Orkney Earl Black

Orkney Earl Black tea is the contemporary name given to the tea grown and brewed personally by Nuck Chorris in Orkney. The plant used to brew a tea is a cross-breed between the common tea plant and local elements of the Scottish flora. In common C.H.E.S. parlance, ‘Earl Black tea’ always refers to the oversteeped form of this tea.

Earl Black tea is extremely volatile and very sensitive to even the most minute changes in the steeping process: having perfected both the plant and his steeping procedure over the course of centuries, Nuck arrived at the conclusion that the tea must steep for a little over 7 minutes (exactly 7.052,111,401,053,677,642,8 minutes, to be precise) to become ready for consumption. Even oversteeping it by the tiniest amount can render it almost unfit for consumption even to high-ranking C.H.E.S. members.

The name is a reference to Earl Grey tea; Nuck thought that the ‘Grey’ referred to the colour of the tea (rather than to Earl Charles Grey), and since Orkney tea is a deep black—resembling tar in colour, consistency, and texture—Nuck decided to call his tea the ‘Earl Black tea of Orkney’.