A Tea Reader (19 page)

FIFTH STEEP

TEA TRAVELS

Wanderlust

BY
K
ATRINA
Á
VILA
M
UNICHIELLO

When you have crossed the line from casual tea drinker to enthusiast, it is inevitable that you begin to dream of the tea world.

As a child, I imagined my future travels would be filled with names I'd read in family histories—Miraflores, Mexico; County Cork, Ireland; Ávila, Spain; and Mainz, Germany. As tea began to take hold of my life in a more significant way, my travel horizons grew. I started dreaming of walking through fields, sipping tea as I embraced the beauty of the mountains. I imagined visiting the immaculately cultivated fields of Japan, the tropical climates of Sri Lanka and India, and the ancient tea trees of China. I must admit that my parents have been a little baffled by these interests, but fortunately, I share my life with a partner who is also game for these adventures.

Until the day my traveling no longer involves packing diapers and playpens, my grand tea travels are dreams in my head. In the meantime I live vicariously through those who are taking the leap. From filmmakers who bring stories to the screen, to those who write them, to those who make it possible for others to travel, we all owe a debt of gratitude to the people making the tea world feel a bit smaller.

Tales from
All In This Tea
:
Part One

BY
L
ES
B
LANK, AS TOLD TO
K
ATRINA
Á
VILA
M
UNICHIELLO

Les Blank was the Co-Producer, Co-Director, and Cameraman for the 2007 documentary
All In This Tea
.
This film chronicled one of tea expert David Lee Hoffman's trips through remote China in search of the finest teas. Les was asked to share some of his unique experiences and memories of creating this critically acclaimed film. The stories are shared here, as told to author Katrina Ávila Munichiello.

Tea Beginnings

I got started on tea when I was having horrible allergic reactions (to foods). I went to a specialist who put me on an elimination diet. For one week they removed everything from my diet except vegetables, brown rice, turkey, and tea. Then each week I could add one more food until I reached the food causing the reaction. I never discovered the food causing the reaction, but I did find that drinking tea instead of coffee put a different slant on the start of my day. It was a slow infusion of consciousness...or caffeine...or both.

First Meetings

The Himalayan Fair happens once a year in Berkeley, not far from my house. There is food, dancing, singing, and various performances all day long. David Lee Hoffman had a tent set up there for his company, Silk Road Teas. He was giving away free tea, and I always take free samples. This tea did something to my mind that I had never experienced. I listened to David speak and then I talked to him myself. He knew about my films and invited me to his property in West Marin County for tea and beer or wine and food cooked outside over his fire pit.

Initially, I was just interested in David Lee Hoffman and the world of tea. I visited David's place and was interested in what he was doing on his acre and a half of property. He spent 20 years building a tea house with special tile from China or Japan and he has a worm bin that looks like a Buddhist temple.
¹
I was very interested in his stories of wandering around monasteries in Asia. It all seemed intriguing.

The Film

Filming began in 1997 and Mr. Blank worked on the film until its release in 2007. Filming took them through China's Guangdong, Fujian, and Zhejiang provinces.

I was interested in an adventure. David was planning a trip with a friend. He had seen my film about Werner Herzog
(
Burden of Dreams
,
1982), so the idea came together for me to go. I bought a $5,000 digital camera and a plane ticket.

We had such wonderful meals on that trip—banquets and feasts. I never had a bad meal or even a mediocre meal. It didn't matter how poor the hovel or how rich the restaurants. It was mind blowing.

A Favorite Tea Site... That Wasn't a Favorite

We visited the ancient tea trees. The old trees were fascinating. There are trees that are 600 years old. The tea is harvested from these same trees and it's one of David's favorite places. The roots go down so deep that they pick up things you wouldn't get from the cultivated tea trees.

As a filmmaker, though, this was a terrible place. It is so far up in the mountains that the humidity is always too high. It never dries out up there. There's lots of clay in the ground so it's hard to walk while shooting. My feet kept slipping out from under me—190 pounds of weight tossed around with my camera flying.

David dragged me back up there on our second trip over and I complained bitterly. On that trip, the fog was so dense that I couldn't see a foot in front of me.

Priceless Tea Memory

It's not what you would think of as ideal tea, especially when compared with the aesthetics of something like a Japanese tea ceremony where everything is done in very deliberate, beautiful ways.

We took a long hike up a steep cliff to see a tea farmer. You can get in and out only by animal and you have to go down these slippery slopes. This farmer took out tea-stained cups and got spring water from a nearby spring—beautiful pure water. He heated it up in a grimy old pot, dingy and grim. The tray was rusted and funky. He picked those cups up so lovingly and carefully served us ready-to-drink tea. People there always offer you tea, as soon as you cross the threshold. It is humble in quality and very moving. The care, the warmth of extending his hospitality, even though the cups were a “different standard of cleanliness,” was powerful.

