A Tea Reader (2 page)

INTRODUCTION

Falling in Love with Tea

by Katrina Ávila Munichiello

I was seemingly not destined to fall in love with tea.

I have very few childhood tea memories. Oddly, the most vivid remembrance is of lying on the living room couch after staying home from school, sick. I was probably nine or ten years old, and I hadn't eaten all day. I nibbled at a warm piece of cinnamon toast while my mom grabbed a dusty box of tea bags from the cupboard. She brewed up a cup of strong black tea and sweetened it with big spoonfuls of sugar and a generous pour of milk. This was the “cure” for an upset stomach. The milky sweetness soothed and warmed as I drifted to sleep.

The only other times I can recall drinking tea were scorching summer days—a fairly rare occurrence in my home state of Maine. My mom would put a glass jar filled with water and tea bags in the yard to steep in the summer sun. We would pour that sun tea into tall tumblers filled with ice. We clutched icy cups as we sat close to the box fan, gasping at any whisper of cool air. I don't think I particularly liked the tea, but I loved the ritual.

Since those early moments, my tea horizons have expanded dramatically. I have attended Korean and Japanese tea ceremonies where I watched tea masters whip up frothy cups of green tea. I have sampled tea cocktails at upscale hotels and traveled to London to study tea with experts. I've reveled in the ever-changing complexities of
oolongs
,
the ethereal delicacy of white teas, and the rare and haunting memories of yellow tea. I've burned my fingers trying to master the
gaiwan
,
and I've bravely faced my fear of
pu-erh
.
Tea has become an important focus of my life, personally and professionally.

What is striking, however, is that no matter how far I travel from childhood days, the emotions evoked by those early tea moments remain visceral. The memory of that hot, milky tea is one of a mom's comfort, warm blankets, and listening to my favorite books being read to me. Remembering the iced tea gives way to thoughts of blue skies, newly cut grass, and running barefoot. The emotion I feel about these moments makes them as important as the other, more “elegant,” experiences.

Tea has a remarkable power to spark such images and nostalgia. It is from this power that my tea journey, and the idea of
A
Tea Reader
,
evolved.

It was 1996 when I first fell deeply in love with tea after the chance discovery of a new local tea shop. I spent the next decade studying tea and consuming vast quantities of it. I finally took the leap and launched my
Tea Pages
blog. At first, I focused primarily on reviewing teas for my readers, sharing my opinions and mistakes. Over time, I expanded my mission, studying the various tea regions, the processes by which teas are made, and the operations of every tea shop that I encountered. I became more engaged in the subject of tea each day and greedily pursued new experiences. I soon realized the opportunities that having a blog could afford me, primarily in the form of access. I could call a vendor to ask for a tour or write to a publisher to request books to review. I began to e-mail my tea world idols seeking interviews. I became bold.

What amazed me in this experience was the generosity of tea people. They shared their knowledge, resources, and passion for tea. Personal relationships began to develop and stories flowed. Tea became an entry point for conversations that became very personal. I began to actively seek those moments when a story was filled with the emotional responses that had been created by tea.

About eighteen months into my blogging project, I formulated the concept for this book. I made it my mission to capture these personal stories. I wanted to include all types of tea people: not only those brought up in the tea tradition, but also those newly discovering it. Their stories would mix and mingle with those of people who were making tea their career: vendors, shop owners, authors, and tea masters, as well as classic writings by tea lovers from long ago. Together these tales would create a new image of a “tea drinker.” They would show that tea is not simply something you drink, but it also provides quiet moments for making important decisions, a catalyst for conversation, and the energy we sometimes need to operate in our lives.

In
A Tea Reader
,
you will find stories that cover the spectrum of life. People will develop new friendships, start new careers, and take journeys of which they'd only dreamed. They will share deep moments with their families. A tea shop owner will have his heart broken by Hurricane Katrina, and then find the strength to start again. A woman will share a last moment with her father. You will see reflections of yourself and those that you know.

Whether you are a tea lover or not, here you will discover stories that speak to you and inspire you. Sit down, grab a cup, and read on.

FIRST STEEP

TEA REVERIES

Reverie

BY
K
ATRINA
Á
VILA
M
UNICHIELLO

Reverie(n.): The state of being lost in one's thoughts.

