Richard Wolak talks with John Harney, Founder of Harney & Sons Tea.
How long have you been blending tea at Harney & Sons?
Since 1983 with Harney & Sons and 1970 till 1983 with Sarum Tea. Sarum Tea was a small tea company that was based in Salisbury, CT from 1955 till 2002 or 2003 when it closed up. I was the GM of the White Hart Inn in Salisbury from 1960 till 1983 and we used Stanley Mason's Sarum Tea for the whole period of time. He was an old English tea man who lived in the US and blended tea in his living room and sold out of his house and few hotel restaurant accounts. There was not a day that went by that I did not get a request from at least one restaurant customer that needed to have Mr. Mason's telephone number so they could order tea. We served his tea bags from 1960 till 1967 when he asked if we could switch the tea bag service to 100 percent loose leaf tea and this created a large increase in requests diners wanting to know where to buy his tea. In 1970 he asked me to have the White Hart Inn buy his tea company. We bought his company and moved it in the basement the Inn. Part of the deal was that he had to teach me to blend and pack tea. More importantly we went to New York to meet his broker who served him from the 1930's. We stayed with him until the broker retired. He introduced me to people I thought were important in the tea world and could help in what I wanted to do. Most importantly he taught me everything I know about tea. I truly wish he was around to see where his dream went.
What kind of process is involved from blending the tea leaves from harvest to serving a pot of tea to a customer?
It is not a difficult process if you start with all good quality teas and flavoring. Many of our blends go back to Stanley Mason so they have stood the test of time. Customers don't like change...they like consistency. In other words when people finish a can of Earl Grey Tea they expect that the next one to be just like it.
You must follow a basic formula and keep tasting until you get it right. It is better to over flavor than under flavor. The reason this is true is that the ingredient essential oil is very volatile and will disapate if you expose the blend to air. It will correct itself. We have a very large number of blends. We used to blend by hand and now we have 2 small blenders which handle 25 to 30 pounds and 3 large blenders that handle a great amount of tea.
What is your background prior to starting Harney & Sons?
I was born in August of 1930 in Lakewood, OH and moved to Dunkirk, NY at age 3 and lived and schooled there until fifth grade. My Mother became ill with cancer and my brother James and I went to live with my aunt Dorothy and Uncle Leigh on a dairy farm on Pope Hill in the town of Villinova, NY. I went from a good Catholic school (St. Mary's) to a one room school house a quarter mile from Uncle Leigh's house. It was a great experience that I treasure. We went from a modern city to an area that did not have electricity to oil lamps, from toilets to a backhouse and from faucets to hand pumps. All this was not because we were poor but because the great leveler electricity had not got to us until the early ‘40s. Uncle Leigh caught a dairy disease and had to sell the Pope Hill farm (where the family's homestead started in the 1820s) and he bought a produce farm in Forestville, NY and raised grapes, tomatoes and strawberries. All these required hoeing a couple times a year. I did not want to be a farmer so in June of "47 I told Leigh and Dorothy that I had to leave and go to my Uncle Jack's who had two hotels in Vermont. I really had know idea of what I was doing but caught a train to Albany and a bus to Manchester, VT and presented myself. Jack gave me a job in the hotel kitchen where for the next 15 months I washed dishes and did other chores around the inn. I found that I loved the food and the hotel business. In September of '48 I enlisted in the USMC for 3 years which was extended one year. Again it was not planned but it was a wonderful time in my life. In the Spring of '52 I applied to the School of Hotel Administration at Cornell Universtiy and was accepted. I did not have any money but did have the GI Bill that helped pay the tuition. I taught accounting at the Hotel School three years, cooked in a restaurant and was a bar waiter at Statler Inn. Also was married in Our Lady's Chapel in St. Patrick in NYC to Elyse Deublein (the love of my life) (we will be married 55 year in February) at the end of the first semester and had two children (John and Michael) by graduation in January of 1956. Upon graduation I took the job of running a supper club (Dore's) in Pittsburgh, PA and a restaurant plus I did a little consulting.
