Queen Tea - my interview with Irene Gorman head of the Surrey-based Tea Guild, to raise a cup to the pride of the English afternoon

First published July 2012

Yum! Pennyhill Park's award-winning cream tea

It’s certainly the season to be eulogising all things British – given that a certain lady is about to mark 60 years in the top job. There can scarcely be a phrase more resonant of this country than ‘Her Majesty The Queen’. Hot on its heels, however, would surely be ‘afternoon tea’.

Fitting, therefore, that this is precisely what I’m about to have with Irene Gorman, head of The Tea Guild, the headquarters of which sit a mere spoon’s throw away in Woking. Its prestigious annual awards, served to the country’s ultimate tea destinations, are as coveted as a winning ticket for the EuroMillions – in a double rollover week.

So, it was something of a no-brainer to meet at Pennyhill Park Hotel and Spa in Bagshot, recipient of the Tea Guild’s Top City & Country Hotel Tea Award 2012 –  Betty’s Tea Room in Northallerton, Yorkshire, and The Athenaeum Hotel in London were winners in the two other categories – where Irene receives the warmest of welcomes from staff and management alike. I feel as if I am in the company of royalty –  which, given the Tea Guild’s national standing, is not so very far from the truth.

She returns the warmth effortlessly and without reservation. The public face of a prestigious organisation with global influence – just think of the revenue generated by the tourist trade – Irene is quick to point out that the lion’s share of the credit belongs to her secret army of inspectors. These, she says, are the “real experts”, many of them retired MDs or head buyers of tea companies, travelling the country under the tea towel of anonymity, reporting back to TGHQ.

Getting down to business, we choose our tea – though not before Irene has interrupted me mid-refusal and accepted the waitress’s offer of a glass of champagne. Here, I sense, is a woman who knows how to appreciate the good things in life.

Irene Gorman - head of the UK Tea Guild

Like the Tregothnan Afternoon Tea Blend.

“I like a more delicate tea,” she says in a Glaswegian accent that blends calm authority with empathetic charm. “What do you think you’ll have?”

The Assam Hajua Estate, I reply, indicating my preference for a stronger, full-bodied taste.
“Yes, everyone’s taste buds are different. It’s just like wine – you know what you like,” she says, adding that establishments score more highly the clearer and fuller the descriptions on the menu.

Unsurprisingly, she drinks white, I red.

Growing appreciation for the camellia sinensis has blossomed hand-in-hand with the rise in popularity of afternoon tea. Establishments are thoroughly vetted and inspected by the Guild before membership is granted, ensuring that proper attention is paid, not just to the serving of the tea itself – ours is brought over at the exact time it is ready to pour – but to the whole package. For businesses, membership is a badge of quality; for the consumer, a reliable guide.

Happily, says Irene, the afternoon tea experience has been transformed out of all recognition in recent years. Gone are the days when tea was the preserve of either charming, bumbling old ladies or the sophisticated, elusive upper class.

“Tea was done so badly in the past,” she says. “It was just like that comedy Acorn Antiques, remember that? With the old waitress and rock hard cakes?”

The Tea Guild's beautiful logo

“On the other hand, I remember going out with my then boss, a grand dame of fashion, who would sweep into the Dorchester at 4 o’clock every afternoon in her full-length fur coat. It was a journey back in time. But it’s not like that now. It’s just people having a really nice time. Afternoon tea has become a great excuse to go out and socialize with friends and family. Business-wise it’s becoming very popular, too.”

I concur. Irene and I, it transpires, both make a point of taking afternoon tea with our families once a year – she at Christmas, me for my birthday. My last trip was to Fanny’s Farm Shop in Merstham, where we took tea in the treehouse.

The democratisation of afternoon tea is a success of which Irene is proud to be a part.
“I hate the word ‘posh’. It’s such a fallacy that afternoon tea is just for the upper classes. I remember meeting a woman all dolled up in the toilet at Claridges. ‘I’m so nervous!’ she said. ‘I’ve never had tea here before. Am I dressed properly?’

“‘Relax!’ I said. ‘People are giggling out there. Just go and have a good time.’”

