All the Tea in China

“You can never get a cup of tea large enough or a book long enough to suit me.”
― C.S. Lewis 

One of my favorite childhood memories involves sitting down with Mama for tea.  In my teens iced tea became my tipple of choice. In my fifties I worked for three years in Seychelles, an Indian Ocean nation, where everybody at the Ministry of Education stopped work promptly at 10 to savor a cuppa and nibble a samosa.

In recent years I've fallen into the habit of drinking a cup or two most weekday mornings. On weekends, or when I am going to be working at my computer for any length of time, I make a pot of coffee. That's my plan for today.

Nonetheless, I'm wondering why I didn't choose tea instead. After all, just last Saturday I attended a tea tasting and a lecture, "Journey into Pu-erh Tea," at my Westminster Public Library. Thirteen guests listened to Pasadena's Denong Premium Tea guru Jeffrey McIntosh share his personal experience in the tea industry where he visited multiple tea mountains and tea growing regions in China over the last 10 years. 

Then we sampled, savored and scored four types of tea. We examined the appearance of each, the aromas, the in-mouth sensations and the aftertaste. McIntosh informed us about the stimulating or soothing qualities of each.

Those familiar with the novels of Lisa See may be familiar with pu-erh from reading "The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane," set in both Pasadena, CA and Hunnan, China's pu-erh production area. The oldest pu-erh tea tree in the world, 3200 years old, grows there. McIntosh explained the humid area resembles a rain forest, promoting the production of these tea leaves which retail for over $400 per kg. But global warming has created droughts, affecting that area, according to a July 25 Reuters report. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-china-tea/global-warming-reshapes-almanac-for-tea-growers-in-chinas-yunnan-idUSKCN1UL0BR

Consequently an anticipated shortage of this expensive tea may drive prices even higher. The Reuters article quotes a Beijing National Climate Center director who points out that the precipitation pattern in that area has changed substantially. 

McIntosh discussed the difference between raw and ripe pu-erh teas. The raw tea is cooling for warmer weather, the ripe, warming for cooler weather. One valuable tip: because tea is good for the digestion, we should drink it after, not with, the meal, to savor the flavor and let it soothe our tummies. 

McInstosh insists that burping is beneficial for the digestion, releasing trapped air. I suspect that public burping isn't going to gain ready acceptance in a lot of local social circles.

• Use 3-5 grams of tea for every 6 oz. of water.
• Use only good tasting drinking water.
• Raw tea: water 185 degrees F, Aged, Raw or Ripe: Water at boiling, 212 degrees F.
• Steeping times: First infusion, 10 seconds, gradually increase times in subsequent brews.

For more about Denong and its teas: https://www.denongtea.com/

xxx

My tea story about Mama has been published in a Chicken Soup for the Soul book and additionally in Tea, a Magazine.

Tea for Two

My sequined purple satin princess costume remained in its tissue paper wrappings on the top shelf of my bedroom closet, as I perched in my pink rosebud flannel pajamas on the window seat, peering out the bay window at the neighborhood witches, ghosts, and cowboys scurrying by. 

 On October 31, 1944, we didn't expect any knocks at our front door, festooned not with the Jack O'Lantern cutout I had made in my first grade classroom the week before, but with a stark black and white quarantine sign that shouted “Contagious Disease, Chicken Pox.”

Daddy had taken my unaffected older sister and little brother to Grandma's house for a party earlier that evening, leaving Mama and me home alone.  I had finished reading all the stories in the newest edition of Children's Activities, tired of cutting out paper dolls from the old Sears catalog, and longed to be outside.  Mama had promised me a special treat, but I couldn't imagine what could replace the thrill of joining the troops of children wandering door to door in the autumn twilight with their rapidly filling pillow slips.  No Hershey bars, candied apples or popcorn balls for me this year, I knew.  I didn't care, I told myself, because though the itching had ceased, I had yet to regain my appetite anyway.

Mama had turned on the Philco radio in the kitchen, and I heard the Andrews sisters warning “Don't sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me.”  My sister was probably bobbing for apples right now at Grandma's house, I thought.  “O.K.,” Mama called,  “Time to get dressed!” 

Glancing down at my pajamas, I wondered what she could mean, but scooted off my seat and trudged to the kitchen.  On the back of one of the chrome dinette chairs hung Mama's fur chubby, a kind of short jacket that represented the essence of elegance to me those days.  I used to love to watch Mama get dressed for special evenings, in her chiffon dresses always topped by the chubby. 

“Put it on,” she said, pointing to the jacket.  “We are going to play tea party, and I am going to be the hostess, while you will be my guest.”  She draped a string of pearls around my neck, as I shrugged into the jacket.  I noticed that the table had been set with her best Blue Willow cups and saucers, and that an empty platter had been placed next to the toaster.

Though I could not venture all the way outdoors, Mama opened it a crack so I could at least knock on the outside, right below the Quarantine sign.  “Oh, Miss Terri, it's so good of you to call this evening.It's tea time,” she announced.  “And even though you are my guest, I'm going to ask you to make the meal, since you have such a special touch with cinnamon toast.”

 

I'd seen the bakery truck make its delivery earlier, and had wondered what had been left on our doorstep.  Now Mama opened the bread box and pulled out a loaf of sliced raisin bread.  She placed the sugar bowl, the butter dish and the red tin of cinnamon on the counter, and lifted the chubby from my shoulders.  Then she opened her Searchlight Recipe Book to page 44, handed me the yellow plastic measuring spoon set, and said, “Let's see how you do reading that recipe.”

I was the best reader in my class, so I stumbled only on “substitute” and “proportion” as I read aloud the instructions.

“Cinnamon Toast:  Spread freshly toasted bread with butter or butter substitute.  Spread generously with sugar and cinnamon which have been blended in the proportion of 1 teaspoon cinnamon to ½ cup sugar.  -- The Household Searchlight”

While I watched the raisin bread brown in our two-sided toaster, Mama put her tea kettle on to boil, and told me a story about the birds on the Blue Willow china.  She said that an angry Chinese father had been trying to catch his daughter who was running away with a boyfriend.  Before he could catch them, they had been transformed into birds and flew away together.  I rubbed my finger across the birds on the saucer.  “When you grow up, your father won't chase away your boyfriends,” she said with a little laugh.  “And now that you're learning to cook, it won't be too much longer before you are grown up for every day, not just for Halloween.”  I smiled.  It was true.  I was learning to cook. 

Though I hadn't been hungry all day long, the smell of the cinnamon sugar seemed to reawaken my appetite, and I ate my entire slice and half of Mama's, and even managed a swallow or two of my milk tea.  When my sister returned later that evening with the candied apples that Grandma had sent, I accepted one, but insisted I wasn't really hungry, since I had cooked and eaten a meal earlier. 

Mama's prediction came true, too, as I became engaged just a dozen years later.  And at my wedding shower in 1955 she presented me with a black leatherette bound Searchlight Recipe Book.  I turn the yellowed pages today to Page 44, and again recall  the delicious aroma of cinnamon toast as I remember the year that trick or treat became tea for two.