The World's Special Tea

How early can one get into tea? And how might one go about it?

I'm sure there's no need to encourage a child. If you're seen drinking tea, eventually the small person is going to ask for a sip of that steaming hot beverage. It's inevitable, right? Earlier this year, I had tea with my niece and wrote about it in:

tea party with Amelia

But I stand by my initial thought on this. I have no qualms about a child having a sip of my tea but if a child isn't accustomed to tea, I'd start with an herbal blend. It just seems like the more natural introduction. 


Still, I wondered then what I'd say if she wanted to know about the history of tea. How did people start drinking tea? for example. Or Why does your tea have such funny names?


So imagine my surprise when Jo Johnson asked if I'd like to see a book she'd written that specifically introduced tea to children. I enjoy tea samples and receive my share of them, but I think my writing about tea books has (correctly) led people to believe I'm as interested in tea writing. In case it wasn't completely clear, I'll say right now: I love tea books. They're good for the teablog, they encourage conversation about tea, and finally they're books. One of my weaknesses.


The book is called The World's Special Tea, and it's exactly what I'd want to have had in order to introduce Amelia to tea. It tells the history of tea from it's earliest Chinese origins through Japan and on to Europe. There's a brief explanation of the Boston Tea Party, as well as the English replanting of Chinese tea seeds in India. 


The book tells about the Camellia sinensis plant, from which all tea is made, and even mentions herbal or Tisane without getting mired in a discussion about what is and isn't tea. I like that. I've mentioned it here before: although I understand the hard-line position that we should only refer to tea as that which comes from the tea plant, I find it's often pedantic and nit-picky. With an adult, I might get into a discussion about this topic, but with a child? A Tisane is tea.

beautiful gift packaging 

And the best part? The book comes with it's own special tea for children (hence the name). Exactly the sort of thing I wanted for Amelia when I served her tea. An herbal blend with a mixture of Rooibus, bits of apple and ginger, as well as orange peels and cinnamon among other things. 


Would I drink this tea? If I were drinking tea with Amelia, I'd drink it happily. Although I rarely think to myself, 'I want some delicious tea,' and then reach for an herbal blend, that's not the point here. Having said all that, I did brew up The World's Special Tea and I could taste many of the flavours that were described in the ingredients. 


Most importantly, this is an inventive answer to my original question: What would I serve a child who was interested in tea? There's a bit in the book about planning a tea party. Not so sure how well I'd manage that one, but I might give it a try. 


The book itself? The World's Special Tea? I can definitely recommend it. Happily.

tea awakening in the Chicago Tea Garden

Chicago Tea Garden

Several weeks ago, one of my non-teadrinker friends, who happens to live in Chicago, had signed up for a tea tasting at Chicago Tea Garden. My ears perked up and because I write this teablog partially for the tea newcomer and the tea curious, I asked Sue (@sepilipa) if she'd take a notebook along with her to the tea tasting and record her impressions. Sue, being the eager scientist that she is, quickly agreed. For the sake of science. And my teablog.

So because of her diligence, I can essentially mail it in today. Or cut and paste. Thanks Sue. First of all, here's the inside of Chicago Tea Garden:

Here's what she had to say:
First let me say my expectation was that Tony (Gebely) would be a much older guy, but he's probably younger than I am. He was very welcoming to my friend and me and to the other group of five ladies that attended (they were together). His shop is small but cute and his table was set up so there were essentially two groups; one on either side of the center where he worked. The people were all tea novices and there were no mr-know-it-alls in the group, so everyone was comfortable and friendly.

Tony worked on a tea table and had us use a snifter cup for each tea. He gave us basic tea information as he went along and was quite knowledgeable. He told us what plant tea comes from (Camellia sinensis) and told us that everything that does not come from this plant is NOT tea (I didn't know that). 

He briefly described the leaf and anything significant about it each time we started a new tea (ie, white tea smells very floral because it's withered a long time, oolong leaves are bruised and have 15 processing steps, black is fully oxidized, etc). Overall, it was a very pleasant experience. My friend and I had a very good time and learned a lot....well, relatively speaking, of course.

Below are the 7 teas we tasted. 

1. 

Name: Wu yu 

Type: green

Notes: used a gaiwan to serve

1st steeping @ 175F; tasted a bit like dusty spinach to me. 

2nd steeping @175; a little less dusty tasting but I still didn't love it. 

2. 

Name: Silver Needle

Type: white

Notes: kinda furry,  used a gaiwan to serve

1st steeping @ 175F; light and feathery, not a strong flavor but enough of a flavor to keep me interested. This one was my favorite of the whole bunch. 

