Oh, and one more thing...

... that I like about the Ujinotsuyu website:

Nice life with a cup of tea... What more could one ask for?

Differences of Grade

When I made my purchases from SanTion a couple of months ago, I took advantage of the sample sizes they offered to get two grades (A and B) of several of their teas: Organic Misty Green, Organic Silver Needles, Da Hong Pao. A while back I also ordered some tea from Amazing Green Tea, a special combination deal that included two grades (A and AAA) of Huang Shan Mao Feng.

I wanted to see if there was a substantial difference between the two grades of each of these teas, and if so, what that difference was; and was it worthwhile paying the premium for the top grade. I am happy to pay money for good products, obviously; but I'm also aware that just because something costs more, it is not necessarily that much better.

I didn't get around to taking photos of the SanTion Teas, but here for comparison are the two grades of Mao Feng:

(The darker one is the A grade, the pale one is the AAA grade.)

The dry-leaf differences between the two grades of the SanTion teas was less stark; the B-grade teas were less finely sorted, so there were slightly more broken or less-immaculate looking leaves, particularly noticeable in the Silver Needle and the Da Hong Pao. The A-grades were sleeker, finer; in the case of the Silver Needles, quite breathtakingly plump and shiny.

In terms of taste, however, I was pleasantly surprised. The Silver Needles and Misty Green teas tasted very, very similar, equally good; I strongly preferred the Da Hong Pao A grade, though, as it had a wonderful roasted apricot flavour that I couldn't detect in the B grade. However, interestingly, I ended up preferring the A grade ('everyday' grade) of the Huang Shan Mao Feng. While both the Mao Feng teas were delicious, the A grade was slightly more robust, fruity and vegetal in flavour, which I liked; that said, the AAA was also wonderful, varying in taste from a delicate toastiness like a Japanese sencha to a fruity Chinese-green taste depending on how long I steeped it (I found that about 7-10 minutes in relatively hot water produced the best results; only one infusion, but what an infusion! You can see my attempt to photograph the brewing tea here).

Interesting, isn't it? It's also a matter of individual taste, of course, and I definitely don't lay claim to having a truly well-developed palate, especially not when my tea drinking gets interrupted regularly by the need to tend to Pippin. I suppose the next question is: if two teas taste equally good, is it worth spending the extra money to get the 'top' grade? What do you think?

Behind the Cup... with Eric from Tea Finely Brewed

I can think of few better ways to kick off the week than with an interview with Eric Daams, the tea aficionado behind Tea Finely Brewed. I was lucky enough to meet fellow-Melbournite Eric in person a couple of months ago (over some tea of course) and it was great to hear about his experiences with tea, blogging and family life. Tea Finely Brewed encompasses a tea blog, a tea marketplace which allows you to compare similar offerings from different tea companies, and a 'beginner's guide to tea' with much useful information.

How did you become enthused about tea and what is it that you like most about it?

I think the thing that most excites me about tea today is the breadth of variety. You could try a new tea every week for a year and you'd still be scratching the surface. 

To begin with though, I think my motivation for liking tea had something to do with that dark force of the hot beverage world: coffee. I'm someone who likes to do things differently to those around me, so as the youngest boy growing up in a family of coffee drinkers, I decided to become a tea drinker. After years of tea bags in which I slowly exhausted the supermarket choices, I started venturing into loose leaf teas a few years ago. Once you start on loose leaf tea, the world (of tea) opens up to you. 

How would you define Australian ‘tea culture’ based on your experience and observations? Have you noticed any changes over time (including your own tea preferences) and what do you think has driven these changes?

For a country with such a vibrant coffee culture, it's sad to see how the Australian tea experience languishes behind. It never ceases to confound me how a café serving amazing coffee can serve their tea-drinking patrons Lipton or Twinings tea bags -- while charging us $3.50 it! 

The emergence of T2 and other Australian-based loose leaf tea brands seems to be a sign of change. I'm not crash hot on T2 — I think they're overpriced and capitalizing on a market that is barely aware of quality tea — but I do believe that they're a harbinger of better things to come. 

Any thoughts on the direction that tea is headed?

I think tea culture is going to boom in much the same way that coffee culture has boomed in Australia. At the moment, I can think of a handful of restaurants where I could go to have quality tea with my lunch -- they're all Asian restaurants, of course. With time, I believe we'll see that spread into more and more places. 

