tea weirdos

This has been quite a weekend with the beginning of the World Cup, but I can't keep writing about that everyday. As a matter of fact, I think I've exhausted the 'What sort of tea would I give each player' schtick. It's getting a bit tired, eh?

Lately, there's been quite a bit of talk at tea websites such as LeafBoxTea about winning people over to tea. This weekend there's a big tea thing going on in Las Vegas, and the rumblings are that tea needs to be better portrayed to the public. I'm reading people's tweets about the old, tired cliches about tea and tea drinkers, and what must be done to rebrand the whole product. The whole industry.

I think you're going to see me talking more and more about that here. On the one hand, you have this vision of the aged sitting around eating biscuits and talking in hushed tones. I've already talked about the funny assumption that some people have when you're drinking tea that you must be ill. Some would never fathom getting down a cup of tea without being under the weather. I imagine those people with a few boxes of herbal tea in the cupboard that are perpetually getting dusty.

So, we don't like the well-worn picture of a doddering tea drinker. Or we think it's inaccurate considering we know so many active and vibrant tea drinkers. What do we want then? How should tea be seen? Tea drinkers?

There's something Alex Zorach has said on his blog that I like a lot, which explains a bit why tea sometimes confounds. The more varieties of tea you drink, the more likely it is that your palate will change. I've certainly seen it with my development. Multiple infusions of decent Oolong and green teas can bring out tastes that I used to read about but never really comprehend.

Does this mean that one has to become a tea-weirdo to actually get what we're talking about here and on so many other sites that cater to tea obsessives? To a degree, I believe it's rather pointless to try and market tea to the masses. Not because they can't get it. More because they wouldn't want it.

I'm also well aware that there are multitudes of tea drinkers out there who would never consider loose-leaf tea. They've always been happy with their PG Tips and they likely always will. It's a reliable blend. Why not?

That's it for me tonight. I really do invite your comments on this one. Am curious where you see us going.

Tea for the Island Monkeys and the Ostensibly Free

Tonight England and the US meet in their opening game of the 2010 World Cup. If you're in America, you've likely already heard that this is a huge match. If you're English, you'll only consider this match important if somehow the Americans prevail, which is rather unlikely.

The American press is playing this up as if these are two equal sides...or at least nearly equal. This is more than a little presumptuous. The American side is very good. And by New World standards, it's truly a good team. Well coached, well conditioned.

But it's not England. This isn't even a particularly great English side. The Americans could catch the English unaware. As I say, unlikely, but in football/soccer anything could happen.

I plan to be as supportive as I can while watching this match. If I see a player doing something bone-headed, I'll offer him an embarrassing tea. Whether he plays for the Island Monkeys (as the Germans call the English) or for the Land of the (ostensibly) free/home of the (questionably) brave, I will be as even-handed as possible. Or at least I'll try.

I'll start out with the managers before the match has even started. Fabio Capello has his hands full. From me, he'll get a good sturdy Assam Greenwood and I'm sure he'll drink it black or with a bit of sugar. I wonder if he's become a tea drinker while in the employ of the three lions. If he hasn't, this Assam Greenwood is a good gateway tea. Really good.

The US coach thinks tea is for when you're ill, and even then he won't drink it. I'll serve him one of those huge Arizona Iced Teas in a glass bottle. There's enough sugar in there that you can't really taste any actual tea.

Gerrard scored very very early. For that, he gets a Ceylon Bop Uva. One of the nicest Ceylons I know. Heskey almost took the American Goal-keeper out of the game with a very brutal slide. I accept he was playing the ball, but it was a bit too aggressive for my taste. Earl Grey for Heskey.

Dempsey just made shockingly unexpected goal (the English keeper, Green, made a horrible play). For the equalizer, Dempsey gets a Darjeeling Gielle. For the mistake, Green gets a nondescript used tea bag.

Bocanegra almost headed one in on a set piece. Donovan kicked it in from the corner. For that near-goal, both Donovan and Bocanegra get a cup of Dung-ti Oolong each.

Green stopped a near goal from Altidore and for his trouble, he can lose the teabag I gave him and have a true cup of Assam Greenwood like his manager before him.

Now we're in the 89th minute, and it looks like it just might end a 1:1 draw. I'm not making any more tea for anyone until someone shows a bit of passion...

Well it ended at one goal a piece. You lot can all go drink coffee. Hope the matches tomorrow are more interesting than today's.

Don't destroy your green tea!