3.

Name: Tie Guan Yin (Iron Goddess of Mercy)

Type: oolong

Notes: rolled into little balls, used unglazed clay pots to serve

1st steeping @ 190F for 45 seconds; smelled a bit like a root vegetable; I could barely taste it.

2nd steeping @190F for 45 seconds;; felt "meh" about it.

4.

Name: Mi Xiang (honey orchid flavor)

Type: oolong

Notes: rolled long ways, used unglazed clay pots to serve

1st steeping @ 190 for 45 seconds; darker in color, tasted a bit earthy

2nd steeping @190 for 45 seconds; more flavorful. I definitely like the second steeping better than the first.

5.

Name: Golden Bi Luo (tiny snails)

Type: black

Notes: hand rolled into snail shapes,  used a gaiwan to serve

1st steeping @195F  (instructed not to steep longer than a minute or the tea would be bitter); smelled ricey to me but Tony said "malty vanilla finish".

2nd steeping @ 195F ; sweeter and smoother taste, a nice strong flavor. I liked the second steeping better.

 6.

Name: Chrysanthemum Toucha

Type: pu-erh

Notes: bird nest shaped; Tony said it makes a good cold brew,  used a gaiwan to serve

1st steeping @ 208C for 45 sec to 1 min; Very dark. Tasted like a forest floor. A comment was made from one of the other attendants that it was like "licking the bark of a tree". I did not care for this tea at all. He made another one that was even darker and more disgusting but I didn't write down it's name.

7.

Name: Yue Guang Bai (moonlight)

Type: white

Notes: Hmm. curiously I didn't make one single note about this one except it's name and type. I don't know why.

1st and 2nd steeping @ 175F for 1 minute

Really nice descriptions for a tea novice, don't you think? I think Sue did an excellent job. Although she's still a coffee drinker with a healthy curiosity about tea, I wonder how long it might take us to lure her over to the leaf-side. Thank you again my Cubs-loving, bicycling, outsdoorsy friend.

Tony Gebely and our staff tea reviewer

hear the call of Lörelei

Quite a lot has been written lately about pure tea.  Camellia Sinensis.  And that's all.

I've asked before why it seems like French tea shops have so many flavoured teas, and on a number of occasions in the last several weeks I've heard someone say that Germany is a source for a lot of the flavours that're used in these teas.  I don't have any data to support that, but in this case I'd rather just bring up the topic.

Many shops offer a great variety of both flavoured and pure tea.  If I were a shop owner and I knew that my customers liked Caramel Rooibus, I'd stock it and sell it happily.  The same goes for any of the other flavoured teas that're available.

But me?  I steer clear of the stuff.  I drank Earl Grey years ago, but have weaned myself of that Bergamot-soaked concoction.  Actually, I just slowly got tired of the taste.  Became more interested in tasting the leaf and nothing but the leaf.

The funny thing is that I see a lot of flavoured tea being reviewed, sold, talked about...I'm still open to try the stuff.  Bergamot comes from oranges.  It's not as if it's an unnatural substance.  I've heard that there are noticeable gradations.  That someone attuned to it can tell if poor quality Bergamot oil was used.  I can believe that.

I don't want to have to drink enough Earl Grey again in order to learn that distinction.  There are plenty of tea drinkers/reviewers who actually like drinking it.  I'll leave that experience to them.

But I am still curious about curious about the flavoured tea I see here and there.  When Xavier came to visit this summer, he brought a curious package of a tea from Le Palais des Thés that I would've never bought for myself.  It's called Lörelei, and here's what they're website says about it:

Lörelei

'The warmth of cinnamon, the mild sweetness of vanilla and the subtlety of almonds.'  To some, including me, that'd normally be something to be avoided.  Pure tea for me, please.

But a funny thing happened when I tried it.  It wasn't so bad.  It's a nice change.  I've served it as a dessert tea, and it's been rather well received.

I still worry that any flavoured tea is using the flavour to cover up subpar tea.  That's a concern, right?  But this helps my resolve to stay open to these things I'd normally turn up my nose at.

Doesn't mean I'm going to go out of my way to drink more Earl Grey.  I've had more than my share of that.

Camellia sinensis-fueled

For those of you waiting on the edge of your seats, the tea tasting went rather well. I waited until people arrived before I even opened the vacuum-packed sacks of tea, and as a result I experienced the tea for the first time during the tasting. There were advantages and disadvantages to that, but I'm sure I'd do it the same way again.

