Putting the tea in teacher - when Two Spoons Tea went back to school

From taste buds and tea ceremonies to caffeine and camellias, tea is a teacher. I know this because the other week I was invited to talk to a group of year 3s (7/8 year olds) at a school in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire. They had recently done a project on tea, read a book called “Cloud Tea Monkeys” and wanted to meet a real live tea taster.  No pressure.

Armed with my inflatable globe, long suffering tea plant and trusty tasting spoon, I faced a barrage of brilliant questions from an incredibly curious crowd. We practiced the art of tea tasting, we played “Country of Origin Volleyball” and finally swapped tea facts. It was refreshing to come across a group so passionate about a new found area of interest. Big apologies to their parents though, I told them slurping was actually a good thing.

It got me thinking about where I first learnt about tea. It wasn’t in the classroom, but at home from my Mum, aka Granny Spoon. Her 5 a day habit got me hooked from an early age and so it was from her that I learnt all about the benefits of this hero crop. Because of her I grew up on the NAAFI loose leaf blend and remember vividly trying to swipe gulps of my Dad's (he was the only one allowed sugar).

This led to another thought...if we aren’t lucky enough to learn about things like tea in the classroom or at home, how do we find this stuff out?

So here's where the 3 of you reading this come in...

If you have any children in your lives, ask them: Where does tea come from? What does it look like? Why should we drink it? How do you know if it’s any good?

Thinking about and knowing these things will help us with our understanding of the world, specifically health, our food system, different cultures.
Not only will it help us make great choices and it will make us massively more interesting.

And look at all the thank you letters we got!!!!