The Tea Party

 

I think a tea party is the multimedia confluence of all culture. Everywhere it goes, tea inspires ceremony and art. Coffee is similar, but more exciting and less soothing. Coffee houses are fine places for slam poetry and to plan revolutions. Tea culture is more refined.

There is the English tea, and tea gardens, and fine China, and dressing in your finest, and finger sandwiches, and polished silver, and parasols. 

And then there is the Japanese tea ceremony, and meditation, and tea rooms with some featured objet d’art and a garden view. One is supposed to contemplate the cracks in the teacup. 

There are similar Chinese and Korean tea ceremonies and tea gardens. Suzhou is famous for its tea gardens; there is a fine one recreated in Vancouver. In China, the ideal is a white porcelain teacup so thin in spots that you can see the tea through the porcelain. In Korea, tea is served in thick green celadon cups. There must always be an odd number of cups, and guests. The tea houses of Insadong are famous; each has a theme. One has an actual stretch of railroad track inside. Every village had its tea house, where you would go for philosophical discussions or just to catch the news. 

In Russia, there are the traditions of the samovar; and reading fortunes in the tea leaves. 

In Thailand and in Kashmir, there is an elaborate dance to aerate the tea. Watching the performance is a large part of the experience. 

In India, there is masala chai, with cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, ginger, and pepper. I’ve learned how to make it; but it is an elaborate production that easily takes half an hour. 

In Tibet, tea is served with pink yak’s milk and salt. It is a taste I have not acquired, but perhaps leads to enlightenment. 

In Morocco, it must be gunpowder green tea with mint and much sugar. In brightly coloured cups.

In the Southern US, if you give them something hot with milk or cream, they’re shocked. Tea is cold in a high glass with ice and lemon.

In England, debates about how to make a perfect cup of tea have gone on for decades, centuries, and include essays by famous writers like Charles Lamb, George Orwell, and Douglas Adams. Milk first? Warm the cup?

I think tea gathers culture around it because it soothes and concentrates the mind. One is open to philosophical ponderings and aesthetic appreciation. It is the thinking man’s drink. It comes to us originally from Buddhist monasteries.

I’m totally into it. In vino veritas; but in eternity, you hear the sound “tea.”

Tea and Culture

Proust

Tea is civilization.

Have you noticed? Wherever it goes, it is far more than a drink.

A, English friend notes that tea must be drunk with milk, never cream. The milk must be put in the cup first, then the tea.

I, on the other hand, drink my tea with evaporated milk. Comparing notes with my brother recently, he insisted on the same. It was how our grandparents always served it—our grandparents, who ran a dairy farm, for whom either fresh milk or cream was freely available.

My friend notes you must always “scald the pot.” We do that too, but we say “warm the pot.” An Irish friend uses the same term, and also insists it must be done.

Americans, on the other hand, if you order “tea,” will bring you something with ice and lemon in a tall glass. An American YouTuber visiting London is not sure what to do with a strainer.

I confess that it deeply troubles me when people speak of “brewing” instead of “steeping” tea. For me, hearing that “wrong” term is like wet chalk making a false move on a greenboard. It is simply barbaric.

George Orwell’s essay “A Nice Cup of Tea” is a classic. He spends some time on the eternal debate over whether the tea or milk should be poured first. So is Charles Lamb’s “Old China,” on proper teapots. There are all these important rituals around tea, and all must be just so.

They probably have nothing to do with the taste of the tea. Because other countries have entirely different rituals, and they are just as insistent on them.

In Canada, we insist on a rolling boil. In China, it is essential that the water not be too hot.

In Canada, we insist that tea must not be steeped for more than five minutes; otherwise it becomes bitter. In China, the tea is left in the pot, more water is poured on, and the second steep is considered better. In Russia, you steep it all day, until it is concentrated, then add more water.

In North India, the tea must be poured from a great height, to be properly aerated. In Morocco, it must be served sweet and green, with mint. In Tibet, it is served salted.

The thing is not the flavour of the tea; it is the pleasure of the ritual. Of doing it just so.

In Korea, tea does not involve tea. It is a selection of tisanes. Odd, that, eh? Tea in China, tea in
Japan, no tea in Korea.

Tea was actually illegal in Korea for several centuries. They had prohibition, just like alcohol in North America. Tea was socially dangerous. But they never thought to ban mere alcohol.

They were on to something. Anybody who’s paying attention should realize that stopping for a cup of tea has major psychological effects. It makes one want to create culture.

The Brits managed to addict most of South China to opium. But do you know why they did it? In order to have something to trade for their own drug of choice. Tea. China did not want to part with any.

The rituals of preparation are the least of it. There is tea literature and tea philosophy; the Chinese Classic of Tea, or Okakura’s Book of Tea in Japan. Proust’s magnum opus is provoked by a sip of tea. Both Zen Buddhism and Taoism are intimately associated with the drink. There is tea art and tea aesthetics. There is a teapot museum in Hong Kong, and no doubt many tea sets in the Victoria and Albert Museum; a large percentage of all Japanese art was created for admiration during the tea ceremony. There is tea cuisine; the English make a meal of their afternoon tea. There are, always, tea gardens; in England as much as in China or Japan.

But the peak of tea culture, of course, is in Canada. In Canada, we have little porcelain figurines, bird lithographs, and jazz-playing chimpanzees.

The Culture of Tea

Bodhidharma, the Indian monk who, according to Buddhist tradition, brought both Zen and tea to China.

Tea is civilization. Tea is art. It is one of the most cultured things there is. Entire aesthetics, entire cultural complexes have been built on it, in countries as diverse as China, India, Japan, Russia, Korea, Sri Lanka, and England. Foods, gardens, ceremonies, poems, philosophies, music. There is a reason for this. Tea puts you in a meditative mood. Both Buddhist monks and sympathetic grandmothers have always understood this. And the growing and preparation of tea, too, is an art, every bit as much and more than is wine making.

Unfortunately, in most places in the North America, we get only the faintest idea of real tea.

Most of us have grown up and grown old on good old Ceylon “orange pekoe” black fermented tea. Nothing wrong with it. But it is far from a quality tea. It was simply the cheapest variety of tea available for export at the end of the nineteenth century, from the large, low-quality estates owned by supermarket magnate Sir Thomas Lipton. There is so much more.

I have lived in a few places now: China, Korea, the Middle East. I have visited others: India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and so forth. I have discovered that real, fresh tea from the best plantations can be a revelation. And, in the general run of things, it is a terribly cheap luxury.

Why do we so rarely find it in Canada or the US?

Sure, we can sometimes find something different. But it is rarely high quality, and invariably pretty stale.

Happily, I have discovered the solution. I have found an Indian online source, Teabox, that deals directly with the best plantations and air ships anywhere. Having tried their stuff, I can recommend it unreservedly. Their shipping seems to be free if you buy above a certain amount—only thirty bucks for me here in the Gulf-- their customer service is fantastic, their prices are only about what you pay for the old orange pekoe at Loblaw’s, and they really know their tea.

Convinced? If so, please take the trouble to use this link to have a look for yourself. No, I will not make any money from it, but they will give me a discount on my own next order. Besides one tea connoisseur helping another, it would be a nice, painless way of showing your appreciation for this blog.

LINK TO TEABOX

(Send me a comment if the link does not work.)