tea at ground “Make a delicious bowl of tea; lay the charcoal so that it heats the water; arrange the flowers as they are in the field; in summer suggest coolness; in winter, warmth; do everything ahead of time; prepare for rain; and give those with whom you find yourself every consideration.”
Sen Rikyu
We only use loose leaf teas here at Ground, served at the suggested temperatures given to us by our suppliers. For more information on tea brewing methods, please visit our website.
White Tea (Bai Cha) White tea comes from the delicate buds and younger leaves of the Chinese Camellia sinensis plant. These buds and leaves are allowed to wither in natural sunlight (also known as wilting) before they are lightly processed to prevent oxidation or further fermentation. This protects not only the delicate flavour of the white tea, but also retains high levels of the chemicals responsible for the tea’s health benefits.
Silver Needle White Tea | Fuding Bai Hao Yin Zhen
Very high in antioxidants, the buds are hand- picked at dawn and scattered in the sun to dry. The liquor is the colour of champagne and has a light creamy, delicate taste with sweet notes of melon. pot - £2.20 / 50g - £7.50
Green Tea (Lu Cha) Green tea is made from the cooking (or firing) young tea leaves either in an oven or a specially made wok known as Ding. Chinese tea makers used to cook green tea by steaming it and this is still the preferred method in Japan. The firing process helps to preserve the tea’s colour and produces a fuller flavour and body. Green Tea is characterized by nutty, sweet and vegetal flavours.
Dragon Well | Shi Feng Long Jing (Hang Zhou)
Complex and multi-layered with the irresistible combination of warm and creamy mouth feel, hazel nut notes and searingly spring-freshness. The traditional method of making Dragon Well is what really sets it apart. Each individual tea bud is handpressed and shaped in a wok to achieve the perfect level of roasting.
Sencha
pot - £2.50 / 50g - £7.50
A Japanese style Sencha from China, this has a silky and thick mouth feel with flavours of sweet pea and umami. Sweet finish with light hints of rocket and radish. pot - £2.40 / 50g - £8.80
Oolong Tea (Wu Long Cha) Oolong tea is semi-oxidised, somewhere between green and black tea. The oxidation process takes 2-3 days after which the tea is roasted. There is great variety in the roasting process, ranging from light to dark, imparting quite unique styles and characteristics. Oolong is easy to brew and lacks the astringency characteristic of many green teas, hence its growing popularity in non-traditional markets.
Anxi Rou Gui Oolong Tea
Rou Gui is a very famous old Wuyi tea-type known for its rich, slightly spicy flavours. The Anxi varieties tend to be more lightly baked than traditional Wuyi Rou Gui’s. Canton’s Buyer’s notes: “Wuyi Rou Gui is a famous Wuyi ‘rock oolong’ but the Rou Gui varietal actually originated from Anxi and was then taken to Wuyi, so Anxi is the original home of Rou Gui. We bought this tea unbaked and baked it ourselves so we could ensure it was finished the way we like it.” Great Taste Awards 2009/10 – One Star: Our wonderful sweet Anxi Rou Gui took a gold award at the most recent Guild of Fine Food Awards.
pot - £2.60 / 50g - £9.50
Traditional Iron Buddha Oolong (Monkey Picked*) | Tie Guan Yin Wu Long
Only 200kg are produced a year and, no, it is not picked by monkeys. The reference to monkeys has been traditionally used in South China and Hong Kong to describe its quality and rarity. This fantastic crop is of one of the definitive Chinese Oolong teas, medium fired and oxidised in the traditional way to give a beautifully satisfying flavour of roasted hazel and autumn fruits. pot - £3.60 / 50g - £14.00
Black Teas (Hong Cha) Black tea, known in China as Red Tea, is fully oxidised whole leaf tea. The best whole leaf black teas are made by hand, in contrast to the commercial CTC (crush, tear and curl) machine-made black teas that make up 95% of the world tea market. CTC tea undergoes a rapid and intense oxidation whereby the fresh leaves can be processed into finished black tea within an hour or so. Our black teas are oxidised slowly to create more complex and subtle flavours.