And if anyone knows the form, it’s Irene. Effortlessly self-assured – she was once described as “that fragrant Mrs Gorman” – she is quite at ease moving in privileged circles. Yet to her credit, there’s no pulling of rank at this table – just conversation that flows as freely as the Assam.

Born in Glasgow, a city famous for its tea rooms – though her penchant in the 60s and 70s was for coffee, the new brew on the block – Irene took wing with her husband, Bill, who worked for British American Tobacco, travelling around the world and living a charmed expat lifestyle. When Bill moved to the UK Tea Council, and the vacancy for the head of the Tea Guild arose, their daughters persuaded Irene to go for it. That was nine years ago.

 Fortuitously, we meet just two days after the publication of a Which? report headlined ‘The cost of afternoon tea – high tea or highway robbery?’ The journalist decried the £85 price tag of tea at The Lanesborough Hotel in London.

Irene, however, is having none of it.

“Yesterday, I said I wouldn’t do Jeremy Vine. I didn’t want to get into a no-win situation, defending what I don’t think needs defending. I mean, you get Krug champagne, for goodness sake! It’s not just £85 for a scone or two. It’s the top level. You know what the price is going to be – if you’re not happy to pay, don’t go.

“It’s also very patronising to suggest that people shouldn’t be doing this. How dare somebody suggest that spending your money in that way is wrong.

“If you come to a hotel, for example, you’ve got the full afternoon. Nobody is going to say: ‘Yes, thank you, but now we need your table.’ You can drink as much tea as you like, or order more food. British people are too shy about asking for more, though many hotels will happily oblige.”

Which is certainly true today. We’ve chewed the fat for four, glorious, unhurried hours (and we’re not the only ones). It’s been such fun that I cancel my optician’s appointment to enjoy for longer, not only the company of this delightful lady, but Surrey’s best afternoon tea.
Fragrant, indeed.

n tea.co.uk/teaguild
n pennyhillpark.co.uk

Doing Thyme - my visit to The Clink

My visit to The Clink, a gourmet restaurant in HMP High Down, which serves up hope with its herbs

First published in 2011

Clink, clunk. clink: the heavy metal doors slam behind me. I give up my mobile, take the chewing gum out of my bag and put it into the locker. My ID is carefully checked and filed. I step inside. Clink, clunk, clink: more doors shut. Noisily. Eerily. This, without doubt, is a strange place to go for lunch.

But then, The Clink is no ordinary restaurant. Opened in May 2009, at HMP High Down, near Banstead, it’s the only commercial restaurant to operate from within the confines of a working UK prison. The message is simple: resettle and rehabilitate to reduce offending. Prisoners do the cooking and work as waiters. In its first 18 months, 13 fully trained chefs and waiters left The Clink with a secure job. Success.

Having never been in a prison before (honestly), I’m not entirely sure what to expect, and as I wait to be taken through to the restaurant, a sense of apprehension kicks in. Just then, a group of prison warders tumble into the room, full of jostle and banter, obviously at the end of their shift. One bashes into me by mistake.

“Sorry love, didn’t see you there,” she says, pleasantly, although they all look as hard as nails. Quietly, I move aside.

Soon I’m taken through more locked doors into the heart of the prison. Looming fences, iced with barbed wire, tower over an arid, treeless landscape. It’s depressing and soulless – though not nearly as grim, I’m told, as Victorian prisons such as Brixton.

All that is forgotten, however, when I finally walk into The Clink, which turns out to be smart and modern and washed in a soft pink light. A striking chrome-topped salad bar catches my eye, and there is buzz of conversation – The Clink also serves as a staff mess. Ironically, I Feel Free by Eric Clapton skips along in the background. It could be any restaurant, anywhere. Except that it isn’t.

From the outset, The Clink has had the media eating out of its hand. Michael Winner, for The Sunday Times, was booked in a couple of days after me, and the place starred in the BBC’s The Prison Restaurant earlier this year.

