Have you ever given much thought into how colour affects what you decide to indulge in? Tealeaves and Pantone are helping tea drinkers around the world notice “the first taste is with the eyes”. Their new collaboration revamps Tealeaves’ already popular Whole Leaf Pyramid Teabag collection and together, they created a “feast for the eyes”, blending borders between culinary and design. With this project, it’s much more than just new packaging. As a tea enthusiast and marketing professional, I couldn’t help but reach out to Tealeaves and learn more about #PaletteForYourPalate.
It all began back in November 2014 when the Strategy Director at Subrosa introduced Tealeaves, a tea company recognized as the leading luxury tea blender of choice for 5-star properties and Michelin chefs worldwide, to Pantone Colors. The pairing was perfect, as the two brands had quite a bit in common and are well known for their expertise. Lana Sutherland, co-founder and CEO of Tealeaves, expresses that Tealeaves also has a strong interest in one of the three key attributes of palate, colour. The Canadian tea company has been hand blending their teas specifically for colour, aroma and taste from the beginning.
“As master blenders, we like to think that each of the tea blends we create has a particular personality. We distilled the stories, culture and flavor profiles behind our teas to determine what moods were most evocative of each one. Understanding the relationship that mood has with colour, the Pantone Color Institute selected for us bespoke colours for the packaging of our blends,” shares Sutherland.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this project is how Tealeaves and Pantone selected what colour and mood would go perfectly with each of the teas in the collection. Sutherland says that with over two decades of hands-on experience in the world of luxury culinary and from the deep knowledge of their Master Tea Blenders, the expression of each tea spoke itself. “The teas themselves chose the mood. Based on this mood, Pantone Color Institute then helped us to further refine the mood and selected the perfect hues for each of the ten tea flavours.”
Here are some examples:
Pantone 349C green for Tealeaves’ Organic Long Life Green
Pantone 285C blue for Tealeaves’ Organic English Breakfast
Pantone 7677 C purple for Tealeaves’ Organic Earl Grey with Lavender
When it came to matching the 10 teas and their respective moods with cities, chefs and mixologists, there was a thought process that the partners used. One example Sutherland gave was for the city of Vancouver. As it is a cosmopolitan and culturally diverse city that is known for wellness, they paired their Organic Long Life Green tea with noted Vancouver Chef Alex Chen.
Is there a certain tea infused recipe Tealeaves is most proud of? Sutherland responds that they are just “especially fascinated with the really challenging colours such as the ones not normally associated with food.” She spoke about Executive Chef Tory Martindale at Four Seasons Resort Palm Beach in which he was tasked with the colour Pantone 7459C (blue), the mood of ‘peaceful’ and Tealeaves’ Relax tea blend. “He then created a beautiful dish reminiscent of an ocean breeze. Very poetic given the beautiful blue ocean nearby,” she states.
Over 30 world-class Executive Chefs, Pastry Chefs and Mixologists all volunteered their time to help celebrate the #PaletteForYourPalate launch. Using the collection as their muse, and with plate and glass as their canvas, these masters of their craft created works of art using Tea + Color + Mood representative of the collection. Tealeaves is thrilled to be working with all of their hotel partners to bring their tea infused recipes alive and available to the public. You can find dates and locations on the Online Exhibitions’ event page.
The collaboration doesn’t just stop there though. February 2016 is when they will be releasing a documentary online, Colour in Sight, that shares an expert look into the details of colour in design. “We had a wonderful time interviewing an amazing group of prestigious design thinkers, academics and culinary experts on rarely discussed aspects of colour in their behind-the-scenes worlds. The documentary will share how brands and designers use colour to add value to the consumer experience,” Sutherland shares. Fascinated by colour’s potential to excite and delight, Tealeaves reached out to experts in design—from Pantone, OPI, Kidrobot to Nike—to learn from the best outside their industry and improve their craft.
“We documented the journey to share with you, with belief that the best condiment to any cup of tea is wisdom to share and a great story to tell.”
More information and tea infused food and drink recipes can be viewed on the Online Exhibition: www.paletteforyourpalate.com
What do you think of Tealeaves x Pantone #PaletteForYourPalate collection? Let me know in the comments below.
Go thing that we have this kind of resource where we can find organic foods and drinks.
In my own tea diary where I keep my own reviews of mainly raw pu’er teas I taste one can find descriptions of tea liquors with words like ‘raw sienna’, ‘burnt sienna’, ‘yellow ochre’, etc. as I used to paint watercolours for many years.