Italiano
Made in Italy tea triumphs in China
The Black Tea of Verbano, by maestro Bertona, wins the Gold Award at the 2019 International Black Tea Tasting Competition, organized by the Tea Industry Committee of China.
Tea is the oriental drink par excellence, but who says tea cannot also be Made in Italy?
We are in Piedmont, in the province of Verbania, land of camellias par excellence, because the tea plant is a Camellia, of the "sinensis" species. And here, for three years now, we have been experimenting with the cultivation and production of an all-Italian, organic, zero kilometre tea. So much has passed since Paolo Zacchera, a floriculturist from Verbania, started his original project: to start an experimental large-scale plantation of tea plants in the territory of the Val Grande National Park, 15 kilometres from the Piedmontese shore of Lake Maggiore. Today, well over 20,000 seedlings have been planted in the open field, making the Verbano tea plantation the largest in Europe, after that of the Azores Islands. And, in May this year, after three long years of waiting, there was finally the first harvest.
However, as the expert floriculturist says "tea is like wine: it is one thing to produce a good grape, another to make a good wine". Professor Marco Bertona, Italy's leading tea expert and technical partner of the experimental plantation, is of the same opinion. In this regard, the professor explains that "having tea plants does not mean having Tea yet. The tender shoots, once harvested, are the raw material from which the tea will be produced. In fact, the finished product, the dry leaves, that we call "tea", is nothing else than the result of a long and complex process".
Marco Bertona is a professional tea taster graduated in China from the Canton University of Agricultural Sciences, he is Executive Director of the Italian Tea & Infusions Association (AssoTè) and Italian Delegate to the FAO Intergovernmental Tea Group.
He is the Italian tea alchemist. In fact, "unlike all the other medicinal and aromatic plants - whose parts, after the harvest, are only dried - the leaves of the tea plant, before being ready for use, must undergo various processes that, depending on the tea, can take from a minimum of two days, up to several months for some fermented teas. And it is just in the processing that the secret of a good Tea is hidden. "By sure", Professor Bertona goes on, "the botanical variety utilized, the cultivation techniques adopted, the environment and the microclimate, are decisive for determining the quality of the green leaves, that is, the raw material. But it will be only after the processing that the primary notes will be expressed and together with the secondary ones, which will develop after the processing, will make great and unique that particular type of Tea".
Truly a real alchemy that happens during the processing of the leaves of the tea Camellia, of which master Bertona seems to be a great expert. In fact, from the leaves collected in Val d'Ossola, after appropriate and wise procedures, Master Bertona has produced three different types of tea: a white tea, a green tea and a black tea. All three types of tea have been processed by hand according to traditional Chinese methods, also using equipment for the artisan processing of tea that has come specially from China.
But, in October, something unexpected happens. The Verbano Black Tea (also called "red tea" according to the Chinese nomenclature), after a strict selection, is admitted to an international black tea competition in China, in the homeland of tea: the "2019 International Black Tea Tasting Competition". "Having passed the selection for admission to the competition was not only a great honour for us, but the height of our aspiration. It was already a victory," says Bertona who, not at all intimidated by the competitiveness of the competing countries, decided to take part.
The competition, organized by the Tea Industry Committee of China (an agency linked to the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture) and reserved only for producers, saw the participation of companies from the world's major tea producing countries, for a total of 104 teas in the competition, of which 72 Chinese and 32 from other countries. The jury was composed of 15 international tea experts from both producing and consuming countries: China, Taiwan, Sri Lanka, Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Vietnam, Kenya, USA, Denmark, Australia, Russia.
At the end of a long and exhausting day of work, divided between tastings, organoleptic evaluations and processing of the thousands of data collected from the judges' files, finally came the long-awaited final result. The sum of the points of the international jury of experts left no doubt. The Black Tea of Verbano, by master Bertona, won the Gold Award, the most sought-after prize in the category, defeating about one hundred candidates from the major tea producing countries in the world, such as China, Nepal, Kenya, Vietnam, Malaysia, Korea, Thailand and Turkey.
This prestigious and unexpected award is further confirmation of Italy's ability to produce excellence and innovation even in new markets, and Professor Bertona's technical skills, together with Zacchera's pioneering commitment, have opened the way to a new life and potential supply chain of the Made in Italy Tea market.
A drink with many beneficial factors, now recognized and accredited also at international level, ready to become an icon of Italian drinking, with the continuous affirmation of tea-loving consumers and professionals such as Tea Sommeliers certified by the Italian Tea & Infusions Association, the first and oldest tea association in Italy and today the only professional association in the sector.
Source: AssoTè & Infusi Press Office