When I was in New Zealand about a year and half ago, I noticed that quite a few of the cafés offered a great range of teas. How often do you go to an Australian café where they offer sencha, dragonwell and gunpowder green tea? Give it ten years, and I think we'll have more places like that around. 

What do you think the greatest challenges are for Australian tea consumers and/or businesses? e.g. is it easy for you to find the kinds of teas you enjoy in Australia or do you mostly purchase from vendors in other countries?

One of the perks of blogging about tea is that a lot of companies send me their tea, free of charge. I'm thankful for that, because if I didn't have companies sending me their teas, I would be severely limited by what is available on the market here. I've shopped at Tea Leaves, Lupicia and T2 (among many others), but the choice of high quality specialty tea is invariably limited. Shops cater to what the majority are looking for, which seems to be flavoured teas and herbal blends. Single-estate Darjeelings, first flush Japanese greens and quality aged pu-erh -- these kinds of teas aren't big priorities. That said, I'm pleased to see Santion catering to the discerning tea crowd that knows their Keemun from their Yunnan.   

Any other tea musings you would like to share.

Champagne is the Darjeeling of wine.

Heh. Thank you Eric for putting the proper relationship between tea and wine in perspective. I am in awe of the amount of work you have put into your tea marketplace - it will be extremely useful for all the tea purchasers out there when they are looking for the pick of the crop!

Behind the Cup... with Monika from SanTion House of Tea

A little while ago I purchased some samples (including the Keemun I was so enthused about) of different teas from SanTion House of Tea, a fairly new player on the Australian tea scene, and have been very impressed with their quality. This week I am very pleased to be able to post an interview with Monika from SanTion. 

What inspired you to get into tea, both as a drink and as a business? How long has SanTion been in business?

I discovered ‘real’ tea about two years ago when meeting Taoist Master Dong Yang. This was the time in my life when I felt the need for spiritual guidance. It was a lucky charm to discover that there is a real Taoist Master in Sydney. Together with a couple of friends I immediately got in touch with Master Dong Yang, and began the training. We were taught that certain exercises, music, calligraphy, wei chi, painting and drinking tea help improve the internal energy level and overall health. Master Dong Yang would brew tea while discussing important issues. In fact, he would drink tea all day long adjusting only strength of the brew and matching the sort of tea to the time of the day. Drinking tea, for him, was just like meditation.

These meetings introduced the world of tea to me and my friends. This was the first time that we have tasted and appreciated Dragon Well, Da Hong Pao and many other marvellous teas. We discovered that tea can bring one back to nature, help become more peaceful and relaxed, escalate feelings of joy and happiness. We found out that with a cup of tea in hand one can experience a touch of pure nature while surrounded by everyday life. One can feel the fresh breeze coming form the mountains, smell the aroma of an ancient forest, sense a touch of softness under the feet. The world transforms.

We have also discovered that one needs to be careful when choosing the right tea and that it is easy to go astray. Not all teas have these transforming world abilities. We have decided to go straight to the source – China. We wished to find the gate to a precious ‘tea garden’. We departed from Sydney on the 1st of May 2009 into a trip of tea discovery. We discovered many unique teas and decided to not only buy it for ourselves and our friends, but also to bring it to the wide public.

Santion commenced its operation in August 2009. We are a very young company and we are trying hard to establish our position on the market because we believe we are bringing something of genuine value.

How did you decide on the 'focus' for SanTion in terms of the types of tea that you carry?

It was very difficult for us to decide on the sorts of tea we carry.

On one hand we knew that Australians love their blends and flavoured teas. We knew that SanTion will be more successful if we offer teas that will match palates of most of our potential customers. On the other hand, we always wanted to educate people about unblended and unflavoured tea.

In the end, we decided for the latter - to concentrate mostly on high quality, loose leaf tea and educate customers and friends of how wonderful ‘pure’ tea experience may be. Profit and business success is secondary to this goal of ours. Despite that, we also imported some naturally flavoured teas and a few blends for those of our customers who are just starting on their way to tea discovery and are not quite ready to go ‘all the way’.

   

How would you define Australian ‘tea culture’ based on your experience and observations? Have you noticed any changes over time (including your own tea preferences) and what do you think has driven these changes?

For some of us tea is just an alternate for coffee. Most of the times - a small bag dipped into water and often infused with milk, lemon or sugar. For others it may be an iced drink, nice and refreshing in hot summer days. For a few it is a way to healthy lifestyle, source of vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Finally, only some people are truly passionate about tea. Those passionate enough are able to create a truly unique tea experience.

