Fourteen cups of tea might seem excessive for most people, but it's nothing for Twining tea company head StephenTwining.

"I might drink nine or ten different teas during the day," Mr.Twining recently told The RoyalGazette in a telephone interview. "Maybe ten to 14 cups of tea a day.It is not a diuretic liquid.

"Water companies say you must drink two litres of water a day.What you should drink are two litres of positive fluid and tea counts to all of that."

Mr.Twining, director of corporate relations at the R.Twining &Co Ltd. in London, was in Miami,Florida for an annual conference to meet with world-wide Twining distributors.Among them was Graham Fowle, managing director of Bermuda Import and Export, the local distributor of Twining tea.

"This is an opportunity to provide them with more information, build their businesses and explain tea," Mr.Twining said.

He said it was always fun for him to explain tea.

"I have great fun with it," he said. "This is not me dictating how to drink tea.It is your cup of tea; drink what you like and when you like it.

"For me, I have worked out what tea suits me and time of day and variety."

Mr.Twining said he usually started his day off with some of Twining' stronger offerings and works his way down to an herbal tea in the evening.

"Today, I started the day with two cups of English breakfast tea because I need a strong pick me up to get me going," he said."It was designed by Twining in the 1930s when stronger food was needed.Since then I have had orange pekoe, darjeeling and then lady grey."

He said that tea can have varying amounts of caffeine but has about half the amount in a cup of coffee.

He said in the heat of a Florida summer, a cup of herbal tea with mango was refreshing.

Despite popular opinion,Mr.Twining said it was possible to get a good cup of tea in the United States.

"But I always travel with some of my own tea, just in case," Mr.Twining said.

"The temperature that the tea is made at is terribly important," said Mr.Twining. "My father spent many years in the United States teaching Americans to make a good cup of tea. Americans are really more well known for being coffee drinkers.

"The green teas are very popular in the United States. There are many advantages to drinking it including long term health benefits such as disease prevention and anti oxidants."

And he said just in case there was any 200-year-old bad feeling out there, the tea dumped inBoston Harbour during the BostonTea Party in 1773 was not Twining.

"We know whose tea it was, and it wasn't ours," Mr.Twining said cheerfully. "We checked our records."

The Twining Tea Company actually predated the BostonTea Party by 67 years. It was started by Mr. Twining's ancestor Thomas Twining.

In 1837, Queen Victoria granted Twining their first Royal Warrant for tea as 'Purveyor in Ordinary to Her Majesty'.

In 2006 the company celebrated its 300th anniversary.

"I am the tenth generation of the family to be in the company," said Mr. Twining.

He said there was never a time when he wanted to do anything else, like computers or dentistry.

" If you knew me, I definitely didn't want to do computers," he said. "In fact, I have wanted to do this since I was eight years old."

He said that for many generations who ran the company in the family was mostly a volunteered for position, not a forced one.

And there has even been a female in charge of the company.

In 1762, Mary Little Twining took over the company when her husband,Daniel, died. Although her husband had had a son from a previous marriage, it was her own son Richard who took over.

"She was a very good business woman," said Mr.Twining. "In those days tax was 119 percent which made it extraordinarily expensive.

"So people would smuggle it from Europe.Some tea companies would also pay people to find dry twigs and leaves and adulterate the tea.

"Mary kept a journal.She was very proud of the fact that she never left the philosophy that her husband and father-in-law established. She was a very good teacher because she taught her son.It was Richard who persuaded the government to lower the tax.

"Mr.Twining's own father, SamTwining, retired from the business just five years ago. He is the author of 'MyCup of Tea'.

"Being the only Twining with the business, my kids may not want to do tea," said Mr.Twining. "I live in hope that one of them might. But it is important that they find the career in life that they want to pursue."

Today,Mr. Twining describes his role as roving ambassador.

"We are lucky to have 115 export markets around the world," said Mr.Twining. "People are very interested in what they are eating and drinking these days."

He said he spends a lot of time talking to customers and distributors about how to sell tea, particularly in hotels and restaurants.

"I quite often give public lectures," he said. "I talk about how tea developed in the United Kingdom.

"We don't own the tea gardens.We are a free agent to buy it wherever it grows in the world."

He said tea is an incredible drink because it is so sensitive to environmental conditions.

"I liken it to wine," he said. "There are all the different weather conditions that produce its flavour.

"Wine drinkers accept that one year the weather was a great year for wine, and another year the weather was not so good.

"Tea drinkers do not accept fluctuation in the taste of their tea.But tea is much more affected by environment. On a daily basis it will change its profile."

He said an experienced tea taster could tell the difference in the tea just over a period of a week.

"It is subtle but it is there," said Mr.Twining. "We don't have a formula for our teas. Each time we make our tea it is made to a different recipe.

"If you are an English Breakfast tea drinker the tea tastes the same and looks the same.We have some extraordinary talent blending the tea."