The contemporary British menu does indeed look impressive. It is the brainchild of Al Crisci MBE, catering manager at the prison, and former chef at London’s Mirabelle restaurant. You could say he is The Clink’s public face: the week I did my stretch, he had just returned from a job with one exoffender serving afternoon tea at a charity do with the Blairs.

One of the dishes made by the inmates.

I lean towards the deep fried Stilton quenelles with apple and walnut salad for my starter. Beside me, two ladies deep in conversation are already on their main course: lobster ravioli for one, slow braised pork cheeks for the other. Indeed, it’s only the lack of alcohol, and the plastic cutlery, that remind me of where I am.

The prisoners make absolutely everything from scratch. Produce comes not only from the prison gardens, but from other prisons too – the pork, I learn, originated in a women’s prison at HMP East Sutton Park in Kent. Prisoners have even made all the furniture.

“Our main aim is to stop prisoners reoffending,” says The Clink Charity CEO Chris Moore, who joins me for a chat. “As it stands, 49% of UK prisoners reoffend and return to prison within a year of their release. That figure rises to 74% if they don’t have a job or a home.

“Many of our diners are from the catering industry and we work really hard to forge links with companies so that these guys have a job to go to when they leave prison.

But attitudes are hard to change. How do you convince society to give a chance to someone with a criminal record? It is one of the reasons why members of the general public are invited to dine at the restaurant – whether they be members of the catering industry, or affiliated with local bodies or charities such as the WI or The Rotary Club – and to offer both financial and practical support for the charity’s work.

Selecting sympathetic clientele is paramount. It would be wrong to assume that anyone can just wander in off the street and go for lunch: The Clink, stresses Chris Moore, “is not a zoo”. The Ministry of Justice carefully considers every application, though people with strong links to the local community, whether through businesses or charities, are warmly welcomed.

And it’s not just the diners who are vetted. All prisoners from the South-East are entitled to apply to work at The Clink once they have only 16-18 months left to serve, as long as they have a demonstrable interest in catering. Most fall, however, during the security clearance process.

“We only take 20 prisoners at a time,” explains Chris.

Once an inmate has been accepted, the hard work begins. One false move and you’re out. But for those who stay, the rewards can be great. Dean, the headwaiter, is living proof. Once a prisoner himself, he was taken under Al Crisci’s wing, to the extent that Al invited him back to work as one of the restaurant’s two paid external staff. You can tell he loves his job.

Now the charity is hoping to expand the project to other prisons, besides its ambitions to open a restaurant in London. And hot off the press comes news that it has been nominated for a Catey Award, the industry equivalent of the Oscars.

I’ll drink to that: orange juice, of course. • The Clink is open for breakfast from 6.30-9.30am and lunch from noon – 2pm. Visit: www.clinkcharity.com

Absinthe

Absinthe influenced the culture of whole nations – until it was banned. Now Esher resident Ian Hutton is leading the revival of la fée verte. Catherine Whyte joins him for a glass

There can’t be a drink more eulogised than absinthe. Toulouse Lautrec loved it. So did Charles Baudelaire. Oscar Wilde was a huge fan: “a glass of absinthe is as poetical as anything in the world, what difference is there between a glass of absinthe and a sunset.”

La fée verte – (or green fairy as the drink was affectionately known) was a potent muse for prominent members of France’s artistic and literary scenes in the 19th century. However, absinthe also became a byword for all that was evil about alcohol: people who drank it suffered from louche morals, their brains eroded and muddled by hallucinations, and who – at worse – fell victim to murderous insanity. In fact, so many myths about absinthe have permeated through the grand vat of time that it’s hard to separate fact from fiction.

By 1915, absinthe had been widely banned across Europe – a decision that was only very recently reversed in France (2005 in fact) following new research that threw out past claims that absinthe led to madness. Slowly, but surely, the drink is beginning to reappear on bar menus around the world, including the UK, where the absinthe revival is being spearheaded by Esher resident, Ian Hutton.

Ian, as well as importing around 30 brands, also distills his own Enigma absinthe made to an old recipe, and using the original stills in the northeast of France.

