By James Norwood Pratt • Photography Courtesy of Jing Tea
Edward Eisler is a dazzling presence, especially when he appears unannounced on your doorstep half a world away from his then home in Norwich, England. He had e-mailed me from there, and seeing it was my wife’s hometown, I replied I could deny him nothing—“Ask anything you wish,” I wrote. He wished for my book, at first, and then turned up for my tutelage. He and Louise celebrated his 25th birthday with Valerie and me in San Francisco. That was, what, 2003?
Today Edward Eisler is making a significant impact on England’s changing tea scene because of Jing. Jing is the Mandarin word for “essence,” a good name for Edward’s company, as well as his ambition to transform tea as today’s British know it—“poor quality, tasteless builder’s brew masked with milk and sugar,” he calls it.