Australia is now amongst those countries that pride themselves for ‘coffee culture’ rather than tea culture. Most cafes still offer only tea bags as these are much more convenient. Cafes and restaurants offer only a few, most popular varieties: English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Peppermint, Camomile etc. The reason for this is simple – no demand for more and no tea-educated customers. For Australians White Tea still means a black tea with milk!

Nevertheless, I strongly believe that the future for tea in Australia is brighter than ever. Australians are very health-conscious and quality-oriented. Tea sales grow from year to year.

Tea is healthy, fashionable and affordable – more and more people acknowledge the fact. ‘Tea Culture’ is coming. It is now just a matter of time.

Any thoughts on the direction that tea is headed?

Tea lovers are becoming more and more sophisticated. I believe that whilst interest in tea blends and flavoured teas will always be there, over the next few years we will also observe increasing interest in unblended and unflavoured teas prepared in the traditional, oriental way.

As far as the distribution channels are concerned, 2010 Tea Market Forecast by Joseph Simrany and Pearl Dexter of www.teaandcoffee.net states: “Tea is in, it is trendy, relevant and continually attracting an ever-expanding group of avid and knowledgeable consumers, most of who are gaining that knowledge via the Internet. Tea companies of course are still using traditional advertising vehicles including TV, radio, print and direct marketing but they are increasingly turning to non-traditional marketing vehicles such as; websites, blogs, Facebook, Myspace, Twitter and now the iPhone”.

As interest in tea grows, the need for tea knowledge increases. Over the next few years we will witness growing number of visitors on tea-related websites and blogs. Visitors will be looking not only for tea, but also for information on tea preparation and brewing, tea philosophy, tea history, tea health benefits etc.

What do you think the greatest challenges are for Australian tea businesses and/or consumers?

The greatest challenge for customers is to open up for a quality product by educating themselves about tea. It is important to savour and experience a wide variety of teas to get to know which tea sorts and varieties suit them best.

The greatest challenge for tea businesses, especially the smaller ones is to find their way through the slower period which we are encountering at present. Customers are still not aware of how to judge a good quality product and therefore often settle on cheap alternatives offered by international corporations or supermarkets. This way most of us never have the chance to discover the ‘real’ tea and small businesses don’t have the chance to get the recognition they deserve.

It is also important for the Australian tea market to find a healthy balance between quality and price. As per now, too often do we observe very low quality tea sold at tremendous prices only because of a smart marketing campaign.

Any other tea musings you would like to share?

For SanTion, tea is primarily a lifestyle, secondarily a product. Tea is there to enjoy it! Our advise is to treat tea health benefits as a side effect.

Thank you very much Monika for your thoughtful and inspiring responses. It is very exciting to have a company like SanTion operating in Australia and I wish you every success.

Behind the Cup... with The Devotea

The first interviewee for 'Behind the Cup' is Robert Godden, aka The Devotea. One tea-related site is not enough for him; he has a video blog, a 'teaconomics' blog, and also designs tea shirts (how good is that?).

How did you become enthused about tea and what is it that you like most about it? 

I come from a tea drinking family, but that means Lipton’s tea bags I’m afraid. I do remember every so often getting ‘real’ tea at an ‘eccentric’ aunt’s place. I married into an English family, which meant more tea bags, millions of them.

Over the years, my cooking went from sauces in jars to making my own, and tea more or less went down the same path. I love the extra time it takes – you feel you are contributing to the quality of the end product. Take your time and make it with care, and the care is rewarded in the cup. I feel the same way about coffee, but only drink 1-3 per week, whereas I drink 6-12 cups of tea.

A few years ago, we bought a tea shop, and the venture did not last. But being around 162 teas bought me into contact with a whole new community, and once I got on-line, that’s just grown immensely. I used to laugh at my kids for having all these “friends” they’d never met, but now I’m the biggest Twitterer of the lot. For centuries tea has connected people across a table, and now it does so across the world.

How would you define Australian ‘tea culture’ based on your experience and observations? Have you noticed any changes over time (including your own tea preferences) and what do you think has driven these changes?

The Australian tea culture is quite prominently tea bag driven, to the extent where Bushells ads actually seem to suggest you’re not a real Aussie if you like good tea in a nice cup. Our shop had 162 teas and 40 coffees. Both were outstanding quality. On that same block were 7 other coffee shops; yet we sold 95% coffee. Often tea was “English Breakfast” when it was consumed.

