Discovering the myths of tea
Dance of the leaves
Like any good story, the story of tea features some conflict, a war or two, folklore and legends and, of course, misunderstandings.
What tea is (and what it isn't)
Strictly speaking, tea is made from the bud and top two leaves, also called the flush, of the Camellia Sinensis plant. These leaves are dried and oxidised (fermented) in different ways to give a variety of teas, ranging from white tea, green tea, to oolong and black tea.
White tea is totally unprocessed. The leaves are simply wilted and dried without heat. Green tea is unfermented, oolong semi-fermented, somewhere between green and black, and Pu-erh tea is a double-fermented black tea which can be matured for as long as 50 years.
What we usually find in supermarket tea bags, is literally the left-over dust from when the leaves have been removed, simply gathered up and stamped into bags - not the best quality by a long shot. Incidentally, the practice of making tea from disposable bags originated from a misunderstanding. Thomas Sullivan, a New York coffee and tea merchant in the early part of the previous century, tried to cut costs by sending loose tea in silk sacks instead of costly metal tins, and the users mistakenly steeped the whole bag. He realised he struck gold when requests for the "tea bags" started pouring in. Terroir seems to be as important to serious tea drinkers as it is to wine lovers.
Examples of tea with names pointing to its origin include Darjeeling and Assam (made in India), and Ceylon (Sri Lanka). This definition of course means that some drinks like herbal tea and even our beloved rooibos, actually isn't tea at all, but a tisane, or infusion. Favourites include chamomile and peppermint.
MYTHS, FOLKLORE AND THE STORY OF TEA
The story goes that the second emperor of China, Shen Nung, discovered tea in about 2700 BC when a tea leaf was blown into his cup of hot water. He tasted the infused liquid and was immediately intrigued. From here, first monks and then merchants were responsible of taking it to the corners of the globe. In around 1101, Emperor Hui Tsung apparently became so obsessed with sophistication and tea culture that he spent his time hosting tea-tasting tournaments and writing tea notes, never noticing that the Mongols were busy taking over his empire.
Tea was sold as "chaa" in Amsterdam for the first time in the 1600s and by 1657, the first tea was sold in London, at Garway's Coffee House.
The Brits instantly took to the trendy new beverage, helped greatly by the marriage of King Charles II to the tea-loving Portuguese princess Catherine Braganza. The well-known Thomas Twining opened up his Tom's Coff ee House in London in 1706. The British East India Company, also known as John's Company, started importing tea from China, and later from cultivated plantations in other places like India and Ceylon (today Sri Lanka).
Tea was also the axel around which many of the world's great conflicts revolved, of which the first was the Opium Wars. Britain and China were trading partners, with Britain supplying opium in exchange for tea. The Chinese eventually banned opium trade due to massive social problems and, after illegal trade persisted, war broke out. And of course, no story about tea would be complete without the Boston Tea Party, where furious locals dressed as Native Americans dumped dozens of tea chests from East India ships in the Boston Harbour in protest against who else, but the British, and their tea taxes, paving the way to the American Revolution.
Another legend is that of Charles Earl Grey, an Englishman who traveled to China, who happened to save the life of a drowning child. According to legend, the child was the son of a mandarin, who in turn gave Grey a recipe for making his distinctive tea. Romantic as it may be, there are a few loopholes to this story, not least of which the fact that Earl Grey never set foot in China. He was, however, a great fan of tea.
Pinky in the air - brewing the perfect cup
There are no two ways about it - whoever says they don't like tea, probably did it wrong. The perfect cup of tea is a factor of the time brewed, temperature and oxygen levels of the water and the material of the container from which it's drunk. The highest quality tea comes in the form of leaves, which unroll as they are warmed in the hot water, infusing it with a subtle aroma. The Chinese poetically call it the "dance of the leaves".
Use about one teaspoon of leaves per cup and draw fresh water for each pot, filtered being the best. Gently warm the pot by swirling some boiling water in it before adding the leaves. Green tea is best made from water just not quite boiling, about 85 0C, while black tea should be steeped in water just off the boil. The correct brewing time is about five minutes for black tea and three minutes for green - any longer and too many tannins will be released, rendering the tea bitter. Porcelain remains the Riedel of teaware, but earthenware, stainless steel and glass come a close second.
And of course, the big question: to milk or not to milk? The British probably got the idea of milk in tea from India, where it is customary to drink a spicy chai tea with milk and sugar and indeed, some English teas were blended for use with milk. It really isn't recommended for green tea and if you choose it for black, don't let it stand for too long before drinking, as the structure of the tea begins to deteriorate.
