Spo-fan Larry (the dear!) recently asked me to write about tea.
One could not design a more beneficial drink. It has enough caffeine to give a pleasant wakefulness but (usually) not enough to cause jitters or a ‘buzz’. It is a bargain; a 100g bag of good quality leaves makes a lot of tea. Tea is good for you. It contains antioxidants and plant elements (called phytochemicals) that promote all sorts of good health features. The word “nice” is forever associated with “a cup of tea”. And – it is delicious!
The history of tea is a fascinating topic. It is one of five beverages that influenced history. At one point The English traded opium for tea. At first they used silver, but with revolutions in the New World, the supply of silver was cut off. The demand for tea accelerated. The solution: exchange opium for tea. In 1758 Parliament gave the East India Company the monopoly on the production of opium in India. The British increased the export of opium by a 1000x up until 1830. All efforts by the Chinese government to curb the opium import failed. The Chinese burned the opium; war was declared. The “Opium War” of 1839-42 ended with Great Britain forcing China into all sorts of concessions including Hong Kong. The cumulative efforts of the mass addiction to opium and the political instability evolved into the massive mortality of the Taiping rebellion and later the Boxer uprising. Millions died. For a pot of tea, Chinese culture was nearly destroyed.
Anyway, back to drinking tea.
Talking about tea is like talking about wine. There are many parrellels. Tea is grown in many countries; it carries the ‘terrior’ of its origin. How tea is harvested and prepared makes it vary as much as wine.
People who state they don’t care for tea probably haven’t had ‘real tea’. It is like comparing instant coffee to good beans home-ground. What goes into iced tea, or the nasty bits found in most tea bags is called ‘dust’ in the tea industry. This class of tea is like comparing jug wine to Bordeaux. The tea industry is not unlike the wine industry – there are ‘good years’ and many styles.
Proper tea is loose leaf tea, properly steeped, according to their properties. And there are different types each with their own brewing instructions. How long you brew and how hot is the water make or breaks tea.
For example, green tea is prepared with simmering hot water, never boiling. Boiling water on green tea brings out astringency (the ‘bitter taste’). I seldom order green tea in a restaurant for this reason – they tend to use too hot water.
Tea falls into 4 rough categories –
“White” tea is made from leaves hardly processed , nearly ‘raw’. It probably has the most health benefits. It is called white as the brew ranges from pale white to a light brown.
Green” – partially fermented – its brew is pale yellow to green/brown. All the research on the health benefits of tea have come from green tea. China and Japan produce most of the world’s green tea.
“Oolong” is a Chinese tea that is a transition between green and black. It contains some of the properties of both. The leaves tend to be large.
“Black” (what most people know for tea) is the most popular in the Western world. The leaves are ‘fired’ to a brown dried condition. Black teas usually have the most caffeine and the strongest taste. They are the “red wines” of the tea world. Black tea is good for morning time, and iced tea.
I advise newcomers to tea to get a variety of loose leaf quality tea (no rubbish) from a reliable merchant. Follow the specific instructions how to brew each tea sample. Try many.
Or better yet, come over and I will make you a cup.
31 comments
January 10, 2011 at 1:58 AM
Tai
Harvesting tea leaf is an important step in the whole process because types and quality will depend on what kinds of leaf selected.
January 10, 2011 at 2:28 AM
rg
You can come to Boston and make me a cup of tea any time. The thing I ask, is that you do it naked. 🙂
January 10, 2011 at 4:22 AM
Alan
Is it even possible to get a proper cup of tea in the States? (except at Spo’s house, of course) While there, we’ve been served cups of tea made with a tea bag and hot water from the tap….. no wonder so many Americans favour coffee over tea.
In the southern states (such as GA) in the summer, hot tea apparently wasn’t available in any restaurant… ‘tea’ seemed to be only a cold, heavily sweetened beverage, probably made from a mix.
January 10, 2011 at 4:49 AM
Urspo
Tea Ignorance is all over the USA – one can not get a decent cup anywhere but a tea shoppe, and even then that is iffy. The topic will be addressed in a future lesson.
January 10, 2011 at 6:57 AM
Urspo
“Sweet Tea’ of the South may have ‘tea’ in it, but is an entirely different beverage indeed !
It is like a wine cooler, compared to a fine glass of French wine. Both have their places and contexts.
January 10, 2011 at 1:56 PM
rg
Sweet Tea is the house wine of the South.
January 10, 2011 at 4:28 AM
Mark
I like tea to help me relax. But since I have no time to relax, I need coffee for the “jitters” and the “buzz”.
Your Friend, m.
Great detailed post by the way. It will come in handy.
January 10, 2011 at 6:19 AM
Doug
The only “tea shop” I’ve seen in Florida is Teavana. Are they reliable merchants?
January 10, 2011 at 6:55 AM
Urspo
Many – distinctlytea.com in Canada is one I use a lot; very good knowledgeable people. I think they sell a ‘sample pack’ for beginners.
January 10, 2011 at 6:37 AM
D@vid
Sadly, I am not refined enough for the likes of tea… I usually either use it to pour my Theraflu powder in when I am sick to get it down my throat… or I have to put so much sugar in it that it becomes a hot cup of sugar with a cube of tea. I may also be too impatient to heat the water, let it seep and invest the time needed to sip it, since you can’t ‘throw it back’ like a cup of coffee.
January 10, 2011 at 6:54 AM
Urspo
hohoho Coffee is all about running and going – drive through and ‘to go’ Tea is about sitting and socializing with others while the world stops and life ‘is’.
January 10, 2011 at 6:40 AM
Richard
If you ever visit Boulder consider taking the free tour at Celestial Seasons. It may not be the best tea but the tour is very interesting.