The small but vibrant group of tea lovers, though, was a very determined group. You’d see 5 blokes with long blacks and a guy the end with a Wild Cherry Green Sencha, and they’d be giving him a hard time; but nothing would stop his enjoyment of the tea.

Lately I’ve strayed much more into greens and whites, and I think that reflects tea consumers as a whole. I get mildly annoyed at people who prattle on about health benefits – just enjoy the tea, and why not have that biscuit?

Any thoughts on the direction that tea is headed?

It’s clear that quality tea is undergoing a massive resurgence ion the US. It will be a shame if we end up getting “tea culture” coming back to us via US movies and TV, but whatever it takes. It does seem that tea drinkers in the US are far fussier that US coffee drinkers, which is a great thing.

For me, the real worry is that quality tea plantations are being ripped out or taken over by multinationals with little interest in quality. I hope the counter to this is that new plantations, dedicated to quality, spring up as the value of great tea rises through demand.

 What do you think the greatest challenges are for Australian tea consumers and/or businesses?

It’s impossible to go into a supermarket and buy real quality tea. The best you can hope for is a fair quality CTC black. It’s all about effort – you have to make the effort to find the tea, then the effort of making it. I’ve never bought tea on-line. I like to poke, prod, smell and feel tea before I buy it. I buy the best tea I can from whatever is in front of me. I realised that tea bags in the house – basically tea with training wheels – need to be gotten rid of before you really make a commitment to tea.

As far as businesses, it’s a hard call. In Adelaide’s Deep South, where I live, there’s one shop that has about 40 teas. Now, some of them are a little stale – probably because I’m the only person that has bought them in a long while. I feel for them, and I have given them a deservedly good review and try to promote them.

I think one issue is that the difference between the quality of tea from a bag versus real loose leaf tea is not as obvious as say, instant coffee versus a cappuccino. So when people go out, they have a cap because it’s so much better than what they can make at home.

And I think we should support Australia’s three tea growers. But they need to engage more with the discerning consumer. I’ve actively tried to contact them all with no response.

Any other tea musings you would like to share?

I can’t drink a cup of tea without having at least one of these thoughts:
• Who picked this tea, and what is their life like?
• When did I last have this, and who was I with?
• Why was I stressed a few minutes ago? I now have tea and the world is a better place.

Thank you so much Robert - I really appreciated your thoughtful responses and, as it turns out, we think quite alike on a number of points (especially about the having of biscuits).

I hope to have further Behind the Cup posts to share with you all soon!

Learning to Taste Tea

I bought a copy of the wonderful Harney & Sons Guide to Tea a couple of months ago, and I have enjoyed reading it very much. It takes you step by step through the tasting process for a wide range of teas, from white to green to oolong to black and pu'er. It also contains some fascinating information about the ways in which these teas are manufactured, which actually also helps to understand why particular teas exhibit particular flavour characteristics. For example, it's the fast withering process that is partially responsible for the brisk astringency of Assam teas, while the slower, steamier withering of Keemun brings out the smoother mouthfeel and chocolatey notes commonly found in this kind of tea.

Books like this, and also the excellent New Tea Companion by Jane Pettigrew (which  contains tasting notes as well as handy pictures of a huge selection of teas), are extremely useful for learning about tea. I can't help wondering, though, about the limits to their usefulness (these in no particular order) -

- seasonal variations may produce different flavours, not to mention quality, of a given tea;
- the risk of setting up a stringent standard: 'This is the way this tea is supposed to taste, and if you can't taste the same things, you're wrong';
- conversely, the risk of relativism: 'Everyone's tastebuds are different so there's no standard you can actually apply at all, any given tea can taste like anything and there's no 'better' or 'worse'';
- variations in brewing parameters (water, temperature, length of steep, amount of leaf, etc) which can produce a radically different cup;
- (perhaps most importantly) the risk of frustration and (ironically) lack of appreciation for the tea because of being too caught up in trying to 'work out' what it tastes like... rather than just experiencing what it tastes like.

For all these potential problems I think that these tasting note type books - and the tasting notes you find in other sources such as the TeaMail group - remain useful because they can open your eyes to different ways of interpreting the tea you are tasting. For example, it would never have occurred to me to even imagine tropical fruit flavours in an Autumnal Darjeeling... and I haven't specifically noticed any in the Castleton Estate Autumnal I enjoyed so much, but I have identified berries.

It is also an encouragement to pay attention more closely to the other foods and drinks that I consume. Noticing more about their flavours broadens the palate I can bring to my teas. Every little bit of mindfulness helps.

