Harvard Business Review on Tea

The Harvard Business Review has an interesting article on tea in China in the 19th century. Excerpt:

Chinese methods of processing and enjoying tea were reinvented over the centuries. As late as the Song dynasty (960-1279 A.D.), powdered teas were gourmet extravagances, which gave rise to the varieties central to the Japanese tea ceremony (chanoyu). Tastes changed decisively in the Ming dynasty (1368-1644 A.D.) to favor types of loose, whole-leaf teas like those of the present day. No longer beaten to a froth in bowls and drunk out of them, tea was now brewed or steeped in teapots (another innovation of this period) and sipped from cups. By the middle of the eighteenth century (the mid-Qing dynasty), the three major classifications of contemporary Chinese teas had emerged—the fully fermented black teas (hongcha) favored throughout the former British Empire, semi-fermented teas (gingcha), such as the oolong so popular in North America, and unfermented green teas (lücha), which secured a following in more limited markets, such as North Africa. As evident in the nomenclature, the degree of fermentation or oxidation allowed in tea processing largely determined the nature of the output. Whether done manually or mechanically, the manipulation of newly picked leaves activates their oxidation, and firing or drying halts the process at the desired point.

Very interesting! You can read the rest and see more rare photos here.

Tea Eggs

Tea eggs are a beautiful, traditional Chinese dish made with tea, eggs and spices. They're fun and easy to make, and the flavors are perfect for cold weather. I recently made some with a variation on this tea egg recipe. (I substituted loose leaf Assam black tea for the bagged tea and changed up the spices just a bit.) Yum! I just wish the crackling turned out a bit better. Have you made them before? How did they turn out? Do you have a good recipe to share?

All In This Tea

All In This Tea will kick off a Les Blank film festival at Film Forum in NYC on Thursday November 14th. What a great way to begin! It will show at 1, 4 and 7 PM, and Les Blank and co-director Gina Leibrecht will be present for the 7 PM showing.

Dim Sum, Mooncakes and Tea

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of joining Winnie Yu (of Teance) and some of her friends for vegetarian dim sum and tea in Chinatown. (Winnie's rule -- Always bring your own tea to dim sum! Good advice...) She gave me these fantastic lard-free mooncakes, which she ordered from China for Teance. They are an important of the annual Moon Festival, which happens mid-fall, and were used to smuggle secret messages during the Ming Revolution. Since they are very heavy sweets, Winnie suggested pairing them with pu-erh, but they also go very well with the wonderful Tieguanyin Winnie gave me.

You can read more about pairing tea and sweets in my most recent World Tea News article. You can buy Winnie's incredible teas (which she sources from farms directly) on Teance's site. Maybe if they get enough emails requesting mooncakes, they'll offer them online next year. :)

Teance/Charles Chocolates Tea Collection

I recently finished an article for World Tea News on tea and sweets. One of the great perks of being a writer is the awesome samples. I was thrilled to get to try some products from Teance and Charles Chocolates, "The Tea Collection" truffles, and Charles Chocolates' pate de fruit. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to say much about them in my article because of word limits, but I thought you'd want to hear more here. I'll talk about pairing pate de fruit and tea soon, but today I'm going to talk about one of the best ideas EVER, blending tea and chocolate.

(If I sound really excited about this, it's because, well, I am.)

Tea chocolates are a relatively new innovation. Keiko Tea claims to be the first company to make green tea chocolates (matcha-based) and Earl Grey chocolates are a chocolatier's standby, but lately some companies are getting more adventuresome with their tea chocolates. You may remember Chocolatea, which I've mentioned before, or The Tea Room, who does some award-winning pairing. I haven't tried The Tea Room's chocolates, but I can say that Chocolatea approaches teas/tisanes as a functional ingredient and (usually) a flavor source with some positive results.

The Tea Collection is something rare in the world of tea chocolates, though. High-quality Chinese teas are elegantly paired with single-origin and chocolatier-blended chocolates for fantastic results. They range from Osmanthus, which is delicate, milky and sweet, to Charcoal-Fired Oolong, which is deep, smoky, complex and lingering. Like most jasmine chocolates, Special Jasmine captures the intoxicating aroma of jasmine, but it also has a true green tea taste that really sets it apart. Other flavors include sweetly tart Lichee and floral, delicate Formosa Oolong, which unites the creaminess of ganache with the fresh cream notes of a cooled Baochong. My favorite? The ethereal Charcoal-Fired Oolong. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven. Yum!

What are your favorite tea chocolates out there? Do you also make your own? Do you ever pair tea and chocolate?

Olympics Tea

A recent visit to one of my favorite tearooms gave me the chance to see a 2008 Olympics pu-erh cake for the first time. Pu-erh cakes can be used to commemorate all kind of occasions, from the Olympics to royal weddings to births to trade agreements. As pu-erh becomes more collectible worldwide, these kinds o commemorative cakes are likely to gain popularity. For this year's Olympics, even Coca Cola got in on the commemorative action. Crazy!

Seven Cups Tearoom, makers of the fantastic Seven Cups video podcast series, thought of a different way to celebrate the Olympics and tea in their Denver location: a competitive tea taste-a-thon. Winners receive Gold Medal Honey Orchid ea, Silver Needle or Iron Arhat Rock Oolong. Cool!