The disadvantage was that I couldn't easily be the impartial observer. I was right in there as one of the guinea pigs being introduced to five new teas in one sitting. Not complaining. Far from it. The thing is that my attention was split between assessing the qualities of the tea and making the others' tasting experience as pleasurable as possible.

So I'll give you a quick overview of the teas right now, and then over the next few days or weeks I'll go back and try these different teas. In the stillness I'll be sure to get a better understanding/description of each one.

Caroline showed up first, and we always seem to have twice as many stories to tell each other than we have time for. As a result, she gets through half of a tale before I've interrupted her with half of one of my tales. It means that we often say goodbye at the end of meeting each other promising to pick up where we left off. This event was no exception. Caroline briefly told most of the story about how she got into tea. She's not much for black tea at all, so I opted for starting with the Kangra Oolong.

It wasn't new to Caroline that in some Asian cultures the first Oolong steeping is poured out in honour of one's ancestors. We joked about not wasting tea, and it's a good thing we didn't discard it because that first pot smelled too good. It tasted a bit light/unremarkable, which is why I want to go back and experiment with this tea in the near future. We did brew it a second time, but that was later in the tasting.

By then Monique and Peter arrived and I was eager to brew the Gopaldhara 2nd flush. I'm partial to these darker Darjeelings, and I wasn't disappointed. As I was pouring it, a few people admitted that they didn't normally drink much black tea. Immediately after my assurances that Darjeeling isn't typical black tea, they had a few sips and were convinced.

Monique and Peter

At about this time Caroline had to go, but Jarrod arrived and took her seat. The discussion veered toward the appearance of the leaves and the Grade specifications of Darjeeling. For example, this Gopaldhara 2nd flush is a FTGFOP, which stand for Fine Tippy Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe. Everyone was impressed with this tea, but I'd spent so much time talking about the differences between 1st, 2nd and Autumnal flushes that they were eager to move on to the next victim.

As long as we were speaking German, we had no problem with talking about the teas that were plucked most recently right after the rainy season. But as soon as I started saying 'autumnal', we got lost in a fit of giggles. They all knew the word autumn of course, but I have no idea why they thought 'autumnal' was so urkommisch. But they did. The Castleton Autumnal was also one I enjoyed, but didn't get much response from the others. There were no negative comments, but I seemed to be the only one who wanted to wax rhapsodic about its merits.

It was around then that we digressed entirely away from talking about tea. We kept drinking, but the conversation had a life of its own. It was really enjoyable, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the excellent tea was somehow responsible. As I served the Gopaldhara green, Peter told us stories of hitchhiking in the United States. At some point we got into a rather heated debate about how many grams were in a scoop of tea, so we had to get out the scale and compare the weight of the black and Oolong teas. When I think about how much tea and non-tea ground we covered in a few short hours, I'm amazed.

After a second steeping of the Oolong that we'd started with, I brewed the final tea. It was a Goomtee Pre Autumnal flush and the others were really taken by it. I thought the cup colour was much darker, but the taste wasn't nearly as complex as the other black tea we tried. It wasn't bad. Not at all. And maybe when I drink it on its own, I'll see it for its strengths. Like I said, I'll go back through these teas again in the near future and give them a more careful taste.

The whole ordeal was rather enjoyable. The best parts of it were the parts that could never be planned. The conversation was unquestionably Camellia sinensis-fueled. The company was exceptional, and I'd happily have any of these people over again and again.

Tea with Charles de Gaulle

I have heard your views. They do not harmonize with mine. The decision is taken unanimously.
Charles de Gaulle

Imagine you have the opportunity to share tea with any historical figure, as long as that person is Charles de Gaulle. What kind of tea would he drink? Let's say to make this interesting that he's agreed to tea but insists on Earl Grey. Oh, I can already tell this one's going to hurt.

But dear Monsieur de Gaulle, the Bergamot oil just masks the true taste of the tea. Whoever tended the Camellia sinensis plant and processed the leaves and sent it all this way for us to enjoy, probably wanted us to be able to taste the actual leaf. The delicate balance of either malty or flowery goodness. Although the oil might be the best of its kind, it's still interfering with our ability to actually taste the tea.

Here's where in my imagination Charles de Gaulle politely responds, 'I drink my tea with so much cream and sugar that with or without Bergamot oil, you can't really taste which tea it is. That's how I like it and that's how we're going to drink it. After all, you have invited me to tea, and that's the only way I know.'

Uh...ok. Milky, sweet Earl Grey it is. No-one said this'd be easy.