In the end I think that is what it's really all about.

A New Year with Tea and Friends

Well, Christmas has come and gone...


...and very merry it was too, with perfect weather and much fun (despite the sleep deprivation associated with having a young baby) with family and friends. I felt particularly lucky that little Pippin was discharged from hospital with a clean bill of health well in time for Christmas Day.

Today is New Year's Day and I chose my first pot of tea for the day (and year and decade!) to celebrate something very important to me, which I've come to appreciate more and more over the last few months in particular: my Tea Friends.


This tea is a high mountain oolong sent to me by my friend Peichi, whom I met through Etsy when I adopted Lucky Pinky Dots (who will be making more appearances this year, I promise). Peichi sent the tea to me from California; she received it from her parents who sent it to her from Taiwan. Today I used up the last of it, feeling so lucky to have made such a kind friend on the other side of the world.

I recently finished reading 'Tea: Addiction, Exploitation and Empire' by Roy Moxham which left me with a feeling of great sadness at the bloody history of tea, its cultivation and consumption. It also left me with a sense of amazement at the power of these leaves to affect peoples' lives in so many diverse ways: commercially, spiritually, health-wise. It has affected mine in only positive ones, I'm pleased to say, and none is more important than the way it has inspired me to seek out others who share a love of tea.

I have connected with these wonderful people via their blogs, their tweets and their shops (and I thank my lucky stars for the interwebs every day too, of course - none of this would be possible without that!) and my life is so much richer for these connections. Thank you all for sharing tea with me throughout the past year. I'm looking forward very much to continuing to learn about, and even more importantly enjoy, tea with you all in the coming months.

Here's to tea and friendship in 2010!

The Nature of Tea

'Imagine the following: a Japanese tea master wishing to teach his student the importance of perception dashes a cup of tea to the ground, breaking the cup and spilling the tea. The tea master wished to illustrate the point that the broken cup was no longer a cup ... while the tea was still tea, immutable and unchanged. But as the tea could no longer be consumed without the cup to hold it, the true importance of the cup becomes clear. It is the empty space of the teacup that performs the most essential duty, one with greater importance than merely the fleeting beauty of a pleasing shape, fetching design, or lustrous glaze.'
-- The Story of Tea, p.294.

Quiet words to contemplate with a cup of tea

Go placidly amidst the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.

- Max Ehrmann, Desiderata

Words from The Book of Tea

'There is a subtle charm in the taste of tea... For Teaism is the art of concealing beauty that you may discover it, of suggesting what you dare not reveal.'

- Kakuzo Okakura, The Book of Tea, 1906.

Adventures in Gongfu Cha

The other night I decided to treat ymself to a gongfu cha session, just as an experiment. It's something I've been putting off - partly due to a lack of confidence, and partly due to a lack of time. However, after reading Hobbes' two very encouraging posts at The Half-Dipper (see here and here) on finding your own way with tea and not worrying about 'rules' or 'doing it right' - I thought I would give it a go.

Not having a hot-plate that I could put on the table to keep water heating near my tea session, nor a suitable kettle to use on one anyway, I realised it would be actually okay to walk to the

 kitchen and back, bringing fresh water with me in a teapot. Limiting preconception #1, gone - I was off to a good start!

I set up my little Yixing teapot, set of cups, and a bowl for waste water on the table. The noise of my electric kettle seems like it would be contrary to the soothing experience I was hoping for - so I decided to heat my water in our smallest saucepan on the gas stove in the kitchen. Much quieter and more restful, especially in the gathering dark, even though it takes a lot longer; but I wasn't in a hurry, was I?

The tea I chose for brewing was my Milky Oolong from Zensation, which I've only prepared at home once before; I have a stash of samples of Taiwanese oolong sitting in my cupboard, but my crisis of confidence was still lurking in the background, and I didn't feel like breaking out a completely new tea, yet.

The aroma of the dried Milky Oolong leaves was just as heady, floral and fragrant as I recalled - a good sign, I must have sealed the packet well last time. But what did I need to do to brew it - what were the vital steps again? Well, all my tea books had been packed away in preparation for the upcoming move - no recourse there. The internet? Frankly, I couldn't be bothered. I'd just give the brewing a go anyway - 'no rules', remember - and see what eventuated.

