tea Academy to spread an appreciation of tea and raise service standards in F&B with professional tea training. We have tutored more than 500 students from all over the world through our certification programme and have developed a full programme of events around tea in our Academy Extras. This year we have developed a new brand identity, a new website and secured a permanent home. We have international reach through our Licenced Trainers in Scotland, Italy, Japan and S Korea, with more joining soon. And later this year we will launch an introductory Online Foundation course. We hold regular events, tastings, talks and workshops at our London Tea Studio (see Academy Extras) and will be introducing new courses and Masterclasses.

We believe The UK Tea Academy is already one of the foremost tea training centres in the world and, thanks to the dedication of our tutors, brewing team and volunteers, we are proud of the success of our students and look forward to sending out into the world many more certified Tea Champions and Sommeliers to share the love and respect for this fabulous leaf.

OUR NEW HOME

UK Tea Academy is thrilled to have moved into its own studio classroom at 25 Lavington Street, London, SE1 0NZ.

Our new room is in a reclaimed building owned and managed by Sustainable Workspaces, a company that reclaims and refurbishes disused or decommissioned buildings and converts then into sustainably-run private offices, workshops, meeting rooms and event spaces.