Assam 2nd Flush
This Assam has been carefully selected to demonstrate the best features of this famous Indian tea: it produces a dark liquor with rich malt and creamy flavours. The 2nd flush or picking takes place in early June and is considered superior to other Assam flushes. It is perfect as a breakfast or afternoon tea. Assam production has improved significantly in quality in recent years and this tea shows good character and depth of flavor. A bold and robust tea that is relatively high in caffeine, this tea is a brisk pick-me-up at any time of day. pot - £2.00 / 50g - £6.00
Darjeeling 2nd Flush | Margaret’s Hope Silver Moon
A high grown Darjeeling from Margaret’s Hope, a tea garden that’s known and loved the world over. The long twisty leaves are a delightful mix of chocolate and copper browns with an abundance of silvery tips. It produces a bright gold liquor with a malty aroma, a well rounded flavour and a sweet, fruity aftertaste. This fresh, brisk tea denotes a well-produced, high grade Darjeeling. Our supplier has only a few kilos and then there is no more available anywhere. pot - £2.60 / 50g - £12.00
Bai Lin Gong Fu
One of the earliest (and best) Chinese black teas ever to be produced, Bai Lin Gong Fu is made from buds twisted into tight elegant gold-streaked curls. The liquor is reddish-brown and tastes naturally of caramel and cream so needs absolutely nothing added. This is a wonderful example of whole leaf black tea. It it is a glorious breakfast tea and so reasonably priced for a tea of this calibre, it can be an everyday affordable luxury. pot - £2.20 / 50g - £7.50
Puerh Tea Puerh is a compressed, aged, post-fermented Green Tea made from special tea varietals that are grown and processed only in the Lancang (Mekong) River area of Yunnan province. These leaves are processed into two main types: Raw or Green (Sheng) Puerh and Cooked or Black (Shou) Puerh. Raw and cooked Puerh subdivides further into compressed or loose versions. Puerh is the most coveted and controversial of all tea types because it is one of the few teas that is ‘laid down’ similar to fine wine, to improve with age. 40 or 50 year old examples can fetch enormous prices. Top quality aged Puerhs can be infused up to 60 times and can produce an astonishing range of subtle and complex flavours, ranging from earthy and leathery notes to sweet and fruity.
2008 Raw Puerh Mini Tuo (Xiaguan Factory) | 2008 Xiaguan Sheng Puerh Xiao Tuo
Zesty and fresh with a faint hint of smokiness and a warm apricot and peach finish. pot - £2.50 / 50g - £10.00
1990s Royal Cooked Puerh (Loose) | 1990s Jun Shu Puerh
An extremely rare and beautifully aged loose leaf cooked puerh from the 1990s. Composed of high grade, tippy leaf. This is an outstanding cooked puerh fragrant, balanced and harmonious. pot - £2.80 / 50g - £12.00
Flowering Tea Jasmine & Lily
Light and smooth green tea, hand tied around flame orange lily petals and sweet jasmine flowers, this is a spectacular flowering tea. Hand-tied flowering teas are often made with the emphasis on how the tea looks with little concern for tea quality. Jing has selected exceptional green tea as a base to the floral scent and flavour of the flowers. pot - £2.40 / 5 bulbs - £8.00
Scented Tea Jasmine Pearls
These handmade Jasmine Pearls has won the top three star gold award in the 2009 Guild of Fine Food Great Taste Awards, as well as two gold stars in the 2010 Great Taste Awards. It was independently blind-tasted and judged to be better than any other Jasmine Pearls at the Great Taste Awards. The long silvery tea buds are hand-picked from the white tea varietal used for Silver Needle, but the leaves are processed as a green tea. Once picked, the buds are carefully stored for a few weeks until the Jasmine flowers blossom. They are very skilfully hand rolled into perfect spheres and layered over several nights with fresh Jasmine, yielding a highly fragrant liquor, bright with refreshing jasmine and sweet with the soft creamy undertones of the tea buds. pot - £2.40 / 50g - £8.00
Superior Earl Grey
A truly superior Earl Grey that bears no resemblance to the mass-produced Earl Greys as it is made with such extraordinarily good black teas as a base. Unusually, it is made with a blend of Darjeelings from the world-renowned Goomtee and Glenburn Estates and then infused with natural oil of Bergamot (the oil extracted from the rind of the Bergamot orange). A light scattering of orange blossom petals adds to the visual appeal. It has a lively fresh taste, with the soft base flavours of the Darjeelings balancing the bright citrus notes. pot - £2.20 / 50g - £7.50
Organic Bohea Lapsang Black Tea | Wuyi Bohea Hong Cha
