ROYAL AIR FORCE TEA: TAKING FLIGHT WITH THE RARE TEA COMPANY

Those of you who tune in regularly will know that one of the most important things in my whole life is that first cup of tea in the morning.

I am being rather well behaved right now and am saving it for my return from the gym as I attempt to lose all the poundage I added to my already ample girth during Road Trip USA 2010. It not only restores and refreshes, it also serves to remind me of Blighty on days when the inevitable homesickness that goes with upping sticks to live in another country occurs.

Usually, my cuppa of choice is the estimable Yorkshire Gold from Taylor's of Harrogate. and one of the rules for anyone visiting me from the U.K. is that they must mule in at least 100 teabags for me to add to my stash. However, it would seem that there is very possibly a new sheriff in town.

Last week my good chum Henrietta Lovell from The Rare Tea Company got in touch and asked me if I would like to try her new Royal Airforce Tea. It is a blend of leaves from two estates, one in Darjeeling and one in Malawi. Henrietta is a keen proponent of Malawian tea and I visited tea estates in Darjeeling when I was on the Eat My Globe tour, so it seemed like the perfect match.

Henrietta was kind enough to send a packet stateside and, after letting the loose black leaves brew for about four minutes, I am savouring a large mug of it as we speak. It is a good, old fashioned type of tea. Perfect for the morning heart starter, strong and bright with enough punch to put all life's woes to one side just for a moment, at least.

Tea, as we all now should know does you good, but drinking Royal Airforce Tea also does other people good with 7% of the £5 purchase price going to the RAFA Wings Appeal and a further 3% supporting the RAF museum. None of this would matter, of course if it wasn't damn good tea, but it is and well worth trying.

You can buy it HERE

THE REAL FOOD FESTIVAL & A REAL FOOD HERO

I am always happy to offer up a plug for nice people and for interesting food events and as the good folk at The Complete Media Group are some of the best in the business and The Real Food Festival is a great event, I am delighted to give both a mention.

This year’s Real Food Festival will take place at Earl’s Court from the 8th-10th May and as well as The Real Food Market, a farmer’s market featuring hundreds of the best producers from around the country, there will also be a daily cooking school, a Real Food Theatre with demonstrations from such luminaries as Raymond Blanc and even a special area for kids where they can make their own butter and presumably a hell of a mess while they are doing it.

The Complete Media Group who are helping to organise the event have offered me a couple of pairs of tickets to give away to DH readers, so, in the spirit of fairness, the first two people to mail me on doshermanos@doshermanos.co.uk can have them.

Even if you don’t win, it is still well worth going along and you may well see me there talking to the unsurprisingly few producers who still want anything to do with me after my visits for the EATING FOR BRITAIN trip.

While we are talking about real food, it is also worth mentioning again my good chum, Henrietta Lovell, owner of The Rare Tea Company, who last night received the award for Best Independent and Online Retailer at The Observer Food Monthly Award ceremony. Henrietta seeks out teas from all over the world with a particular passion for new growers from emerging nations such as Malawi. Having tried many of the teas on her list, I can confirm they are things of beauty and well worth seeking out.

Right, plugs over, back to being a self serving arse again.

THE RARE TEA COMPANY: A RARE TREAT ON FRIDAY

It's a wonderfully restorative drink, your cup of tea, which made my e-mail invitation to join Henrietta Lovell, owner of The Rare Tea Company on Friday all the more welcome. I had spent the previous night (and a good chunk of the morning) drinking my own body weight in well made cocktails at Hawksmoor and Lounge Bohemia (where we saw Miranda Sawyer getting asked to leave for putting her size 10’s on the lovely furniture. Quite right too) and was feeling a little the worse for wear.

Henrietta started the company in 2004 after a lucrative but unfulfilling career in printing and used her many contacts in Asia to begin importing, as the name of her company suggests, small production teas from unusual farms in China, India and Africa.

After a relatively slow start, focussing mainly on online sales, her teas are now used in quite a few of London's restaurants, including Chez Bruce and soon are to be carried by Waitrose. All of this is worthy enough, but there are lots of companies importing lots of interesting teas into the U.K these days. It’s Henrietta's extraordinary enthusiasm, bordering on the obsessive as well as the quality of her teas, which marks her out for special comment.

The invitation came after she saw my post about making chocolate with Paul. A Young, who also uses her tea and I turned up at her smart North London flat, from where she still runs her business, looking forward to something warming to settle my stomach and take away the chill from the rain sodden morning. She did not let me or my companion down and we were soon working our way through her range from white silver tips from Malawi to hand made black leaf tea from Meghalaya, India finishing with Bai Mudan a whole leaf China tea to cleanse the palate.

For Henrietta though tea is not just for drinking and, after we had finished the tasting, we spent a good hour talking about other food uses for tea including the smoking meat or fish and making of green tea ice cream. Particularly, however, being a woman after my own heart, she enthused how her teas could be used in cocktails and yesterday afternoon, she e-mailed me the splendid recipe for an Oolong Mojito below.

Definitely worth a try as indeed are her splendid teas

OOLONG MOJITO
(Makes two)

Ingredients:
. 2 measures of your favourite rum
. Juice of 1/2 lime
. 2 tsp unrefined sugar
. 2-4 sprigs of fresh mint- (just the tips not the bigger leaves.)
. 1 cup of Oolong left to cool (very important so the mint leaves don't "cook")

First "wash the leaves" by pouring hot water over them and then quickly
discarding the water. This will soften the leaves and allow them to infuse
better.

Use 1 dessert spoon of oolong to 1 tea cup of hot water and infused for one
minute (not a small pinch of tea left to infuse for several minutes). Leave
to cool.

MIXING INSTRUCTIONS:
Muddle the sugar and mint leaves together in a cocktail shaker. Add the tea
and stir until the sugar dissolves. Squeeze in the lime, add the rum and
shake with ice. Strain into a cocktails glass.