Six types of tea, hundreds of varieties, are all produced from a single plant, the
Camellia sinensis
.
Consider that it is possible to drink a different tea every day for years on end. It is stunning to consider. For many tea lovers, this extraordinary diversity and complexity brings forth feelings of reverence for every step of the tea-making process.

A connoisseur stops to examine the dry leaf. Is it large or small, twisted tightly or flat, broken or full? A silver needle tea will have buds that are long like pine needles and covered with fine down. An
oolong
may be rolled into tight pea-sized balls that unfurl as hot water courses down, the “agony of the leaves.” We smell. We touch. We admire. We pause. Each second is experienced as something memorable.

Those who have embraced tea may develop their own ways to make the “perfect cup.” They have preferences for certain teapots or other brewing devices or the cups from which they sip. Some are adamant about weighing the leaf while others make their best guess on the amount. They think about their tea vendors, storage vessels, and even about the source of their water.

Some “collectors of experience” will spend the rest of their lives seeking that one, unforgettable tea moment that surpasses the rest. Others will embrace tea as practitioners of Japanese tea ceremony do—with the belief that each experience is unique and sacred and cannot be reproduced ever again.

While many details may differ, what is common among all who worship tea is the quest for that moment of reverie. We wish to dive deep into that cup and become mesmerized. Lost in our thoughts, we embrace this time of quiet inspiration.

The Spirit of Tea

BY
F
RANK
H
ADLEY
M
URPHY

Tea flowers twice: Once on the bush and once in our hearts.

Just the idea of making tea for myself shifts my consciousness into a sort of dreamtime. Especially if I am alone, I know that I can now hang my mind up on a hook in the mud room and close the door behind me. The ritual has already begun.

Because I like to be intimately involved with every step of the process, I boil water in an open saucepan and I brew the leaves in a clear glass tumbler. This way I can watch everything that's going on. I then decant through a gourd strainer into simple porcelain.

With this first sip, there is another shift. We make tea in an empty vessel and then we become an empty vessel to receive it. The practice of maintaining this emptiness runs through all of the world's mystical traditions. In the West, there is a prayer that says, “Lord, make me decrease so that you might increase in me,” but this “Lord” can be any “lord.” The point is to get out of our own way and become a kind of receiver, a radar screen if you will, for whatever comes to us. We take that first sip and open to it, yield to it, and let it wash over us.

The ritual of making and tasting tea becomes what I call an “entry ritual,” a doorway into other realms. My attention shifts to my pelvic floor, where the tea's warmth has settled. And this is where
Thea
,
the goddess of light after whom tea was named, begins to illuminate my soul.

The sensation of light is that of mobilizing forces, the feeling that new synapses are being formed. As an image, it is one I liken to moon-beams shining out from inside me. Things are clearer.

The Chinese say that tea “brightens the eyes” but this, like all things Chinese, can have several meanings. Sometimes tea brightens my entire perspective on the universe and my place within it. That is why I write of tea as an “
entheogen
,
” because it is a plant that affects my consciousness and my heart in a beneficent manner.

So there are these opening, flowering sensations in my tummy, and then, as my body and the tea continue to shift and mobilize in union with each other, there are these opening, flowering sensations in my heart: broad, expansive feelings of pure, unadulterated joy.

So where do we go from here?

Do I make myself another cup of tea?

No.

I just sit.

Perhaps I am not done with my tea. Perhaps all this is the result of a single sip. It's happened before. I peer down into that porcelain cup and, lo and behold, it's still full.

Tea is such a sensual experience. There's the handling and holding of warm vessels as we brew. There's that initial fragrance when we moisten the dry leaves with a few drops of water and bring it to our nose. There's that first sip, when our lips break the surface of our brew and our whole body fills with the essence of the leaf. With the first taste we encounter the silken viscosity, the floral notes and fruity tones, the earthen depths, wooded bite and all of it bathing our tongues with waves of unfolding complexity before it slides down the back of our throats. I muse that it might be more accurate to say “waves of cascading epiphanies” for such is the way it feels when Thea shares with us her deepest mysteries and stirs us to our souls.

And so she stirs. And she mobilizes. Tea tastes good in my mouth and feels good in my body. It lifts my spirits and opens my heart. What more could we ask of a friend?

I have landed in my body. If I'm lucky, I can hang out here for a while in this peace and calm, for that is what it finally ends up being, and that is why tea has been grown on monastic properties for a thousand years. It brings us to a place of wakeful tranquility. I call it reverie.