Rich, excitingly pungent, full of the rounded almost peaty smoke notes given by fires of local pine; complex and teasing with a hazel-sweet freshness behind the supple smoke. The difference between Bohea and commercial Lapsang is enormous, perhaps similar to the distinction between mass-produced whiskies and slowly made, properly aged, artisan malts. Drying the leaves slowly over barkless pine wood fires gives Wuyi Bohea soft, lingering smokiness, making it very easy drinking yet sophisticated enough for after dinner tea. “This is the best lapsang I have ever tasted, with a colour like golden straw. The flavour has a delicate smokiness, which is mixed with hazelnuts. It is like an orchestra playing on the palate. Full marks.” “Verdict: 10/10 - Martin Isark. Certified organic by the Soil Association
pot - £2.20 / 50g - £7.00
Tisanes (Herbal 'Teas') Rooibos (Redbush)
Rooibos tea is a naturally caffeine-free tisane made from the Rooibos shrub Aspalathus linearis, which grows only on the North Western Cape of South Africa. The word ‘Rooibos’ means ‘red bush’ in Afrikaans, and is so-called because when the green, needle-like leaves of the plant are cut and left to dry in the sun, they turn a beautiful mahogany red colour. The rooibos plant is actually a member of the legume family: flowering plants, which also include beans and peas. This makes it quite different from conventional black or green teas, which are made from the leaves of the Camellia bush, part of the Theaceae family of trees and shrubs. pot - £2.00 / 50g - £6.25
Chamomile
Chamomile comes from the Greek for “ground apple,” which is roughly how the crushed flowers smell. Chamomile has a distinctly apple like taste and aroma. In fact, the word Chamomile, as we now know it, comes from the ancient Greek kamai-melon, or “ground apple.” The Spanish call Chamomile “Manzanilla”-- or “little apple.” pot - £2.00 / 50g - £7.00
Lemongrass
Lemongrass is drunk all over Asia as an aid to digestion. Originally used in South Asian cooking, it is known to have a calming effect on the body, thereby helps in inducing sleep and curing insomnia. Lemongrass is also anti-bacterial and anti-fungal in nature, which makes it an effective remedy for a wide variety of complaints. Lemongrass tea, provides relief from nausea, severe menstrual cramps and acts as a diuretic too. pot - £2.00
Fresh Peppermint Leaf
A generous portion of fresh peppermint leaf served in a beautiful glass mug. Effective as an aid to digestion or an afternoon refresher. pot - £2.00
coffee at ground “Once you wake up and smell the coffee, it’s hard to go back to sleep”
Fran Drescher
Our current list of seasonal coffees. Note: at this time only the Bright Note and Organic Decaf are available as an espresso.
Blends Bright Note Blend
Bright Note blends together the Brazil Estate from Fazenda Lambari (for smoothness and tones of sweet hazelnut) with the Guatemala Estate from the Santa Ana la Huerta farm (for citrus spice and a slight smoky tone). A smooth and well-rounded coffee with hints of citrus and spice overlaying delicious sweet, milk chocolate and molasses tones. Our tried and proven house blend that we simply never tire of, Bright Note is one of those exceptionally versatile coffees that drinks just as well with or without milk. AeroPress - £2.20 / V60 - £2.30 / 227g - £4.50
Arabian Mocha Java Blend
This classic pairing, courtesy of Dutch colonial traders, is considered the first known blended coffee, combining beans from the mountainsides of Yemen with those from 17th century Dutch plantings in Java. Mocha, in this case, refers to the port through which all Yemini beans were shipped from, Al-Mokha, not an espresso infused hot chocolate. The Mocha exhibits rustic and pungent qualities, with ample bitter chocolate and dried stone fruits, which pairs nicely with the Java’s rich and creamy body and deeply fragrant, complex aromas. This blend is intense, with a big, bold mouth-feel and perfect balance. AeroPress - £2.50 / V60 - £2.60 / 227g - £5.50
Organic Decaffeinated Blend
Union Hand-Roasted’s blend of South American coffees, decaffeinated using the liquid carbon dioxide ‘natural process,’ an approved Certified Organic method. This is a balanced cup, rich and full-bodied with a touch of cinnamon spice and red wine tones. Certified Fairtrade and Organic
Single Origins Panama Emporium
From Graciano Cruz, a pioneering organic agronomist from Panama who has championed the organic coffee movement and eco-friendly processing methods, comes this wonderful estate coffee grown in a true tropical garden. Using honey and natural processing, in which no water is needed, his Los Lajones honey coffees placed well several times in the ‘Best of Panama’ auction and are being currently sold by the best micro-roasters all around the world. Originally, this 14 Ha estate was divided into three smaller sections that belonged to three brothers who independently planted the first coffee trees approximately 40 years ago using various cultivars. Nowadays, the cultivar diversity is the primary reason of the current unique taste of Emporium microlots. Look for distinct and intense dark chocolate flavours with sweet blueberry acidity and a clean aftertaste. AeroPress - £2.50 / V60 - £2.60 / 227g - £7.00