World Tea Expo, Day 2

Random notes for the day:

Trends:
Many more young people in attendance than last year
Lots of tea factories, fair trade farmers' alliances, and plantations in booths (increased ability to source directly)
More organics

Class:
Tea and Meditation by the authors of Tea Here Now, very interesting presentation on the connections between the two

Highlights:
Meeting James Norwood Pratt
Getting to see all the booths up close
Snagging samples of some fantastic shaped/flowering teas
Talking tea with other tea people
Buying some recent translations on Chinese and Taiwanese teas (particularly oolong and pu-erh)

It was an incredibly full day. I'm taking a moment to relax in my hotel room (if you can call blogging relaxing!) and then I'm off to dinner with Rajah Banerjee of Makaibari and a night on the town with a bunch of tea kids. Fun! More tomorrow...

Brooklyn Chinatown Food Tour

This weekend, Liz Young Tours is doing a walking and eating tour of Brooklyn's Chinatown to benefit Slow Food NYC. It includes dim sum (China's traditional foods to accompany tea, "yum cha," literally "tea drinking," is the name of the light meal they comprise) and visits to tea vendors on the Lucky 8 Strip. Cool! Details (from Slow Food's email announcement) below.

Saturday, May 17
9am - 1:15pm
Meet outside the 8th Avenue (Brooklyn) N Train Stop, on 8th Ave at 61st St.

Slow Food Members - $35
Non-members - $45

You are invited to join a special walking (and eating!) tour of Brooklyn's exciting Chinatown, where you will enjoy a variety of delicacies at four tasting stops, tour open-air fish and produce markets, and visit tea and ginseng vendors lining Lucky 8 Strip. (Bring your re-usable shopping bags!).

This food and fun-filled tour, designed just for Slow Food members and friends, will be lead by Liz Young, of Liz Young Tours. Liz graciously is donating proceeds to support the activities of Slow Food.

For lovers of all things Chinese, you do not want to miss this guided tour of Chinatown Brooklyn, a neighborhood still unknown to many New Yorkers. Participants have the complete Chinatown experience on this excursion, with four tasting stops, including dim sum and other delights, a tour of the open-air fish and produce markets, along with the grocery, tea and ginseng shops that line the lucky 8 strip. This fun and food-filled experience in Brooklyn's secret neighborhood lasts 4 hours and starts early in the day, while the dim sum flows!

Tickets available here

Local Food, Tea Plants

Local food co-ops have issued a challenge to their customers: eat local produce for 80% or more of your diet during the summer months. Excerpt from The Progressive Grocer:

Although "local" is a buzzword used by many retailers, the NCGA maintains that its member natural food co-ops cultivate "truly reciprocal, long-term relationships with local growers and producers."

Participating NCGA member stores will host Eat Local America challenges within their communities, encouraging individuals to visit their store, learn when their local challenge is taking place, commit to participate, and collect information on eating local foods. Because peak harvest time varies throughout the nation, the challenge duration may vary from a one-week to one-month period, according to NCGA.

Read more here.

Personally, I'll be getting most of my grocers from a local CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). As for my tea, I'll always love teamaster-made green tea from Japan, first flush black from Darjeeling, oolong from Taiwan, and white and green teas from China, but I'll also get to try some VERY local tea soon.


Soil from Darjeeling, kindly sent to me by a tea professional in India







Chinese-variety tea seeds, kindly sent to me my a tea educator in Japan





Planting of the tea seeds, for uber-local, "fresh from my apartment" tea



If anyone in the US would like a tea seed or two, email me with your address and one way you plan to go greener this year. Have a great Earth Day tomorrow!

Two NYT Tea Articles

Here are two articles from last year that I've been meaning to link for some time. They are both from The New York Times and they cover very different aspects of tea. The first is similar to my recent Tea Muse article on tea in Austin. Its focus is Portland and it is written by the talented Ceil Miller Bouchet. The second is about the owners of a specialty foods store who, like me, love to teach tea and who, unlike me, recently published the wonderful book “The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide."

Excerpt from Beyond Tea and Crumpets in Portland:

"... that's why I came to Portland: to connect with this moist metropolis through my favorite brew. Building on the success of established Portland tea businesses like Tazo Tea, Stash and Oregon Chai, the city is host to one of the most distinctive tea scenes in the country. Locally owned tea spots have sprouted throughout the city, supported by an epicurean population that travels miles for the perfect cup. From mushroom tea to tea paired with sake, these citizens of the Pacific Rim are thinking way beyond tea and crumpets. And no tea bags allowed."

Excerpt from Lessons From the Professors of Tea:

"In Shanghai they visited a bustling regional wholesale tea market that was featuring first-of-the-season teas from the eastern provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Anhui. (Cramped in the back of a van full of Chinese passengers, no officials saw them as they rode through the checkpoint into a Chinese-only wholesale section of the city.)

On a boat ride on the Lake of a Thousand Islands, in Zhejiang Province, a woman named Wei Cui Lan, one of China’s leading tea authorities and one of the last women to graduate from tea school before the Cultural Revolution, showed them the methods required to brew at least 30 different varieties of green and oolong tea."

PS--I still have two free tickets left for the Coffee and Tea Festival. Email me with your name and a comment or suggestion for Vee Tea to win them.

The Leaf Magazine

A new tea magazine has arrived on the scene. It focuses on Cha Do, the Chinese way of tea, and it has some fascinating articles (including one on ancient tea expert Lu Yu by the renowned James Norwood Pratt). Check it out and have a great weekend!

Pricing All the Tea in China

In an effort to control inflation, The Chinese government has decided to freeze prices on many food items, and to reduce prices on foods that is considers to be unreasonably priced. (Full article here.) In light of coffee's rising prices, this development in such an enormous producer of tea (and one with such a high trade surplus, due in large part to the peg of the yuan) may have a substantial impact on the world's drinking habits. Hmm...