Special brew

Melissa Choi is changing the world, one sip at a time. "I've converted hardcore coffee drinkers to this!" she exclaims, gesturing to the pot of amber-hued liquid containing an eruption of thin, green leaves that she's sharing with me. We're in Melissa's Maida Vale flat where a pile of brownies, cakes, china cups and saucers, as well as a splash of late afternoon sun, indicate that it must be tea time.

For Melissa, however, I soon discover that teatime lasts more or less all day. "I've probably already had a litre and a half," she admits as we sit down at 3pm. "I drink so much!" This considerable daily consumption isn't doing her any harm; she is after all the importer of what is considered some of the finest Chinese tea available in Britain. The jasmine pearls she pours into my cup won three gold stars at the Great Taste Awards the last two years in a row, and The Sunday Times described it as "the Dom Perignon of the tea world".

"I've been drinking it since I could hold a cup," explains the 30-something entrepreneur who was born to an Australian mother and Hong Kong Chinese father. "My Chinese grandmother was a wonderful, wonderful woman. We used to always go around to her place and I just remember being fascinated. In the old days they used to throw the tea leaves in separately with the dried flowers, so they'd make their own combinations up. I used to be amazed watching these flowers float around expanding in the water every Sunday as a young child."

Day by day, her own addiction grew. Then after finishing boarding school and university, she then did what all good Antipodeans do - she took off travelling. "When I went backpacking, I took my own tea with me - that's how serious I was about my tea. When I got to London, 10 months after I left Australia, I used to always package it up in little cellophane bags with ribbons for friends to take round instead of chocolate or wine."

Melissa started imagining how she could go professional with her tea campaign while working in the dry world of corporate financial PR. "It was through the encouragement of my friends," she remembers. "I was complaining about my job and wanted to do something different. When I went back to visit my father in China I bought a whole lot and repackaged it so when I got back here I had 100 little pots. I sent out an email to friends and within half an hour my pots were all sold out."

She set up her own website, did a course in importing at the Portobello Business Centre and started trading her blends in earnest. Four years later, Choi Time teas are stocked in Harrods and Coco Ribbon, with thousands more customers online - many unable to get enough of Melissa's exploding rose buds, cheery chrysanthemum flowers or furled leaves of green tea. Converts email her every week with tales of plummeting cholesterol levels and multiple stones lost.

The idea is that after you drop a portion of Melissa's handcrafted tea bulbs into a cup, you continue topping up with water until you've drunk five cups. And because Chinese green tea contains much less caffeine than black tea or coffee, it quenches and soothes, while providing a slow-release kick. The jasmine fragrance doesn't overpower, but it does cancel out the green tea's inherent bitterness.

Laid-back, willowy and wrinkle-free, Melissa is a walking advert for a 15-cup-a-day habit. "Jasmine is mother nature's Botox," she insists. "Forget Botox! Jasmine is what will do it for you. It's fantastic. My Chinese grandma used to say her mantra, 'Drinking jasmine tea will keep you slim and is good for your skin.'"

Her jasmine regimen combined with trips down the road for Bikram yoga means she doesn't have to hold back in the realms of of cooking. "I love cooking! I'm really good at roast pork with the crackling. I'm so addicted to crackling! I like rich and fatty foods. Desserts too - apple, Belgian white chocolate, raspberry with toasted walnuts crumble."Outside of her own kitchen, she fills up at local places such as Jason's Boathouse, Vicky's and Daniella's Lounge for "delicious home-cooked mamma food".

"I'm such a West London girl. Especially around this area I love the fact that it's so close to the canal. It's almost like you're in a different city," she says. She admits to having a serious need to travel though, too. Not surprisingly, China figures into her itinerary this spring.

"China exports about 12 per cent of their tea," she explains. "They keep the good stuff for themselves! It's great because my stepmother is mainland Chinese. She actually grew up in one of the tea-growing provinces in China, up in Hangzhou." During regular visits to the Orient, Melissa garners her invaluable insider knowledge, and Choi Time tea is sourced from her stepmum's contacts from childhood who continue to raise crops in the region.

When she returns from her buying trip, she's looking forward to encouraging some healthy Chinese tea dependency during the Real Food Festival at Earls Court in May, refining her packaging and growing the wholesale end of her leafy empire - "so I can start converting the nation", she grins.

As I finish off my third (or is it fourth?) cup, I have to admit that the fragrant brew is becoming a bit irresistible. And it seems I'm not the only coffee lover to admit this. "I think I had a whole trading floor of Goldman Sachs drinking it. Lots of orders from them and UBS - because it's so good for stress!" she exclaims in a burst of hedonistic laughter, a picture of health holding a gooey biscuit in one hand and a dainty teacup in the other. l

Special brew

Members Comments

Add a Comment