Mexico – Chiapas Organic
Grown and harvested by the Indigenous Peoples of the Sierra Madre of Motozintla, a co-operative of native Mayan farmers in the highlands of Chiapas. The Co-op is organised on egalitarian democratic ideals that stress responsibility to the co-op, hard work and high standards; their programmes help the communities in many positive ways. The environmentally sound agricultural practices produce a delicate and sweet, yet spirited coffee with a light to medium body and a bright fruity flavour that sparkles through the cup. Particularly enjoyable at the start of the day. AeroPress - £2.20 / V60 - £2.30 / 227g - £5.00
Sulawesi AA Torajaland
An unusual coffee with rare depth and complexity. Grown in the Toraja district of South Sulawesi, this coffee is full bodied with rich flavour tones of caramelised butterscotch and a wisp of toasted almonds. The unusual flavour and deep, heavy body and velvety floral tones are achieved during the long periods of sun drying, where the coffee cherry dries onto the bean and seeps some of it’s rich flavours into the shipped crop. Although this is not a certified organic coffee, a portion of the smallholders are planning to gain both organic and Fairtrade certification over the coming months. AeroPress - £2.40 / V60 - £2.50 / 227g - £5.50
For more information on these and other coffees, or if you would like to comment on any of our coffees, please visit our website: www.groundcoffeehouses.com
Brewing Methods As with any brew method, the end cup will vary depending on the water temperature, brew time and size of coffee grounds. For more information about AeroPress techniques visit our website.
La Marzocco FB80 Semi-Automatic Espresso Machine
We call her ‘Scintilla,’ and she is one sexy thing. All of our baristas are coffee lovers and have been trained to produce espresso-based drinks to the highest standards (it generally takes a few months of training before we will let them loose on the general public). We use about 8.9 bars of water pressure and, because we use a slightly darker roast, run our house blend at 91.5° Celsius. Shots typically run between 23 and 28 seconds unless you’ve asked for a ristretto, which is packed more densely and tends to extract for another 10-15 seconds.
Aerobie AeroPress
This is a genius little coffee maker from the same people who made that flying thingy back in the 1980s. Granted, it’s not the most beautiful device to behold, but has become a real hit on the barista circuit for its ability to produce a really well rounded cup with exceptionally clean taste and virtually none of the grit associated with cafetieres. Utilising a special syringe-like plunger and a paper microfilter that traps all but the finest coffee dust, the Aeropress achieves a greater depth of flavour from the coffee grounds. Clean up is super simple and only takes a matter of seconds. AeroPress - £22.00 Brewstation - £45.00 Pack of filters - (350) £6.00
Hario V60 Pour-over Filter
Manual by-the-cup coffee brewing methods are being rediscovered as a simple, efficient and affordable means to extract the rich flavours from today’s superb specialty coffees, while simultaneously invoking the Zen-inducing ritual of making coffee the old fashioned way. The best of both these elements combine in the design of the Hario V60 funnel dripper. Simple though it looks, its 60° angled cone, inner spiral ribs, and the large hole at the bottom optimise the extraction of flavours from the coffee, making one damn fine cup. It’s also got a nice weight to it, a sure sign of quality in our book! Hario V60 - (White) £20.00 (Red) £24.00 Pack of filters - (40) £3.00 (100) £6.00
About Single Origin Coffees We know: there is some pretty awful coffee out there, but we groundlings are very excited to finally present our seasonal list of single origin coffees for our customers (and ourselves) to enjoy. For those of you less familiar with the term, the single origin concept simply refers to the sourcing of coffee beans from delimited, geographically distinct regions – for instance, a single origin Yirgacheffe from Ethiopia. Further distinctions, such as estate coffees, refer to coffee beans grown on a particular coffee estate (i.e. farm) that are kept separate from other coffees on their way from the farm to the consumer. While a coffee may be designated as coming from one country or region, the estate type comes precisely from the defined farm or village carrying the single estate ‘appellation,’ as with wine. Sometimes estate coffees may come from a cooperative of farms, or from several farms in a district, and may merit the estate designation only because they