January 10, 2011 at 6:52 AM
Shawn
I guess I need to come over for a lesson!
January 10, 2011 at 7:06 AM
A. Lewis
Last time we went to official “tea” in Portland, I was (again) amazed looking at the real pictures of whole tea leaves before they were mutilated and ground down into what Lipton calls “tea” and stuck into a tea bag. Here’s a link to one of Portland’s tea houses:
http://www.taooftea.com/teahouse.php3?teahouse=Original+Tao
January 10, 2011 at 11:26 AM
Urspo
they do look good ; this is yet another reason to visit Portland this year.
January 10, 2011 at 7:10 AM
Cubby
Be careful who you invite over to your house because I may just decide to not leave 🙂
Today I saw you posted another tea lesson and I literally said, “Oh good!” aloud and clapped a little. I’ve always been so curious but yet so timid to try. I went to two supermarkets over the weekend and searched for loose-leaf tea, but both only sold it in teabags, which is actually in line with what I expected. I’ve begun a search for specialty shops now. Your term “reliable merchant” scares me. How am I to know one?
January 10, 2011 at 11:25 AM
Urspo
Google search ‘tea’ and shop and your city – I bet there are a few stores/tea houses to visit. You should see lots of jars on the shelves. The salesperson should sound like ‘they know what they are doing”. They should also be able to brew you a few small cups to try.
My favorite merchant is in Canada – their web site is quite educational and easy to follow – http://www.distinctlytea.com/
I sometimes suggest Twinnings Tea – you can get it in most supermarkets – they have a good tea in bag form – get their variety box and try a few out.
January 10, 2011 at 7:44 AM
Laurent
Thank you for the explanation on White tea, I was not sure why it was called that.
Now I know. You deserved to be called Dottore.
January 10, 2011 at 8:28 AM
Bill J
MFK Fisher wrote of tea intoxication (sorry, I can’t remember which volume the essay is in). As a man of science, could you please include this topic in the tea lecture series?
Thank you!
January 10, 2011 at 9:40 AM
Nick UK
What a great post, we only have loose tea in our house, ceylon to drink with milk and lapsang or earl grey to drink black, mind you we dont have instant coffee either but use a french press.
All three children(13,12 and 9)get tea to drink and coffee at the weekend as a treat, and no sugar in either.
Its good to be English.
January 11, 2011 at 10:39 AM
Urspo
I thank you for stopping by the other day; I am honored so! Michael
January 10, 2011 at 10:52 AM
jefferyrn
I am a rubbish tea drinker. It has been helping my cold. Tea bags were made for us amatures.
January 10, 2011 at 11:19 AM
Urspo
hohoho I don’t mean to slur teabags – sometimes there is very good tea in teabags – Twinnings Tea does an excellent job of putting good tea into teabags and don’t forget one of my favorite teas comes in bags – Barry’s. This deep dark strong kick but wake a dead man’s eyes tea is not for wusses !
January 10, 2011 at 11:18 AM
Greg
The best place (in my opinion) for tea is at a tea room, where they know the ins and outs and everything in between about teas. My favorite is a little place in Beverly Hills called Chado Tea Room. Experienced my first “second flush darjeeling tea” called Margaret’s Hope, and it was the most delicious drink I’ve ever tasted.
January 10, 2011 at 5:54 PM
Urspo
Margaret’s Hope is my favorite tea !
It changes though from year to year; it is sort of like having your favorite winery – it may alter from year to year depending on the climate.
January 10, 2011 at 1:51 PM
Will
We will definitely try Original Tao on our next trip to Portland, OR. We get our tea from either Formaggio in Cambridge, MA (a fantastic Lapsang Souchong), the Portsmouth (NH) Tea Company — both of which sell loose tea out of Twinings loose in tins is being dropped here and in the Boston area except for Earl Gray and maybe English Breakfast; I buy it on the internet in the double-sized tins of loose leaves. My favorite afternoon tea is Lychee Black, also bought via the web.
January 10, 2011 at 11:24 PM
Walt
We started drinking a bagged tea from the UK while (whilst?) living in San Francisco. It was our morning beverage of choice. It’s called PG Tips. When we told some British friends we liked it, the laughter lasted for days. Apparently, it’s rubbish. British rubbish, but still rubbish. But I still like it. It’s better than what I can find on the supermarket shelves here in our part of rural France.
I drink my tea black. No sugar, no milk, no lemon. I do like iced tea, but made by me. And the occasional sweet tea when I’m in the southern US is good, too.
There are good tea houses in Paris. But I’m afraid good tea would be wasted on me.
January 11, 2011 at 8:08 AM
Urspo
One of the challenges of teaching folks about a beverage is getting them to rid themselves of the ‘should’ statements viz. one ‘should’ like this or that or prefer the better stuff. I see this more in wine. I have a friend who likes ‘cheap pink’ wine, his favorite. He is sometimes ridiculed or pushed to drink proper wine. Pishposh. If you like what you like then that is the wine/coffee/tea for you !
On of my favorite teas is Barry’s, which is at the opposite end of the ‘fine teas’ from $$ estates. Yum.
January 12, 2011 at 10:29 AM
Mark H
Well, you taught me a few bits here about tea. I drink it regularly, TAZO’s Peach Black…… and you’re completely correct: It’s to relax ….. contemplate. Coffee, even “decaf”, hah, is a different experience.
January 12, 2011 at 4:37 PM
Old Lurker
This is totally off-topic, but I wanted to say it before you change your header pic again: Javalina!
Is that a picture you took yourself?
January 12, 2011 at 5:19 PM
Urspo
yes, but it was penned at the Desert Museum – it is not the one I saw walking last week.