Nigel said:
> Incidentally I gave a well attended talk about hand making of tea in
> Georgia last evening at the Georgian Embassy in London to launch a new
> brand of Georgian tea - Caucasus Arts' "Natela Gold" and "Nagobilevi
> Village". See www.caucasusarts.org.uk The Ambassador was still
> recalled in Tblisi but his number 2 was quite upbeat about the
> Georgian position and the PR damage that the Russians have heaped on
> themselves.

I would just like to say that I took Nigel's advice and ordered some
tea from the Caucasus Arts folks, and I have nothing but good things to
say both about the tea and Mr. Kalandadze. It was a bit of a pain getting
money off to him in pounds sterling, but it all worked out well in the end.

These folks are selling three different kinds of tea right now:

Natela Gold Handmade Georgian Tea:
This is a large-leaf tea with a wonderfully flowery smell and a small
hint of wintergreen. It's almost kind of like the flavour of the Oriental
Beauty tea, which is made from deliberately damaged leaves. It's subtle
without a heavy tannic flavour and requires no milk.

Nagobilevy Village Georgian Tea:
This is a similar style to the Natela Gold, but not quite as flowery.
It's still a very pleasant cup of tea.

Laituri Village Georgian Green Tea:
This stuff has a chopped-up texture, like it was harvested with
hedge trimmers. The only tea I have ever seen with this texture was
an inexpensive Georgian black tea, but this has clearly had very
different processing. It's got some of that grassy flavour that a
sencha has, but it doesn't have the rest of the sencha taste. It's
a very mellow, very rounded thing, almost buttery, but with that grassy
taste at the back of it. This is totally different than any kind of
green I have tried before. My friend Andrey thought it was a pu-ehr
when he drank it.

I know that there was a posting here recently from a fellow in the UK
who was soliciting suggestions for teas to carry in his new tea shop,
and I think this would be one of the first things I would recommend
for something both out of the ordinary and very good quality.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."