were collected and processed at the same mill. Stumptown’s Esmerelda Estate Microlots, which refer to beans from a particular lot on a given farm, at a small range of altitude and a specific day of harvest, narrow the distinction further still. Indeed, micro-climate, soil type, quality, elevation, amount of sunshine, rainfall and tree varietal contribute to the overall ‘terroir’ that produces beans with distinctive flavours, aromas, acidity and body. Note: although there is a good deal of disagreement amongst industry folk as to whether certain exceptions apply to these definitions, we feel that to delve too deeply into these subjective factors will simply lead to confusion and distract all A selection of microlots and reserve coffees of us from the beautiful cup before us. If you’d like to know more about our seasonal selection just ask. As many of you will have no doubt noticed, there are many notable parallels between the coffee and wine industries. This terminology has also migrated to chocolate with the introduction of single origin chocolate. The logic remains the same as with coffee and wine: that terroir has a pronounced effect on the harvest of the crop in question – in this case, the cacao bean. Being the avid single origin enthusiasts that we are, we are proud to now offer
single origin chocolates from Amelia Rope. We’ve always wanted to get some nice chockies in the shop and chose Amelia’s products because they are of the highest quality and from ethically sourced suppliers. The bars are hand made, using super high quality single origin cacao and organic aromatherapy oils, and hand packaged in short numbered runs and special editions. The bars are totally unique in flavour and beautifully packaged. Like our coffee and tea suppliers, Amelia bypasses the large Fairtrade organisation in favour of working directly with the cocoa plantations, a practice known as direct trade. Amelia’s chocolate bars are 30g heavier than most other premium chocolatiers so, while at the premium end of the price range, they are in fact good value. We are currently stocking the following chocolate bars: • • • •
Pale Lemon & Sea Salt Dark Edition 02 Dark Spearmint Edition 01 Pale Edition 01
100g Bar - £5.50
A few words about grinders In our opinion it is not possible to make a good cup of coffee without a good coffee grinder – it is one of the most important, yet overlooked, elements of a good cup. Since all brewing devices are designed to work with coffee granules of a particular size, it is imperative that coffee beans are properly ground in order for them to work as they are meant to. Our suggestion is to grind your coffee fresh just before you brew. The reason for this is because coffee flavour comes from the complex oils within the beans which, like all oils, rapidly decompose when exposed to oxygen, heat and light. The longer you can keep that bean intact the better your coffee will taste (as a general rule, coarser grinds are more forgiving than finer grinds because a lot of the coffee oils are still locked inside the large chunks). Consider that in the course of brewing coffee, acids are extracted first, then sugars and, as the water gets deep into the fibrous part of the bean, the bitter
components towards the end. Granules that are too small for the designated brewing device will produce over extracted coffee that tastes harsh and bitter. If they are too large the cup will be under extracted, producing sour and overly acidic flavours because the larger granules stop the heated water from reaching the balancing sugars. The aim is to get the size and consistency spot on so that time and temperature can get out the best of the flavours while leaving the undesirable components behind. For those of you using blade grinders (i.e. spice grinders) to mill your coffee, our advice is to fork out for a decent burr grinder as soon as you can afford one. This ‘chopping’ method revolves at 20-30000 rpms, overheating the coffee and damaging the volatile oil compounds that would otherwise lead to a rich and smooth cup. It also creates vast inconsistencies in granule size, resulting in over and under extracted coffee in the same cup. At Ground, we use a conical burr grinder – the Compaq K10 model that was used at the 2009 World Barista Championships. Granted, this is not recommended for home use but we would still recommend a burr grinder, electrical or manual, of some sort. Burr grinders squeeze and crush the coffee with little frictional heat, preserving the flavour of the bean, while also producing very consistently sized coffee granules. Here’s a list of the grinders we sell at Ground. If you are interested to know more about them, just ask one of the staff. Hario Mini Mill Slim - £30 Porlex Ceramic Burr Hand Grinder - £48 Mini Porlex Hand Grinder - £48 Baratza Virtuoso - £180
Enjoy your stay at Ground!