Around Britain with a fork

I went to a Chinese wedding in Shanghai," health club said Henrietta Lovell of the Rare Tea Company, "and they served an oolong tea that was greeted with applause by all the guests. The wedding speeches didn't have much to say about the bride or groom, but there was a good deal of comment on the quality of the tea."

I like that kind of insistence on the decencies of life. I've always had a thing about tea. It's more of a warm, cosy relationship than a torrid passion, but it has its moments. To be honest, I wasn't a China tea man - they were too refined and challenging for my clodhopping tastebuds. That was until I met Henrietta Lovell, aka the Stickler, for reasons that will become clear.

I went to a Chinese wedding in Shanghai," said Henrietta Lovell of the Rare Tea Company, "and they served an oolong tea that was greeted with applause by all the guests. The wedding speeches didn't have much to say about the bride or groom, but there was a good deal of comment on the quality of the tea."

I like that kind of insistence on the decencies of life. I've always had a thing about tea. It's more of a warm, cosy relationship than a torrid passion, but it has its moments. To be honest, I wasn't a China tea man - they were too refined and challenging for my clodhopping tastebuds. That was until I met Henrietta Lovell, aka the Stickler, for reasons that will become clear.

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I first met her at the BBC Good Food Show in London, dragged along to her stand by Mark Hix, late of the Ivy, Le Caprice, Scott's etc, and a bold champion of sound British produce and producers. And before I knew it, Lovell had poured me a cup of Silver Tip tea all the way from the "high mountain tea gardens of Fujian province" in China, and was batting me about the ears with the health-giving qualities of white teas, health club how green tea should be made only with whole leaves, and something about the fermentation of oolong, which, frankly, I rather missed because I was carried away on a delicate, shimmering, perfumed cloud of tea.

Eventually crashing back to earth, I got something of her life story - the tea part, anyway. Lovell used to be a project manager for a printing company, and looked after its interests in the far east. "Very dull," she said, but it took her to some interesting places, China being one, and there she came across China tea and its teashops.

"These were wonderful places, like old-fashioned wine merchants, where the Chinese would spend hours discussing and tasting teas, and spend incredible sums of money on them. Did you know that the Chinese spend a higher percentage of their disposable incomes on tea than we do on alcohol?"

Anyway, Lovell came back looking for teas of the quality she'd come across in China, and couldn't find them. "There were beautifully labelled, very expensive teas, but they didn't match up to what I'd tasted out there." So she took herself back to China to learn about the craft,health club and set about sourcing and importing tiptop teas.

There's rather more about tea in China than there is space to go into here, so let's stick with Silver Tip, also known as Silver Needle, because it is the simplest and most exquisite. And most expensive, naturally (although it still works out at only about 27p for a small pot).

True, finest white tea Silver Tip must be made with the spring buds of what Lovell calls the "big white variety" of the tea bush, Camellia sinensis. It's what's known as first flush - that is, the first new growth of the picking season, which begins in April. The buds - there are no leaves in Silver Tip - must be picked very early in the morning, before the sun's rays have had time to fall, by the most experienced pickers. The day has to be clear, too health club, because the buds then spend a day drying gently in the fresh air, being turned very carefully from time to time. On no account must the drying tip be broken, or they will be useless. Finally, they are vacuum-packed in very small quantities.

Of course, Lovell doesn't deal only in Silver Tip. The Rare Tea Company lists white, green, black and oolong teas of similar pedigree. She is very proud of her jasmine-scented white tea, and even lists a few teas from Darjeeling as well. But it's that image of Lovell battling her way to the "high mountain tea gardens of Fujian province" and haggling with the gnarled Chinese tea masters that appeals to my romantic imagination. And I'm sure it adds a lustre to every cup.