Tea Punch

If you like a little more than sugar and milk in your tea (nudge, nudge), check out my new Samovar blog post on tea punches. Excerpt:

Tea and punch have a long history together. Some say punch originated in India, where it was made from five key ingredients. (In Hindi, the word for five is “panch.” Many think this is where the word “punch” originated.)

These five key ingredients were: lemon or lime juice, sugar, water, liquor and vaguely defined “spice,” which could mean something we currently think of as “spice” (like nutmeg), something we would probably shun today (like a whale secretion that’s only used is perfume these days) or (yes, yes) tea.

As punch recipes spread across Europe in the 1600s, they evolved. Mixtures of multiple citrus juices and liquors were employed, and green tea and champagne widely replaced water as a core ingredient.

These innovations became much of the groundwork of the art of mixology, which is (gladly) enjoying a revival in San Francisco and other major U.S. cities right now.

Read more on Samovar's tea blog, and happy sipping!

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.

Black-Owned Tea Businesses Build Community

In honor of Black History Month (and as an indirect nod to our new tea-loving President and other African American leaders) I decided to write about black-owned tea businesses for World Tea News. It was a fascinating article tor research. There are some wonderful tea businesses out there that are owned by African Americans. They run the range from blenders to bottlers to tea rooms, and had some very interesting things to say about tea and African American community/identity. Here's an excerpt from the piece:

Urban Tea Loft (Chandler, Ariz.)

CEO: Glynis Legrand

Years in business: 1 ½

Products: More than 100 loose-leaf teas, foods with and without tea as an ingredient, tea cocktails, tea soaps and lotions

Purpose: To get people to try and enjoy tea in many forms

How she got started: A former Fortune 25 company manager, Legrand started a journey into tea when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2002. She attended The World Tea Expo to learn more about tea for her own health and decided she belonged in the industry.

Community impact: Legrand said African Americans make up a very small percentage of the local population, but a sizeable percentage of her clients, thanks to word of mouth and events like “Soul Food Saturdays.”

Landmarks: Awards from Phoenix Magazine, participation in the 2008 Super Bowl celebrity-gifting lounge, board membership at The Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health

Goals: To set up Internet sales and expand to additional locations



Glynis was just one of the five African American tea business owners profiled in this article. Read more on black-owned tea businesses on World Tea News.

When I Take My Sugar to Tea

Do you know the song, "When I Take My Sugar to Tea?" It's quite interesting -- it presents tearooms as an escape from daily life and a place where anything can happen. There are a few tearooms around the U.S. that have fantastic environments (usually more like high-end lounges and bars than traditional tearooms or coffee shops), and I wonder if tearooms will ever return to their former status of "happening place" again. I certainly hope so!

Here's a video of When I Take My Sugar to Tea. Enjoy!

New Vee Tea Article

TeaMuse just put out a new Vee Tea tearoom review. Excerpt:

Tea & Sympathy is a small and perpetually crowded tearoom in the West Village's so-called "Little Britain" district. It has been serving up classic British fare such as bangers and mash, Welsh rarebit, treacle pudding and, of course, an abundance of (mostly flavored black) teas to British expatriates and Anglophiles alike for nearly two decades. At first taste, Tea & Sympathy is enough to make you wish the States hadn't caused that whole "Boston Tea Party" fuss and simply let the British carry on with their whole "world domination" bit unchallenged. However, by the end of the meal, you'll be glad to walk outside and know you are on American soil (or sidewalk, as the case may be).

You see, when the denizens of Boston decided to throw tea overboard ships as a symbol of rebellion against the British, they set off a chain reaction spanning down the East coast and resulting in the voluntary end of tea drinking for many a proud soon-to-be American. Tea was still consumed in some areas, notably in the form of iced green tea punches in the South, but lost its former status and was no longer culturally ingrained in the same way. An unseasonably hot summer at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis led one Mr. Richard Blechynden to mix a batch of iced tea, get (erroneously) named the "inventor of iced tea," and spread the consumption of iced tea across the US. (The numerous free samples he distributed outside NYC's Bloomingdale's later in the summer didn't hurt, either.) Still, it took a wave of new tearooms, often opened by immigrants from Asia and Europe, in the US in the late 20th century to help the custom of hot tea reach anything near its former glory. Tea & Sympathy is one of those tearooms.

You can read the rest of my new tearoom review on TeaMuse. Enjoy!

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!

Tea with Friends

I am so elated. I have finally convinced all of my friends that they a) LIKE TEA (the problem for most was that they had only tried bad tea before) and b) are perfectly fine with meeting me for tea instead of alcohol.

My sister (who NEVER drinks alcohol) would be proud. But the whole tea world from estate managers to tearoom owners should be rejoicing! Tea is getting more and more mainstream in the US every day and it's experiencing a revival in many other countries, too.

In the US, tea drinking basically disappeared after the Boston Tea Party (save for the surge in iced tea's popularity, which began at the beginning of the last century and lingers today), but in a lot of other places it simply became old fashioned. Many people thought of tea as fussy, overly formal, or absurdly frilly. Thanks to a bit of a makeover, tea is recognized for its incredible array of flavors and health benefits, and is becoming popular among Baby Boomers and young hipsters alike. And that, my friends, is why tea is hot.

Tea during Wartime

The New York Times (somewhat) recently started to allow everyone (not just paying subscribers) to see their full archives online. Here are two articles on tea during wartime that I found to be interesting:

The first is from 1916. It's about the German coffee and tea supplies being taken over by the state. There great was concern that when coffee ran out, tea would act as a coffee replacement (in addition to a popular drink on its own) and run out soon after.

The next article is from a year and a half later, when England's tea supply was nearly gone. The man interviewed blamed the shortage on exportation to Germany earlier in the war.

Other notes on tea (and coffee) during wartime:

During WWI and WW2, people in the US often drank chickory in lieu of coffee and rooibos in lieu of "true" tea (from the camellia sinensis plant).

Russian samovars have a bloody history. During wartime, samovars were often melted down to make guns. During times of peace, the guns were melted down to make samovars. Somehow this always makes me think of the scene in Lord of War where they talk about how the militia snorts lines of cocaine mixed with gunpowder. Yikes!

The Opium Wars were waged over tea. Tea had caused an enormous trade imbalance between the Chinese and the British, so the British started growing opium in India and importing it to China, despite laws forbidding it. Soon, the nation was addicted and the government was outraged. And then... wars. Two of them, to be precise.