And Now...

I'm not the best example of a tea person. David (Hoffman) makes fun of my tea-making methods. He does it properly, in small amounts, re-steeping and pouring out the tea for each cup. I like to read the “New York Times” and I don't want to be bothered so I make one big pot. I have a stainless steel kettle (which David said is horrible.) I steep for 6 minutes and then strain it into a teapot. I throw a cozy on it and it lasts me 1½ to 2 hours.

1
Hoffman is an ardent organic farmer and environmentalist.

Tales from
All In This Tea
:
Part Two

BY
G
INA
L
EIBRECHT

When I began work with Les Blank on
All In This Tea
in 1998, I immediately realized I was a natural fit for the job. Luxuriating in the sensuous footage of tea gardens, farmers roasting tea in their woks, and the ongoing scenes of pouring, sniffing and sipping allowed me to delve deeply into a subject I had always wanted to know more about.

My parents are European, and unlike the average American kid, I drank a lot of tea. I would drink it with meals, or my mother would fix me a strong cup of black tea if I wasn't feeling well—and it always worked! At the age of fourteen, I spent a snowy and blustery holiday in my mother's hometown of Hamburg, Germany. One afternoon I was carousing around the city with a friend when we stumbled upon a tea shop nestled in a hidden alley. Entering the shop was like traveling back in time, to the days when camels carried chests of tea to distant lands along the Silk Road. The aroma was intoxicating. There were stenciled wooden crates piled on top of one another. Some had been pried open to reveal mounds of dried leaves. I was transported. I had a few Deutsch-mark in my pocket, so I bought a small bag of tea and brought it back to the states with me, where I kept it in a small canister on a bookshelf in my bedroom. I never actually drank the tea, but every now and then I would sit on the edge of my bed, close my eyes, and take a good long sniff, which invariably transported me to distant, exotic, and mysterious lands in far away times. Years later, when I was in college, I remember sitting in my father's dining room having long conversations over tea. He always had a special discovery that he was eager for me to try.

When I first saw the footage that Les Blank had shot in China, I knew I had never seen anything like it before: scenes of farmers on the lush and mist covered mountains of rural China, picking and firing their teas—traditions they had learned from their parents, who learned from their parents, and so on, and so on. I knew these images would be new to Westerners, who view tea as a quick beverage that you don't put much thought into. Throw a tea bag into a cup, pour hot water, and that's it. The images I saw in the China footage revealed a totally new context for tea—a far cry from the bland, brown dust found in tea bags. Each leaf is carefully picked by hand at a certain time of day, and dried, rolled, and fired, depending on the type of tea. The tea makers use all of their senses to make the tea just the way they want it.

Although China is the homeland of tea, it is a mysterious country that has historically not been open to foreigners. The images of China that we in the West are most familiar with have been politicized by the news media.
All In This Tea
shows us a country with a history and culture that goes back thousands of years, with a breadth and depth of knowledge and tradition that makes Western countries look like teenagers. It's the human side of China, which reveals the universal desire to honor and uphold tradition, as well as a type of culinary artistry and connoisseurship that makes us civilized. I have to ask myself: What would the world be like if we didn't promote citizen-to-citizen relationships? I think
All In This Tea
underscores the necessity to create cultural bridges with countries even if we don't agree with their politics or their business practices.

The biggest irony in
All In This Tea
,
however, is that a Californian is opening the eyes of these seemingly oblivious Chinese businessmen to the value of one of their own country's oldest and most prized tradition—not to mention an organic method of fertilization that's been around for millions of years. By buying tea directly from the farmer, small family farms are able to maintain their livelihood, which in turn preserves the ancient art of making tea. This art cannot be learned from a book, and in most cases, it upholds the environmentally sustainable practices of growing the tea with a special appreciation for the concept of “
terroir
.
” As the West gains increasing access to these finer teas, we can begin to develop our own tea-drinking traditions. In short, it's good for everyone!

For a filmmaker, having this kind of dimension in a story is a dream, and it all sprang from my partner, Les Blank, doggedly following David Lee Hoffman around China with a small, handheld digital camera. Hoffman's passion and invincibility sparked a lot of conversation, and viewers asked themselves a lot of questions—usually nothing having to do with tea, but more about how we Americans relate to other countries, whether we are living according to our ideals, and what is out there that we feel passionately enough about that we would take a stand for it?

I believe American tea drinkers have always felt like a minority, and now they are having their day. Next to water, tea is the second most popular beverage in the world. The tea renaissance that began in the early 1980s seems to be coming to a culmination with tea sales increasing, even during recessions, and tea houses popping up everywhere. Now, when I have a really great tea on the shelf of my kitchen, I drink it!