Regularly, I assess how this blog lark is going and have been candid about what is and isn't going well. I've also been rather clear about the weak spots in my knowledge and what I most like to focus on here.

When I imagine who I'm specifically writing to, it's rarely the tea experts whose sites I love to read. I often finish reading one of their posts very aware that they've not only been into tea far longer than I, but have a breadth of knowledge that I can't even aspire to. Not yet anyway. Possibly never.

I want this to be a place where people want to come to find out about tea, but not be made to feel ignorant. Because I've purposely reached out to people new to tea, I get really good questions. Questions that I'm sure others have, but don't want to ask. For whatever reasons.

The one I've heard lately has to do with Oolong, green and white teas. First of all, are these teas an acquired taste? Also, do you prepare these teas similarly to the way you make black tea?

I'll answer the second question first. Black tea needs to be steeped in boiling water. The pot needs to be preheated, so the water temperature doesn't drop dramatically when you pour it into a cold pot. If you do that with green/white tea, you'll destroy it. The taste of the tea will truly suffer. Because these teas are so sensitive, they should be made with water that's not quite boiling.

I use a thermometer and aim for 80° C/175° F when I make any of these non-black teas. Although it's not in any way scientific, a simpler way to do it is to either stop your kettle right before the water boils, or to even pour boiling water into your pot and then half a glass of cold water in on top of it. In my opinion, the most important thing is that the water isn't as drastically hot. The method definitely works in a pinch.

What about steeping times? Everyone figures it out for himself/herself, but you can find good estimates on tea sites. I personally steep most green teas for about 3 1/2 minutes the first time round and then closer to 4-4 1/2 minutes on the second infusion.

And as for the first question: it really depends upon the specific tea whether you have to acquire a taste for it. I think white teas are relatively easy to take to because they're terribly light. As for greens, Asiatic Fox talks about a Chinese word that means 'good bitterness' that's often used in describing a tea's bite. I think if you're not yet used to that 'good bitterness', it might make some of these teas more difficult to stomach.

The wide variety of these teas that are grown in China, Japan and even India (yes even Darjeeling grows lovely greens and Oolongs) makes it possible that were you to hate a specific green tea, you can find limitless other options even from the same region. If your tea-sellers know what you liked or didn't like, I'm sure they'd be happy to find other teas that you will enjoy. As always, I'm happy to make suggestions. It's what I find myself doing more and more.

Schieß los!/Shoot!

lush life

Last week, it was really cold and rainy for this time of year, and everyone was complaining about it. Then the sun came out and the result of the weeks of dreariness was lush, green perfection.

But now it seems the same people who loathed how wet it was are now as unhappy about the heat. I know it's useless to please everyone, but I love the different seasons. The fact that we have such a variety of weather makes me smile inappropriately. There are plenty of places in the world where this isn't the case.

Lately, I've also heard people talking about iced tea. I have nothing against it. I've even been known to drink presweetened iced tea in my time. Not for a long, long time, but I've certainly had it.

But I've heard drinking warm things when the temperature is unbearably high is actually better for your body. The thinking is that the your system has to work harder to get the freezing cold liquid to your body's heat level.

So I've had my white tea and am practically sleeping as I finish writing this. As is often the case, I feel somehow soothed and eased into my dreams. Before Louis and Ella, there was a sweet girl dog named Lyle. She was walking along a road in South Dakota, when she found me.

I always marvelled at how vibrant and sprightly she was first thing in the morning. And how she dragged around by the end of her day. I'm an old dog right now. The tea has settled and calmed me. It's the kind of summer's evening where it feels like anything is possible. And, in a manner of speaking, anything is.

manure tea

Despite the fact that this is a teablog, there will be some talk of football (soccer) the next several weeks. You might not care about the World Cup in South Africa. Maybe you've heard it's happening, but don't watch the sport. Out of sight-out of mind.

Where I live, you can't exactly ignore the event. I wouldn't even want to. As Frank Deford (The sports guy on NPR) said recently, football is the ultimate team sport. Unlike other sports that are geared more for individual achievement, this is a game where you really need a team to win. The Italians are notoriously good at winning with players of questionable talent (and even more questionable ethics), but they play well as a team. A team of criminals, but they seem to be proud of the fact.

Just like the post I wrote while watching the Champion's League Final (where Inter Milan thumped FCBayern handily), I'll find ways to tie football to tea.

How can I associate the host country with any sort of tea? Well, one of the nicest infusions is Rooibus. Years ago, only people who travelled to and from South Africa even knew what this red tea even was. Gradually, the tea has conquered a corner of the tea world. The purists will say that the tea of this red bush is not factually tea, but I see it a bit differently.