All Saints' Day? Why not pack some tea?

The first of November is All Saints' Day. Or All Hallows...or I'm sure there are other names for it. It's a national holiday in Germany, and the day when people go to their relatives' gravesite(s). Germans typically take excellent care of a gravesite throughout the year, but All Saints' (what they call Allerheiligen) is when they outdo themselves. Only the best fresh flower arrangements and candles.

This might seem like an unwanted or even unnecessary piece of advice. If I were going to spend considerable time on my day off in the cemetery, I'd definitely pack a thermos of tea. I wouldn't do anything symbolic like pour a bit of tea on the grave. At least I hope I wouldn't.

But accompanied by enough boiling hot Camellia sinensis, I'd be less likely to rush the whole procedure. Imagine sitting on a bench near the gravestone, and quietly pouring cup after cup of tea. If there is in fact any connection with the eternal soul of the person buried there, and I won't even begin to speculate on that one, then won't the whole experience be better if you're not thirsty? Or even a bit cold?

I'm not being glib. This really is where my thoughts brought me today, as I imagined people trudging off to pay their respects.

And if you're sitting there staring at a Jack o' Lantern filled with Halloween candy that you'd rather not devour all at one sitting? Yep. A nice pot of tea will slow that one down, as well.

Where did Darjeeling tea come from?

In my last post I talked about the two places where Camellia sinensis originated, and quickly admitted that I didn't know the origin of Darjeeling tea. Seems like a good place to continue, doesn't it?

So I did the barest minimum of research, and happened upon this site:

http://www1.american.edu/ted/darjeeling.htm

Almost seems like this was a lark by the fellow named Campbell who was a civil surgeon (what is that exactly?), but then it says that the government had already elected to set up tea gardens here. In the middle of the nineteenth century, this mountainous region at the foot of the Himalayas went from having no tea plantations to being practically overrun by them.

What I still don't understand is where the strain of tea came from. Did the earliest tea planters in Darjeeling simply plant tea from Assam, and is the light, delicious, floral result merely because of the soil and spirit of Darjeeling?

My intention was to not only search Wikipedia, but then at the bottom of the above-mentioned page, it directed me back to Wikipedia.

Will continue to research the origins of Darjeeling and let you know my results as I find them.

the Indian Princess Camellia

There are two places that the Camellia sinensis plant occurred in the wild: China and India (Darjeeling is an entirely different strain, and I don't know where it came from). Just read a few pages from Pratt's Tea Lover's Treasury, and he talks at length about the trials and tribulations of developing the Assam strain of tea until it was viable. One of the things they did was to try to make a hybrid of the two strains, but with horrible results. On page 89, he includes a passage from the 'fanciful' J. M. Scott which describes this unfortunate chapter in the history of tea:


You have read the romantic story of how the Indian Princess Camellia (her other name as yet unknown) was found blushing, unscientifically recognized, in the wild jungles of Assam, of how emissaries went forth and searched through China for a prince of the highest lineage who would share her modest realm and thus raise her in the eyes of the world. Prince after prince languished after leaving China, died and had to be replaced. But the ultimate survivors perked up most surprisingly and impregnated all the native plants within reach. There is no cure for hybridization except extermination. And the experts are now convinced that the simple Indian plant was of much the better class. The Chinese princeling, no good away from home, weakened her pure, strong blood. She could travel, but not he. The couple will certainly live happily ever after in their vegetable way. No one can stop them. But those financially interested continue even now to describe this marriage arranged with such difficulty and final triumph as the curse of the Tea Industry.

Now this is something I'd never heard of. This attempt to make a hybrid of the two strains of tea. And is it true that Chinese tea strains don't travel well? I find that hard to believe. Of the up and coming tea plantations in the New World, haven't any successfully grown strains of Chinese/Japanese green teas?

But I do like the idea of telling the story as if the strains of tea were different royal families. Very nice.

I've said it before that it seems like most tea fanatics are more obsessed with Chinese/Japanese teas. Sometimes I think that's for sometime in my future. I drink a lot of green teas, but something still intrigues me about Indian black teas. At some point I might graduate from this obsession, but I hope it doesn't happen anytime soon.

Irish breakfast?

Remembered a funny story about an illegal after hours bar that I used to go to, and it has a funny connection to tea.

Am not going to mention the name of the place or in what city it was located for reasons that'll immediately become evident, but I actually have no idea if the place still exists.

Not sure if the place had a liquor license, and they'd only do this for after hours drinkers. If you'd already drunk until the bar closed elsewhere and weren't yet ready to call it a night, you could go to this above-unnamed place and order an 'Irish Breakfast tea', and they'd bring you a big mug of Guinness.