So: warm water into the Yixing and cups. Drain. Add the tea leaves. More hot water, pour it out straight away, to rinse and slightly unfurl the tightly-curled leaves. More hot water; steep time of about 2 minutes is recommended on the packet for the first infusion. Wait quietly; candles are flickering and it's pretty dark in here, but I don't want to turn on the overhead lights yet if I can avoid it. Pour the steeped tea into the waiting warmed teapot for serving, so it doesn't

 overbrew. I can't seem to pour from my Yixing without dribbling tea everywhere. Well, that's ok for now. A steaming stream of tea from the serving pot into the aroma cup; place the drinking cup on top of that, flip. I made that dribble too.  Never mind. Inhale the peachy, flowery aroma, then sip the sweet liquid from the tiny cup.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

I only made it through two infusions at this particular session - despite what some of my friends may believe, there IS a limit to how much tea I can drink in one go - but I was pleasantly surprised to find that the flavour of the first infusion carried over quite strongly into the second; I seem to recall that it dissipated fairly quickly last time. 

I was reluctant to discard the leaves after only two infusions though, so I filled the Yixing up with cold water a bit later, and set it in the fridge overnight to cold-brew a third - which rewarded me the next day with a stunning golden infusion, still rich in peach fragrance and flavour, extremely mellow and sweet.

This tea session was a valuable lesson in, if not quite 'beginner's mind', then something very like it anyway - and it was very liberating to remember that, really, the tea police are not going to come after you. The main thing is to make your tea, and enjoy it in the moment. Sure, there are ways to make the experience more enjoyable - I can't relish a cup of green tea that's been rendered burnt and bitter by water that's too hot - but if you get caught up in the desire to 'get it right', so much that you can't relax, or are too hesitant to even plunge in at all...? Time to let go.

Thanks to Hobbes for the timely reminder and inspiration.

Tea and Health?

I try not to read too much about the health benefits of tea. (Yes, I know I just wrote a couple of posts about how good ginger and chamomile are for you… and they ARE good for you… and so is regular tea, particularly of the green variety… but I don’t really think that my comments fall into the tea-vangelical category that many other tea-and-health postings on Camellia sinensis do.) As someone with a background in herbal medicine, who is also often stubbornly resistant (still) to taking Panadol for even the most blinding headache, I am fascinated by the capacity of plants to do us good.

Yet the most tea-vangelical of the tea-vangelists (and I may be thinking here about some of the lovely people at T Ching, who are clearly passionate about their tea, but sometimes a little obsessed; witness some of the comments posted to articles on their blog) often decry the practice of drinking black teas – particularly with milk, heaven help you – and portray green and white tea drinkers as the chosen few who will inherit the kingdom of good health… and woe to anyone who dares to touch a nice cup of English Breakfast with milk and a bit of sugar… (cue thunderclaps, lightning, and the howling of wolves)

Ok, so maybe that was a bit extreme, but truly, I find all this information a little bit depressing, which is why I tend to avoid it. I like my black teas (with milk, depending on the kind) equally as much as my greens and whites and oolongs, and nothing spoils enjoyment of something so much as being told that it isn’t good for you. Well, nothing spoils my enjoyment more, anyway; I imagine there are some quirky perverse spirits out there who would revel in such information and indulge with all the more relish in the ‘guilty’ pleasure.

I can certainly see why adding milk to black tea (or any tea, mind you, though that would largely be yukky instead of potentially delicious) may inhibit its health benefits: tea derives many of its healthful properties from flavonoids which, as I understand it from my herbal medicine classes, are bound by proteins (such as those in milk) and rendered less active. But honestly, so what? There are many many other sources of health-giving plant nutrients in the world, and so long as you’re consuming a variety of them I don’t think anyone should be too fussed about their tea consumption, of whatever sort.

There are also vast differences between an infusion of a plant, which is drunk, and the individual constituents of that plant extracted in a laboratory and then concentrated, made into creams and applied topically, or sold as tablets to be taken. MarshalN makes this point beautifully in a recent post at his Tea Addict’s Journal. What’s more, there are oodles of other reasons to drink tea of all kinds, completely apart from any health benefits that might accrue to you: it’s warming or cooling, depending on the type and how it’s brewed; it’s refreshing and thirst-quenching; it can be a pleasant social ritual or a soothing quiet time on one’s own; and it comes in so many myriad shapes, colours and flavours that you could probably spend the rest of your life exploring them. I certainly intend to…

A couple of random tea notes

Some of you may remember that a while back I wrote about making some Earl Grey tea-soaked prunes. I can safely report that they are delicious! The overall flavour is more subtle than the Nigella Lawson ones that I’ve also made, but that’s mainly because there just is less stuff in this version, plus there’s no added sugar or alcohol. They’re a really nice addition to breakfast but they would also be lovely served with a dessert of some kind, even just the liquid would be great poured over some ice cream or something like that. Once I’ve worked my way through this jar I think I’ll make another… perhaps with orange rind instead of lemon rind, and a few added spices. Lightbulb moment: this could be a good addition to our Christmas hampers this year!