Tea trends
Tea lounges, tea shops and tea bars are taking their place among the coffee shops and cocktail bars in trendy cities around the world, and South Africa is no exception, albeit a little late to the trend. With the Slow Food Movement gaining ground, people are yearning for the quality of days gone by; for the time-slowing rituals involved in making a decent pot of tea, of course allowing for the astounding variety of teas available to the consumer living in the global village.
Cavendish Square in Claremont, Cape Town, is home to the Tea Emporium, a calm oasis of zen in a sea of designer shoes and espresso. It was on a holiday in Brisbane, Australia, that owner Hajira Khalfe was handed a cup of caramel rooibos. "It blew my mind," she remembers. It immediately sparked interest and she started travelling and researching the subject, before opening up the shop, serving and selling teas from all over. Patrons can make their choice with the help of the sniffing bar. It reminds you of an alchemist's laboratory, with dozens of glass bottles carrying tea mixes from all over the world, mixed with exotic ingredients like raspberry flakes, sandalwood, chocolate kisses, cardamom, orange peel and rosehip. Worthy of recommendation is Cape Town Nights, a spicy, fragrant black tea blend. The tea is served in a titsubin, a traditional Japanese cast iron pot, accompanied by an hourglass to ensure perfect steeping, and at first sip you taste ginger and caraway, subtly spicy and deeply satisfying.
Shop L21, Cavendish Square, Claremont. Tel. 021 674 6066.
Curious explorers in Gauteng can head out to Josephine's Tea Room in Silver Lakes, Pretoria, where owner Tereza Atterbury serves over 40 types of imported tea, including the Fairy Laugh, a green tea with leaves that unfold in the shape of a flower. Here you'll find black and green tea, various rooibos teas, fruit infusions and herbal tea, all loose leaves. "I don't serve one teabag in Josephine's." She also started serving coffee and cappuccino a while ago. "But we do find that people are more health conscious and eager to try tea."
Shop 14, Silver Oaks Crossing, Silver Lakes, Pretoria. Tel 012 809 2023.
Finding quiet in a tea ceremony
"Lift the cup to your nose and notice how the woody notes turn to sweetness as your nose becomes accustomed to the aroma."
Though it might sound like a wine tasting, Mingwei Tsai is actually conducting a tea ceremony in a glass sanctuary, all bubbling water and soft whispers, at the back of the bustling Origin Coffee Roasting. It's cleverly called Nigiro, Origin spelled backwards.
Mingwei conducts tea ceremonies in the Taiwanese fashion on a stone tea tray and nothing is done in a hurry. He lovingly pours the oolong tea on the outside of the tiny ceramic tea pot, "feeding the pot" he calls it, to slowly permeate the porous ceramic with tea oils. Pots that have been fed for five years or longer are sold for a lot of money in the East, he says.
Participate in the ceremony and you are presented with two delicate cups. The tea is poured into the taller of the two, or "fragrance cup" and the shorter, fatter one is placed upside down on it, forming a "mushroom". The mushroom is turned upside down and the air bubble moves upward through the fragrant tea and gets trapped in the fragrance cup. This is brought to the nose and smelled. Up to six steeps of tea can be poured from the same cup and each steeping renders different aromas, from floral jasmine to woody cedar.
The tea is now placed on the outstretched fingers and with a bow of the head brought to the lips. Every cup, Mingwei says, is divided into three mouthfuls and every mouthful into three swallows, pausing after every swallow and breathing out through the nose to capture the aroma. This is a drawn-out process, mind you, and for the freaked out Westerner it is a fine break from the chaos of daily life, taking the time to concentrate on tea, and only tea. And slowly sanity returns. Tea is the antithesis of coffee, Mingwei says, and on opening the glass door and stepping out from the sounds of falling water into the pumping music and street sounds, you understand.
Nigiro Specialist Tea Merchants, 28 Hudson Street, De Waterkant, Cape Town. Tel 021 421 1000.
DID YOU KNOW?
• India is the world's largest
tea-drinking nation.
• Tea is the second-most consumed
drink in the world, surpassed
only by water.
• Russians traditionally drink tea
from tea concentrate, adding hot
water, topping it with a lemon,
and drinking it through a lump
of sugar held between the teeth.
• Anna the Duchess of Bedford
introduced the concept of
afternoon tea, served with thin
sandwiches and small cakes in
1840.
• Iced tea was thought up on a
blazing day at the St Louis
World's Fair by tea merchant
Richard Blechynden.
