Reasons for Another Tea Competition
UK Tea Academy [UKTA] was launched as a tea-training organization in 2015, and as co-founder and director Jennifer Wood explains, “We had been running the UKTA for several years, and a number of people had asked us to run an afternoon tea award competition. But that would have involved assessing the food, the service, the ambience, etc., and would not have been about the actual tea, so the idea really didn’t appeal. It would also have been a big distraction from the core educational work of UKTA.” Then a couple of years ago, a tea lover in Australia approached UKTA asking why there weren’t any tea awards in the UK. Jennifer had, for a while, been thinking about organizing a competition for carefully crafted, loose-leaf teas, and when she suggested the idea to me and to the tutors in the UKTA team, everyone agreed it seemed an obvious next step. As Jennifer said, “As a team, we are highly qualified to judge teas from all over the world, having such an experienced and professional group of international tutors—all of whom were happy to be involved as judges. And UKTA was already aware of (and includes in its classes and tasting events) some of the very special, fine teas from around the world that are exactly the sort of teas that would do well in “The Leafies.”
Setting Up the Competition
Once the idea was launched, there were all sorts of questions to be discussed and answered. What would the competition be called? How would we publicize the competition? Who would be on the judging panel? What rules would be followed during the judging? How many categories of tea would be judged? Where would the awards ceremony take place?
One very important question was whether Fortnum & Mason would be happy to partner with UKTA in this new venture to celebrate the world’s finest loose-leaf teas. We had worked closely with them for several years, running a tea-training program for their staff from the London stores and from Hong Kong, so it seemed a perfect partnership. We were thrilled when Fortnum’s tea buyer, Ottilie Cunningham, agreed to be a judge, when the famous store agreed to host the awards, and when Ottilie agreed to make a selection of winning teas available at Fortnum’s rare tea counter.
As for the name, the formal title is the International Tea Academy Awards, but by referring to them as “The Leafies,” it felt easier to remember and more affectionate—like the Oscars. And because only high- quality, loose-leaf teas would be judged, “The Leafies” seems more caring and familiar and mirrors how we all feel about the wonderful teas and the dedicated produc- ers that are involved all over the world. The discussions and deliberations made it clear that The Leafies would stand apart from other tea competitions because the focus would be on high-grade, handcrafted leaves from the smallest traditional artisan tea gardens to those in exciting new tea-producing regions of the world. The old ways of cheap, mass production are slowly being eroded, and The Leafies was set up to play at least a small part in changing attitudes and bringing these beautiful, hand-crafted, higher-value teas to a wider audience.
To broadcast to the tea world that The Leafies would take place in October 2022, messages were sent out on social media and each of us typed many emails, texts, and WhatsApp messages to everyone we knew around the globe who we thought would be interested and would willingly pass the information to others.
The Judges
The judging panel was drawn mainly from the UKTA’s team of tutors, all of whom are highly experienced in their specialist fields, and three tea tasters from other areas of the UK tea industry. From the UKTA team, I was joined by James Suranga Perera, a top-ranking broker of Ceylon teas in Colombo, Sri Lanka, who has recently settled in the UK and is now UKTA’s specialist tutor and presenter of our Ceylon Tea Masterclass; Juyan Webster, who grew up in a tea-making family in China’s Zhejiang Province, owns the highly respected Chinese Tea Company in London and is our Chinese tea tutor and a specialist in all categories of Chinese teas; Sam Kimmins, ex-tea taster for one of the UK’s biggest tea companies, who teaches our Sommelier Course modules on teas from India and East Africa; Asako Steward, who lives in Tokyo and has qualifications in black tea, Japanese green teas, and in the new Wakocha (black teas) being produced today in Japan; and Chau-Jean Lin, who grew up in Taiwan (where her family farms tea and produces some wonderful, high-quality oolongs), teaches our Taiwanese Tea Masterclass and sells her teas through her London- based company Marulin. As previously mentioned, Ottilie Cunningham has worked in the tea industry for 18 years and is now Tea Buyer at Fortnum & Mason; Giandomenico Scanu, Palm Court Deputy Manager at The Ritz, has had an impressive career in hospitality and is highly skilled in the selection, preparation, and service of tea; and Tim d’Offay owns and manages Postcard Teas in London’s Mayfair and travels to remote regions of Asia in order to taste and select rare and high-quality teas for his business.
The Judging
An entire week was set aside for the judging to take place. Teas arrived from 27 countries, including Japan, Sri Lanka, India, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Portugal, Spain, Argentina, El Salvador, and the US, and were judged in 33 categories that were broken down into different tea types, processing, and regions. There were also six special awards comprising Pioneer, Maverick, Tea for Life, Gaia, Best in Show, and Lifetime Achievement Award. The brew team, made up of UKTA’s star brewer, Rai Ishigaki, and his assistant, Atsuko Tucker, was charged with preparing all the teas following the specific brewing instructions sent in by those who submitted the teas, so that every single entry was given the opportunity to shine. The judges assessed all the teas blindly, examining and smelling the dry and wet leaves; appraising the color, aroma, and flavor of the liquor in minute detail; and scoring accordingly. The overall judging criteria also considered the farming and processing of the teas, as well as the stories and the people behind the production of each individual tea. The evaluation of each tea was extremely exacting and a very fair process, which, as happens at wine competitions, produces some impressive and sometimes surprising results! Of the hundreds of teas entered, the judges awarded 12 Gold Winners and 28 Highly Commended.
