Gumboot man's bold tea quest

I have been a tea drinker for as long as I can remember.

While I drink coffee regularly in cafes, I have no idea or interest in what good coffee tastes like.

Cafe coffee is something I hold in my hands to stop them flailing about like pegged socks in the wind.

I am in a cafe to slander, not slurp.

Usually, I order tea.

I even ordered tea once at Mazagran, the coffee connoisseur's cave.

The man looked at me sideways and said he thought they had a pot somewhere, he would have a look.

He was about to climb a small ladder when I said a flat white would be fine.

At home, I drink nothing else.

I am not into all the fancy teas you can buy these days, I am strictly a gumboot man, the stronger the better.

Hence when The Bell Tea Co brought out Kenya Bold, it became my staple.

This is a real man's tea, it is something you drink while hunting wild boar.

Even when milked, dark brown is its lightest colour.

I walk past The Bell Tea Company every day, and last week I rang the manager, Dave, to see if I could pop in for a shoofty.

Dave was not answering his phone.

Perhaps Dave was The Bell Tea Man from the current TV advertisements, who has always just left one country for another in his eternal quest for the latest tea taste.

So on Wednesday, I just strode straight in there, right into the office.

Are you Dave, I asked the man at the computer.

No, I'm Robin, he said, Dave is overseas.

And Robin showed me around.

Bell Tea are suddenly everywhere being witty and market-savvy, which isn't something you expect from a Dunedin company that is 104 years old.

The Bell Tea Company came to their four-storey Hope St building in 1924, after starting out two blocks away in 1905.

There is an Auckland factory now, much bigger, and significantly, they call it The Bell Tea And Coffee Company up there.

Typical.

I am fascinated by factories, having never worked in one.

I watch the women checking and sorting the boxes of tea bags as they speed past.

Robin gives me the numbers, I forget them instantly.

Huge numbers.

No time to go on Facebook for an hour in this job, you need the concentration of an eye surgeon.

They all seem very happy.

Robin shows me a painting of the Kenya Bold packet done by a former happy worker, Jacqui.

It sits proudly in the staff tea room.

I have friends who are obsessed with Tiger Tea - one of a dizzying number of brands that come out of this building.

A framed set of rare Tiger Tea cards is on the tea room wall, donated by another happy worker.

Robin says Tiger Tea is the only one they blend that isn't drunk in the North Island.

He has no idea why North Islanders don't like it.

And here's a thought, perhaps the old Tiger Tea bus, currently at the Otago Settlers Museum, could be mounted above the Bell building like Arthur Barnett's horse? Well, it was just an idea.

The tea bag machine - it is mainly tea bags these days - is slick and efficient.

Ten metres away is the loose-leaf machine, a Hesser, giant and foreboding: you only put something like this on the bottom floor.

Made in Germany more than 100 years ago, it is slick and efficient, too.

They didn't have planned obsolescence then.

But I do have one issue with The Bell Tea Company - how to open the Kenya Bold packets.

Each week I finish up tearing the thing to pieces like a raccoon.

There's a zip down the side, says Robin, there's a knack to it.

I know the thing he is referring to, and if I put that zip on my Levis, my bladder would burst by sundown.

No matter, I am changing to Tiger, the tea only South Islanders can understand.

 

 

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