Now that I look back on it, there're a few obvious questions that come to mind that never occurred to me then. The first thing is: why Irish Breakfast? Guinness-Ireland. Yeah, I get that.

But secondly: what would happen if someone really wanted such a tea that late at night? Not someone just trying to elongate his buzz, but someone in the mood for a bit of highly caffeinated Camellia sinensis . How shocked might he be when his first sip of brew turned out to be that dark syrupy Stout? Another brew entirely.

Not much of a teapost tonight, but peripherally involved. A bit of a stretch? Yeah, maybe.

What's the point of fruit tea?

You'll have to excuse me for being a bit down this evening, and that's partly why I'm mailing it in. Have done my best to not write too much about the football here over the last several weeks, and tonight I'll simply say that Spain was a far better team than anyone Germany had seen thus far in the tournament. The better team definitely won tonight, and I hope the Final is as exciting as this Semi-final was.

You're going to have to excuse this blogpost tonight. I just don't have it in me to be inventive or entertaining after the emotions that've been spilled on my floor while watching that match.

My mother's been in Germany for a week, and spent the last few days in Oberammergau where she saw the Passion Play (Yes, the one that's caused so much controversy about Anti-Semitism over the years). She returned to Munich today with some fruit tea from Upper Bavaria. I was happy to prepare it for her, but had no intention of drinking the stuff.

I did look at the *tea* though. Poured it out on the counter and looked at the leaves, even though they're not really leaves per se. I've dealt with the what is/isn't tea on this blog before. I know fruit tea isn't considered real tea by purists, but I use the term infusion when I talk about multiple steepings. Even though I prefer tea from the Camellia sinensis plant, I don't have any qualms about calling other things tea. Within reason. I'm not going to go into what I don't consider tea. Just thinking about that topic makes me sleepier than I already was.

Here's my thing about fruit tea, though. The un-steeped tea looked delicious...really fresh, delicious fruit. But then I steeped it, served it to my mom, and had a cup so I could tell you about it. No matter how good the quality of the dried Hibiscus leaves, various dried berries and unspecified aroma were, the fruit tea really didn't taste any different from the most generic supermarket bagged tea. There was just no noticeable difference.

The more delicate my taste gets, the more excited I get when I can try something new and compare it. This was not worth the anticipation. Fruit tea. What the hell's the point?

Tomorrow, we're off to Vienna. You might only think of coffee when thinking of Vienna, but I assure you that there's a tea drinking culture there. I intend to write plenty about it the next several days. Something to look forward to, eh? Hope you stick around.

What exactly is and isn't tea?

This has happened a few times in the last several days, so I must talk about it. We’ve somehow come upon the subject of tea, and someone mentions peppermint tea or fruit tea or herbal even. Those aren’t tea. They’re not. Some people respond better to my position than others. Let me just say what I’ve said before. This blog isn’t for tea fanatics who already agree with what I’m about to say. The people I’m writing this blog for are the people who’re curious about tea.

Maybe you don’t care about the question “What constitutes tea?” For you, peppermint tea is tea and that’s all you need. I have no problem with that. None. Personally, I really love what you’d probably call Rooibus tea. Made from a red bush. Grown in South Africa, I think. Especially when I have a cold, I drink it with lots of honey. Doesn’t make it tea.

Tea is any beverage that comes from the Camellia sinensis plant. Basta. Anything else is what I’d call an infusion. I’m not a jerk about this. When I order a Rooibus in a tea shop, I don’t stubbornly say ‘infusion’ rather than ‘tea’. But because I’ve been confronted with this several times lately, I wanted to talk about it.

So, I asked the people I was with yesterday, who insisted peppermint tea was tea, what six varieties of tea there are. This is when red bush tea and herbal tea and a variety of others were mentioned. ‘Not tea,’ I said. So I gave them a bit of a push and said. ‘One category is black.’

‘Oh, now we get it,’ you could see them saying to themselves. So they knew white and black and green tea, but got caught up on the Oolong (or sometimes WuLang). I didn’t even mention yellow or Pu-erh. One of them even knew the word oxidation when we were discussing the difference between the varieties.

Here’s the run down (the order of categories of tea according to the amount of processing): white, yellow, green, Oolong, and black. In that order. Pu-erh is in it’s own category. It’s fermented. In another post, if you’re interested, I’ll talk about the differences.

Hope this wasn’t boring. More ridiculous stories soon.