Although it's not from the tea plant, herbal tea is, in fact, tea. Why not? My Yankee friend Jeffrey likes to contend that anytime you soak something in hot water (or maybe even just water), then the resulting sludge is called 'tea'. The example he uses is that farmers make a sort of manure tea to spread on their crops. And that they actually call it 'tea'. Manure tea.

Sounds delicious, right?

Tea Alchemy

I wrote about something the other day and as always, Sir William joined the party. However, the rest of you lot are reading, but not saying a damned thing.

It's certainly plausible that the topic doesn't get your brain cooking like it does mine, but it's also entirely possible that I presented it poorly. As well as I sometimes express myself here, we all have off days.

Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin wrote a book a while back called Three Cups of Tea, and the more I read it and read about it, the more I think it's rather profound. Paraphrased it the other day, but I'll gladly repeat myself.

The first cup we're strangers. The second we're friends, and by the third, you are family. If this seems ridiculous to you, my contention is that we are already family. Not tea fanatics, although that's also entirely true, but we humans. The divisions we have created and perpetuate lead to so many, if not all, of our problems.

Yes of course we still have incurable disease and natural disasters, but when it comes to man-made havoc, there's nothing quite like pitting two people or groups of people against one another. Nothing.

Let me take a ridiculous example to make my point. Most of you already know that I'm a dog lover. I like cats, but really prefer dogs. Were I to invite a cat-lover over for tea, she and I might have the first cuppa and still be feeling out the other's perspective.

But here's one of the reasons the 3 Cups idea works: I've had a cup of tea together with my cat-lover friend. The warm, delicious stuff is coarsing through our system, and we start to feel somehow at ease. As the second cup is poured, we're somehow transformed to friends. Tea alchemy is how I see this. It's a beautiful moment in any tea gathering, whether in a group or 1-on-1. It's a moment to savour.

So now my soon to be familized friend of all things feline is simultaneously warming to my canine capabilities. As we down the dregs of the second cup, we're on a tea high that only Teegenießer verstehen können.

The third cup is where the real magic happens. A few moments previously we were strangers. Or possibly acquaintances. But at some point during the process that started with the pouring of this next cup and continued with the actual drinking of it, we became the equivalent of blood. You might scoff and say this is immaterial. Or too simplistic. Or you might even think the whole premise is stupid.

I whole-heartedly disagree. By the third cup, my cat-loving friend might not love dogs any more or less than she did before, but she'd do nearly anything to defend my right to have my dogs. Before those three cups, she might very well have cursed dogs every time she saw an instance where someone didn't clean up after his dog. Maybe. Maybe not. Similarly, I might no longer think cats are secretly plotting to over-throw the human race. I might continue to have my conspiracy theories about the suspect nature of these other-worldly creatures that the ancient Egyptians even worshipped, but by the time the third cup of tea is swimming in my bloodstream, I very probably have come to the conclusion that an earth run by cats might not be so bad after all.

It certainly couldn't be any worse.

teatime with the buck of the stars

What?

Another day?

What on earth am I going to write about? How about Starbucks? Yeah. Starbucks.

Sometimes on 4square, I mention that I'm at a Starbucks. Then it's announced on Twitter, and I regularly get a snide comment from someone that I'm supping with the dark side. I beg to differ, but there's no way I'll win this argument in a short blogpost. If at all.

I think the first thing that irritates people is that the tea at Starbucks is nearly as bad as the coffee. I'm not going to argue that. They have teabags with decent tea. For teabags, that is. The English Breakfast is tolerable. I'm not an Earl Grey fan, so I don't drink that.

The green tea that isn't flavoured is not unappetizing, and the Chai is really quite good. To be clear, I rarely drink Chai. I'm far from an expert.

But Starbucks in Munich started offering free wifi this year. So I come here to work.


That's right. I'm there now. Drinking tea.

But I had a shot of espresso first. In a little ceramic mug. Do they even have ceramic mugs at the Starbucks in the US? I don't remember them, but maybe I wasn't paying attention.

Then I ordered some English Breakfast, which I drowned in Whole Milk and enough brown sugar to cover up the true taste of the tea. Am trying to be polite, but I guess the way I described drinking it tells you how I really feel.

Thanks for the free wifi Starbucks. It's really convenient.

And your coffee's not so bad.

Compared to Dunkin Donuts at least.