All the above shaped me for the rest of my life except we added 3 more children. Elyse had been my friend, wife and equal partner for almost 60 years.
I heard the UK Tea Council awarded The Dorchester Hotel best Tea of 2006, I heard this winning tea maybe from Harney & Sons? Would you care to confirm this rumour and tell us more?
The winning tea was Harney & Sons teas. We also did the staff training over almost a two year period. Education is very important. Son Michael and I both did training sessions along with Jane Pettigrew (great English tea author). The servers and the quality of tea must be of very high quality.
How do you develop new teas and tea blends?
Sons Michael and Paul visit the tea gardens and estates we know of plus sometimes we hear good things of a new tea as well as well.
Sometimes someone suggests a blend or they send one they like and ask us if we can do it. Some we can and some we make some changes and it works out.
What are your top 3 Teas/Blends?
English Breakfast, Earl Grey Supreme and Hot Cinnamon
What is the timeline for developing a new Tea blend from start to finish?
Most blends work out very quickly simply because if it takes too long we usually just give up. Then we might come back again later.
I heard that you have a Harney and Sons Tasting Room, please tell our readers where the tasting room is located and what they can find if they visit?
We do have a public tasting room that is open 7 days a week. People come from around the world to taste teas and it is free. On busy times we limit the free tasting to three different teas. Our workers are very knowledgeable and can give much advice to tea lovers. The tea room and tea tasting room is on Main Street, Route 44 in the center of Millerton, NY. Our factory is a quarter mile south on Route 44.
What lead Harney & Sons tea to become the tea of choice at the historic Royal Palaces in England?
I really have no idea. They must have investigated us because one of the early questions on the phone was if we would pack their tea with our name and their's. It was a two year period getting their logo and the rest of design along with 8 sided can approved. That is all behind us now and I will be going London to talk to their staff in their shops in the Palaces about their teas. We will also be selling the Royal Palace Teas to Hotels and stores. I must be very careful where it goes though.
What foods do you enjoy personally with a cup of tea and which tea would it be?
I really enjoy a cup of tea in the afternoon with a good fudge or sliced apple or ripe pear with soft ripened or sharp cheddar cheese.
I drink Japanese Sencha with breakfast of eggs or cereal with fruit. I started doing this because I had bladder cancer 11 years ago and my doctor suggested it. My PSA went down from 6.4 to .77 and that was a vast improvement. I hope my luck continues but who knows.
What are your passions outside of the tea industry?
I am still very interested in political life and government. We as Country must stay free but we are truly threatened with losing our freedoms since 9/11. We either win our war or we will have lost. The problem of losing there means it will move to confrontations elsewhere and that means it might be here and I am afraid we are looking at 1938 and 39 again. We are looking at a new Austria. I hope I am wrong.
Who are the others involved in the management and operations of Harney and Sons?
Son Michael is the finance man and Paul runs the factory with Michael plus he has all the sales staff reporting to him. I do what I want to do and I love my corner office and half bathroom along with educating our friends who want to come into the tea world. We also are aided by management staff who do the supervision of our employees.
Do you have any unique stories you would like to share with our readers from your past 37 years in Tea?
I think the most unique story is the original call regarding The Historic Royal Palace and the second is the call from Jane Pettigrew (our English friend who started with a tea room in England and has grown to be one of the most important people in the tea world by being the British Voice of tea and one of the most important tea author with a dozen books on tea to her credit.) telling me about our good fortune of having one of our English Hotels, The Dorchester Hotel being named The Top Tea in London 2007 by the UK Tea Council. Both of the above would be a great honor for an American company and both were least expected and would have been most coveted had I even thought about it. The above was the start of our international business that has grown to over 30 countries running from China and Japan to France and England to Mexico.
POSTED: Monday, June 25, 2007