My brother has very kindly pointed me in the direction of an essay written by George Orwell (originally published in 1946) entitled ‘A Nice Cup of Tea’ (and what more enticing heading could there be, I ask you?). In this article Orwell outlines his personal rules for making tea – noting that some of them are controversial. I particularly agree with his assertion that one should always drink tea out of a cylindrical cup rather than a wide flat one, because the latter makes the tea get cold too quickly – and, at the risk of entering a highly-charged debate, I also will come down on the side of putting the tea into the cup and adding milk, rather than the other way around; it’s just too hard to judge the right amount of milk if you put it in first!

I confess I am also intrigued by Orwell’s passing reference to ‘sweeping the carpet’ as a ‘subsidiary use for tealeaves’… what on earth does this mean? The rest of the items on this list make sense, but that one is a mystery to me. Anyone who can answer my question, please feel free to post in the comments…

Tea and Time?

Apologies for the two-week silence; I have been rather busy and had a number of things on my mind that are not tea! Almost inconceivable I know. I hope to make up for my laxness over the next few days.

Excitingly, I finally received the book I ordered from Amazon – The Story of Tea by Mary Lou and Robert Heiss. I have only briefly glanced through it, because as I say I have been busy and I want to be able to settle down with it –and a nice cup of tea of course – quietly at a time when I can devote plenty of attention to it. Additionally, being a moderately bulky hardback it does not lend itself to easy carrying around!

As a matter of some desperation due to being at extended periods of work-related training with no access to decent tea, I have been using quite a few tea bags over the last couple of weeks. Now in my weekly perusal of other blogs I read a lot about how tea is about slowing down and relaxing and that this can best be achieved by brewing your tea properly in a teapot, etc. I suppose I hadn’t really thought much about this per se, as I usually brew my tea in a teapot anyway, but using so many tea bags did cause me to stop and reflect a little bit about the differences between methods. Below follow a few mixed ramblings about tea, time and how they interrelate, at least for me.

If I am brewing my tea with a teabag in a mug or cup, I am impatient. I know that teabag tea such as Twinings or Liptons is so finely ground that it infuses more quickly than loose leaf tea (even a fine cut one like a CTC or a BOP). Even so I want to hurry. 30 seconds seems too long to wait, even when I know that 2-3 minutes will produce a better (relatively speaking) cup of tea. I still feel the need to hurry even when I am using a high quality teabag with full leaf inside, like those from T2.

However, if I am brewing my teabags in a teapot, as I occasionally have cause to do, I am not so rushed. I am able to let it steep for the required length of time without feeling the need to hurry up the process. Teapots equate to a quieter brewing spirit.

When it comes to drinking, though, I find that if I brew from a teabag in a mug, I often burn my mouth when I take my first sip. The tea is too hot, because the water has come straight from the kettle into the cup, and thence into my mouth only a couple of minutes later. Tea from a teapot tends to be a better drinking temperature, even if I have warmed the pot properly before brewing, because it has had a bit longer to sit and cool. Consequently, I can sometimes gulp down teapot-brewed tea in a most hasty fashion, whereas self-preservation means I must take my time over the mug brew.

This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. If anyone else has any thoughts about tea and time, do post them in the comments. I would love to hear from you!

Tea thought of the day

‘There must come a time when we have learned enough about the kinds of tea and the ways they are processed. We also know a lot about how to brew tea: what amount to put it, what temperature water to use, etc. At that point, the wise person realises that the only aspect of the tea left to improve, at the end of the day, is him or herself.’ – Vegetable Tea, by Thomas Leons, in The Leaf, Issue 3 (www.the-leaf.org)

Musings on tea

I have recently been following a thread on Teamail which kicked off with a member posting about her experience at a tearoom (somewhere in the US, I think) which expected visitors to ‘dress up’ – not just in the sense of wearing your nicest clothes and doing your hair and make-up, and looking all pretty, but of literally dressing up in clothes provided by the tearoom: hats, feather boas, gloves etc. Now this sounds extremely odd to me, but apparently it’s something that some tearooms go in for. The person who started the Teamail thread was not enthused at the idea and the thread kind of segued into bit of a discussion of what it meant or should mean to go out for tea and what makes the experience ‘special’.

