Cycling Tour Detour: Tuscan Tea
Cycling Tour Detour: Tuscan Tea
For years, I’ve been noticing how Italians dole out hot tea at the refreshment stands at bike raduni (rallies or races) and other endurance rides or events. But, just a few kilometers up the road from the starting point (villa Belpoggio) of our Assaggio Toscana cycling tour trip, we recently discovered an authentic artisan Tuscan herb grower, Federigo Leopardo, who not only grows, cultivates, and dries beautiful Tuscan herbs, he then turns them into unique, flavorful Tuscan herbal teas.
Despite living in the land of the iconic espresso, every now and then I get the question: how does tea feature in Italian culture? Well, the cafè – espresso will always dominate here, but tea or tè is becoming more and more common as a social drink, and is no longer limited to the best cure for colds, bad stomach aches, or an aid in digestion.
The earliest European accounts of tea in Italy date back to the late Renaissance when the spirited rebirth of art and culture in the sixteenth century was most evident in Rome, Venice, and Naples–all cities of great wealth, power, and refinement. Knowledge of Asia amassed on the Italian peninsula through its influential political, religious, and economic institutions: the Vatican, trade, and banking. Church reports and correspondence from Asia were compiled and published in Rome, with descriptions of tea found in some documents in Naples as well as in colorful Asian travelogues from Venice.
Meeting Federigo Leopardo and hearing his story I was quite impressed not only by the dedication and love this man has for making his teas but the strong attachment to his land and childhood memories—roots that brought him full circle but with a slightly different twist or focus.
“My parents were farmers in the mid 1900s,” Federigo shares. “In the beginning in the Valdarno area, they used to cultivate the terraced mountain field: very difficult work on tough land. My mother cared for the sheep and my father worked in the fields until he decided to become a miner, a labor as difficult as that of farmer. Every day he rode his bicycle from Loro Ciuffenna to the mines in Castelnuovo De’ Sabbioni—14 miles away.”
At the beginning of the 1960s, the Leopardo family settled in Campo Lacconi, on the slopes of the Pratomagno mountain range, in Poggio Lacconi. They bought four acres to produce wine and olive oil as well as cultivate wheat and barley. Federigo studied to become an electrician. In 1980, he decided to leave the land for the building trade: first as a laborer, then as a bricklayer, then as a scraper and as an excavation equipment operator. At end of his work day, he’d return home to work the fields, maintaining his family roots.
The cultivation of aromatic and medicinal herbs is happening up and down the slopes of the mountainous areas called the Pratomagno. “I have always been attached to this land,”” he says. “”The first time I drove a tractor here, I was seven years old and I still remember the very first person I met along the way. It was the parish priest.”
Years later, Federigo left his full time job to begin cultivating these herbs, drying them and making these very special teas and infusions.
He also produces olive oil, saffron, wheat and barley.
Federigo works very closely with his wife, Valentina.
This is the story of Federigo Leopardo. Passion beyond words and such a lovely man engaged in a labor of love. He renewed his family’s fields and home, his dream was to grow aromatic and medicinal herbs. And finally, his dream has come true. Old traditions, innovative ideas. Now, that’s our cup of tea!
Find out more about our popular Assaggio Toscana cycling tour.
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Photos: Carol Sicbaldi