We meet at his home. It’s such a lovely, sunny day that we agree to sit out in the garden. As I pass through the dining room, I notice a drinks cabinet full of antique absinthe miscellany; spoons, glasses and some wonderful Art Nouveau fountains.

“I first became hooked at the age of 16,” explains Ian. “You get to a period of art history that’s very centred on absinthe. I heard all the stories about how it sent people mad and how it was banned. Fast forward 30 years or so, and I began to collect various bits of absinthe paraphernalia that I had found in antiques markets.”

It didn’t take long for Ian (whose background is in scientific publishing) to make the leap into producing his own. I’ve heard the stories, and seen the paintings but what actually is absinthe?

“Basically, there’s a holy trinity of ingredients; sweet fennel, anise and wormwood,” explains Ian, adding “and there are two types Verte (green) and Blanche (white). Wormwood is unique to absinthe – Pastis, (like Pernod) is made with only fennel and anise – and contains thujone, the chemical blamed for the drink’s hallucinogenic side effects. Recent experiments have confirmed thujone’s effects, but only in massive quantities (about 40 bottles) – you’d be long dead from alcohol poisoning before you got that far.

So what was all the fuss about, then? I wonder.

“By the mid-19 century, absinthe was the favourite tipple of the bourgeoisie,” explains Ian. “Vines had been hit by disease. It decimated the wine industry and made wine prohibitively expensive. Absinthe filled the gap.

“It was, however, a victim of its own success,” he continues. “It was expensive to produce but easy to counterfeit by taking cheap alcohol, green dye, and adding harmful chemicals like antimony salts.”

Eventually, something had to give. The ill-effects of these cheap imitations, combined with the lobbying might of the recovered wine industry, together with a strong prohibition movement forced the government’s hand and the lid was shut tight on absinthe production.

“It got wrapped up in history,” says Ian, sadly. “and myth took over from reality.”

All that is about to change however.

“As well as getting people to experience true absinthe, it’s also vital to dispel myths,” Ian acknowledges. “A lot of people are still scared.” “Ten years ago, absinthe was sold on the basis that it was a hallucinogenic,” he says refering to the wave of imitation absinthe (or “coloured vodka” as Ian calls it), which flooded in from the Czech Republic along with the gimmicky practice of setting it alight – something that was never done in the past.

“Now, however, it is being talked about in the same way as malt whisky, with its different styles and regions,” he says. “Any absinthes around today need to sell themselves on basis of authenticity.”

Bars interested in retro cocktails such as Nightjar in Shoreditch, have nurtured fresh interest. Ian’s Enigma brand has also made in-roads into the gilded world of fashion, notably at a prefashion week preview for designers hosted by ON|OFF and Tuuli at the Rankin studio, attended by the likes of singer La Roux and model Erin O’Connor.

“I genuinely enjoyed watching people go through the “I don’t like absinthe” to really enjoying it,” says Ian.

Speaking of which, isn’t it time to try some, I say. So, Ian brings out one of those elegant Art Nouveau fountains I saw earlier, along with a spoon and a couple of tall glasses.

Ian pours the absinthe in, rests the spoon on top of the glass with a cube of sugar, and then places the glass under one of the taps. The water drips in slowly, dissolving the sugar as it goes. There‘s a wonderful sense of ritual to it. I can imagine producing one at a dinner party. Or even at a wedding.

As I’m driving, I have to moderate myself but enjoy the few tentative sips I do have. Aniseed is an acquired taste – one embraced by most of the continent but not, largely, by the northern Europeans. As such, even Ian admits that it is, and will likely remain, a niche product.

Given I can only have a couple of sips I wonder what it would be like to spend a night in the company of la fée verte.

“It does makes you very chatty,“says Ian with a smile. “You have the stimulating effects of essential oils from all these medicinal plants, combined with the depressant effects of the alcohol; It’s very complex chemical combination.

“While no-one is claiming that you’ll see green fairies coming out of the glass, there is a clarity of mind, and a greater sociability,” he continues. “In my opinion, absinthe is just a lovely aniseed flavour drink that contains wormwood.

“Just don’t buy it if you expect a trip on it.”

• absintheonline.com
• liquersdefrance.co.uk