So this set me to wondering the other night, what is it about tea that appeals to me?

I think the answer to this is multifaceted, and depends very much on the kind of tea that I’m drinking.

If I’m drinking something like gyokuro or Buddha’s Tears or oolong, or a beautiful first-flush Darjeeling, there’s the excitement of having something so exotic and rare (relatively speaking) in close proximity to me, literally in my hands. There’s the thrill of knowing that this tea has come from such a long way away, and that so much care and so much traditional knowledge has gone into growing and crafting it, especially if we’re talking about something like a bouquet tea ball or any of the other fine hand-made teas.

In the case of Chinese and Japanese teas as well, there’s also the link with the Way of Tea and the philosophies underlying the traditional practices of drinking tea. Not that I go in for gong fu-style or chanoyu in any kind of a big way (although it would be exciting to learn them), but there’s a special kind of pleasure in standing at the stove on a quiet cold morning, when I’m the only one awake in the house and it’s grey outside, heating water and watching it boil, listening to the soft sounds of it pouring from the saucepan into the teapot, and sitting down to drink the tea with nothing else to distract me…

And of course there’s that particular kind of comfort which comes from just a good plain old cup of black tea with milk and a bit of sugar, or alternatively from chai masala, and the way it warms you up and fills you up – especially in the early evening after work, and especially in the cold weather we’re having right now. Not to mention the nostalgia – at several times removed from my generation, obviously, but nostalgia nonetheless – for an old-fashioned English afternoon tea; a kind of longing for ritual which I suppose is what the people who run and patronise the dress-up tearooms are looking to fill…

Herbals teas almost always seem less exotic to me, much as I love them (although it depends a bit on what the herb is – a beautifully put-together blend which I’ve purchased will always seem a bit more special than just slinging some chamomile into the pot, even if the chamomile is organic and comes from Egypt, which I think most of mine does). But I love the colours and scents and shapes of them, I love the fact that they can heal so powerfully, and I love the fact that you can grow them in your own backyard if you want to (not something you can do with Camellia sinensis!).

What makes tea special for you?

The Proper Use of Tea

What does it mean to drink tea ‘properly’? As I mentioned yesterday this is a question which has been occupying me for some time. I have read Tea Life, Tea Mind and am currently reading The Book of Tea by Okakura Kakuzo, both of which discuss Teaism or Cha Dao as a Zen practice.

I find this both inspiring and intimidating – and I’m probably not alone, I suppose. Why else would it take years to become practised in the arts of Zen and tea?

Questions (I’m hoping I’m not the only lunatic who actually goes around wondering about these things…):
* Is it acceptable to drink tea while you’re doing something else?
* If I boil water in a kettle, is that bad? The alternative is a saucepan on the stove (which is what I use if I’m heating water for a tea that need a lower temperature, like a green or white tea; while practical, I can’t help but feel it lacks finesse).
* But should I stand there and watch it the whole time, or can I leave it (or, with less potential for disaster, the kettle) and run around the house hanging up washing or making my lunch?
* Can I drink tea at my desk at work?
* For that matter, can I drink water or eat an apple at my desk at work while I’m doing something else – because the whole point is (as I understand it) that Zen is about mindfulness and being in the moment whatever you’re doing. So there is not much worth in only applying that mindfulness to tea and not to the way I live the rest of my life.

(Feel free to correct me if I am not getting this right. I want to learn.)

I want to be able to enjoy tea, many times during the day. I feel that richer, deeper enjoyment will come from mindfulness, so I will do my best to cultivate that. But refusing to allow myself to drink tea in situations when I can’t be fully mindful will probably be counter-productive… I want to ‘do tea right’ but I don’t want it to become about rules and regulations.

The other day I was comforted to read, in the wonderful online magazine The Leaf , an article by Thomas Leons entitled ‘The Conscientious Tea Consumer’. In this article Leons emphasises the importance of trying different styles of tea for oneself – forming one’s own judgements but always listening with respect and an open heart to the recommendations of others. There is no one Way!

I don’t have the book to hand right now, so I am remembering this off the top of my head, but I think that Okakura Kakuzo said in The Book of Tea that Teaism is the worship of the Imperfect. I will try and hold this thought in my heart.