Quote:
Originally Posted by astra
What do you think about [Fortnum & Mason] teas in General?
I think my wife got an itch in a place that is unreachable to scratch. As a consequence we will go to London in about a month time and she found their shop in London and wants to visit it for teas.
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Fortnum & Mason was the tea company that got me started in this wonderful hobby in 1991. Prior to this happy accident, my idea of good tea was Twinings in tea bags. I now think Fortnum & Mason to be one of the finest tea houses in the UK!
I happened to be wandering around in one of Osaka's upscale department stores and came across a booth for Fortum & Mason. There must have been 25 different teas for sale, both loose leaf and bagged. I was offered a small cup of their 'Royal Blend' and was transformed! Then I tasted their English Breakfast tea. That's all she wrote. (I never went back to Twinings and have tried to avoid tea bags ever since.)
I bought five or six different Fortnum & Mason teas that very day, and continued drinking their English Breakfast tea and Royal Blend until just a couple of years ago when I was no longer able to find it. The company may have gone through some sort of shake-up in international marketing and no longer exported to Japan. The F&M booths closed in all the department stores, and until just a few months ago, I hadn't been able to find ANY of their teas in Japan.
Then just about two months ago I discovered some Fortnum & Mason tea in a small import shop, in a very different looking tin. Only three or four blends... certainly not their old full line-up. I bought some English Breakfast tea and some Ceylon. I should have bought more at the time, since when I ran out of the English Breakfast tea, I went back but they no longer had it in stock. Only Ceylon and Earl Gray.
That discovery of Fortnum & Mason 20+ years ago led me on to experiment with the other major tea houses in the UK; Jacksons of Piccadilly, Taylors of Harrogate, etc., and Mariage Frères of France. These companies all make their own blends, and they are good. I use McNultey's Tea and Coffee to supply me with unblended teas such as Keemun, Assam (although the East India Company does this very well,) China Black, and some oolongs too.
I envy your visit to Fortnum & Mason. I would love to spend a week or two there just trying out different teas. I hope that you enjoy the experience.
Stitchawl