Perhaps it is that tea pulls me back so far into myself that my senses become attuned to a different set of coordinates. Perhaps my senses align themselves with a subtle, more refined resonance. Someone once said that tea muffles strident noises. It certainly seems this way to me, but then, I have never been known for my powers of deductive reasoning. I would prefer to lay down under tea bushes on the green, terraced hills of Yunnan...and dream.

I Don't Drink Tea

BY
S
TEPHANIE
W
RIGHT

I don't drink tea. I drink coffee. Black coffee for years until my first pregnancy sent me the route of decaffeinated. Don't believe them when they tell you the difference can't be tasted. It can, and I started using cream to offset the variation in flavor. Somehow, I never went back to black even after weaning that first daughter from the breast and reverting to “high octane.” At some point, I picked up a taste for sweetener, too.

But I digress.

I don't drink tea. One shouldn't mistake the lack of indulgence for lack of acquired taste. I adore tea. I adore many teas.
Oolong
and Darjeeling. The simple delight of bergamot in an early morning cup of Earl Grey. One long winter, I took a fancy to Irish Breakfast. Hearty stuff, Irish Breakfast. For tea, I like sugar, not sweetener, and lots of cream. I even have three cups in which I take my tea. Two were gifts from my mother, delicate bone china cups with saucers. One has violets around its elongated form, while the other has a slender band of roses trailing just the outer rim. The third I purchased for myself. It's only a small cup, hardly large enough to hold a decent amount, but it's sweet in its simple shape and muted reds. Those three cups are part of the reason I eschew the brew. Look, a little rhyme. A bitty ditty, if you will, to keep me from my point. The point, of course, is that I don't drink tea.

Should you come upon me one day in the process of setting kettle to hob, you can safely assume rebellion is on the horizon. I'd run for cover were I you. Do not be kind and ask what troubles me. Do not offer to sit with me in my despair. If a china cup with violets or roses sits in readiness on the counter, if sugar and cream wait with tiny silver-plate tongs and spoon, back away slowly and don't look for the ground wire. There isn't one.

In fact, I'll probably wish I were you in that moment, for a pot of tea can only signify that a watershed moment in my life has been reached. Some have their tea as a matter of daily course, of routine, of comfort or relaxation. Tea has always been for me a fortification, a metaphorical battening down of the hatches as I prepare for momentous decisions and the rendering of judgments.

Take, for instance, one such pot prepared. The night in question was dressed in mist and accessorized by a flamboyant full moon. I fixed the pot, an African
rooibos
delicately flavored with vanilla, and sat at the kitchen window. Alone. I sipped, and as I did, I turned over the promises of fidelity and eternity I'd made, searching for fault-lines. Somewhere between finishing the second cup and pouring the third, the sentiment of “I love you” transformed into “I need to love me,” and I rose to rinse the cup. I felt a bit ill and blamed the sensation on over-consumption.

The nausea dissipated. The resolve did not. Decaffeinated coffee and I have enjoyed three brief affairs, one per pregnancy, and each time we parted in amiability with no regrets. The same is never true of tea and me. Was it perhaps the subtle wildness of the
rooibos
?
Was it something already set within me that needed nothing more than the quiet instilled only from sitting with a cup of tea, the customary making of which renders the drink more potent in its ability to bring clarity of thought? I do not know, and I shy away from looking too closely for the answer. Resolute, I moved forward. Alone.

These days, I keep a wary eye on my little cast iron teapot. Several months ago, my sister sent me a box of green tea with jasmine flowers inside each little mesh bag. When hot water is poured over the bag, the petals of the flowers open, and the sight is just beautiful. My daughter bought me a tin of lemongrass tea, its flavor nothing short of distilled peace. I steer clear of both—and the pot—lest my decision prove temporary. These days, I'm back to coffee, back to routine. Routine maintains my resolve. Tea seduces me into false judgement. I do not wish to revisit my decisions once made, and a pleasant cup of Lady Jane just might make me do that.

I don't drink tea. I drink coffee. Though bitter, addictive, and not terribly good at forging bonds or demolishing lines between social classes, coffee is safe. Perhaps the day will come when my hand won't automatically stray towards the handle of my teapot each time I reach for a coffee filter. That would be nice.