Tea Musings

Some time ago, realistically the best part of a decade ago, I was in a fancy tea shop in Glasgow looking for a nice Gunpowder Green tea as part of a wedding present for a friend, and it turned out that tea shop was doing a tea tasting. (Why do I think of Whittards as fundamentally fancier than T2? It’s not as though their price points are appreciably different?) There were an array of glass teapots sitting out with tempting concoctions brewing away, so I gleefully allowed myself to be persuaded to join the tasting. They were all white teas - maybe an oolong mixed in for variety - and they were all very nice, but one of them blew me away. It was an unusual one, a white tea from Darjeeling, combining, the assistant assured me and I definitely agreed, the best of both kinds of tea. (Back when I was first exploring loose leaf teas, I worked my way through the classics of Indian teas as drunk in the UK - Assam, Ceylon, Darjeeling, Earl Grey - and settled happily on Darjeeling as my favourite - I love an Earl Grey, but it’s a tea for a particular mood, though it has the advantage of being hard to mess up, so even most coffee shops will stock it. But if I’m out for afternoon tea and they have Darjeeling, that’s what I’m having.) A rare, limited run of tea they said, and it’s certainly not on their website these days. It was also hideously expensive. I don’t now remember the price but, something like twice the price for half the amount, of the fancy gunpowder green tea I was buying my friend. I absolutely couldn’t justify it, but I’ve thought of it fondly ever since.

These days I know rather more about tea, and handily have rather more disposable income than I used to, so when I come across something different and/or special I can justify treating myself. A few months ago, I was at an outdoor craft market and came across a local tea blending company with an assortment of interesting blends along with simple interesting teas they imported themselves. (How to get a tea sellers undivided attention at an event like that, ask about oolongs apparently.) We had a delightful chat about oolongs we have known and enjoyed and I came away with a couple of interesting oolongs to try, chief excitement of which was one labelled Darjoolong. A combination of my two favourite kinds of tea, and as close to that fabled tea as I’m likely to find again, how could I resist? It was definitely not as gasp inducingly expensive as I remember the other one being, though it certainly was in the category of a ‘special occasion tea’ rather than everyday tea.

The tasting notes speak of caramel and cookies, but I didn’t notice that, what I noticed was that it tasted like a Darjeeling but softer, more like a white tea than the light but complex oolongs that I have come to love. Fundamentally it tasted of tea, pleasant mellow tea that doesn’t need milk because its just perfect by itself. I’ve made it in a cup with my little tea ball, I’ve made it in my pot and drunk cup after cup without quite realising it. It’s tea to be drunk while doing other things, tea that doesn’t draw attention to itself, or demand you drink up or abandon it. Tea that was absolutely worth the wait to find; tea that the only worry about using it up will be - when will I be able to get more of it again!

Back in January, I blithely declared I was going to write monthly tea reviews. And then I just…didn’t.

I had good intentions in March, when I was at an outdoor craft market and discovered a tea stall, selling a variety of unusual blends. So often when I come across these kind of things, they’re properly tisanes or black tea plus additions rather than interesting blends of teas. However, joy of joys there amongst the usual suspects were a small selection of interesting sounding oolongs! I got to be decidedly nerdy about teas with the proprietor who shares my love for oolong teas, and came away with two lovely sounding new teas to try! Perfect for trying and reviewing for this project! Except that I opened my tea cupboard and was confronted by the numerous open and half-used packets and tins, and couldn’t in good conscious start a new one. I had good intentions to finish one of them, write it up for here, and try to trade off drinking and reviewing old favourites and new acquisitions, but unfortunately life happened and after some initial success using up some interesting tea bags that had lurked too long, other things took precedence.

This month, however, I decided to make a serious attempt at reclaiming my weekend ritual of pots of loose leaf tea and radio listening. This has been nicely encouraged along by the factor of the tea I fancied the first morning I attempted to restart the habit, was perilously close to it’s expiry date, so needing a concerted effort to be used up. Given how much I enjoy the tea, this was not a hardship. The tea in question is an Oolong, Tikuanyin - transliterations vary, I’m using the one from the packet, which came from a local Chinese supermarket here - which I first got a taste for from a delightful little sample set of Chinese teas that I got as a gift years ago. I liked it so much that I tracked it down and now buy it in more substantial packets. I recommend brewing it strong - in my case three generous tea spoons for a four-cup teapot, brewed for 5 minutes - though I have one of those tea pots with the filter baskets that can be removed so if you are a strain as you pour person then you may need to be a little more cautious on that front. I especially appreciate it as a tea that does not become bitter if it gets cold and that a forgotten last cup in the pot can be reheated with only minimal damage to the flavour. The flavour itself is a mellow, slightly smoky one, with a pleasant mouth feel and aroma that I can’t describe as anything other than comforting. It’s pretty much the platonic ideal of oolong tea for me, the gold(en) standard against which all others are compared.

Many years ago, when I was first exploring the world of tea, I decided that I wanted to become the kind of person who drank green tea and set about exploring the world of green teas.

(I like to say that my twenties were all about working out who I wanted to be and figuring out how to achieve that, whereas my thirties have been about becoming and being that person.)

One of the problems of being known among your friends, relations and acquaintances as someone who likes green tea is that you get given a lot of green tea. By given a lot of green tea, I don’t mean that people see an unusual green tea somewhere and buy it for you as a present, or keep a box in their cupboard for when you visit – a few people do, in fact do this, and it’s lovely and much appreciated – but rather that you become designated drop of point for spare green tea. There was a while in the late 00s where green tea became the trendy health drink of choice. I’m not sure how or why, but lots of diets and general health improvement articles and advice seemed to involve drinking gallons of green tea. For a while it seemed as though everyone was trying to cut down on their caffeine and trading in their afternoon coffee or tea for a cup of the green stuff. I’m sure some of them found a deeply satisfying replacement or supplement to their hot beverage repertoire.

Now, for most people whose entire experience with tea drinking involves teabags of the kind purveyed by Tetley, PG Tips or Typhoo, served with milk and/or sugar, changing over to green tea requires a bit of getting used to. I would go so far as to call it an acquired taste. There are a lot of terrible green teas out there, that are, to me, the equivalent of those cheap generic tea bags that my dad calls ‘floor sweepings’ tea. Even with decent green tea, its fairly easy to make a terrible cup of tea with them, its very easy to make weak insipid tea and even easier to leave the bag in too long and end up with bitter stewed tea. Which should actually not be a surprise to the average tea drinker, as while most people who drink tea will claim a cup of tea is a cup of tea, given the option they will evince surprisingly specific requirements for their cuppa. (I’m a strong tea with lots of milk kind of person – leave the bag in if you’re not sure – or neart le torr bainne gorm at work.) Learning how other people take their tea is a gesture of friendship and affection. But rarely do people consider this when they try green tea. Therefore the fad for green tea mostly led to those people having a box of green tea lurking in their cupboard, for months, with half a dozen tea bags out of it and then gifting them to me when they discovered that I actually liked the stuff.

For years I never had to buy the stuff, just keeping on top of the forsaken boxes of tea kept me in more green tea than I could face. To the point that I was completely scunnered of the stuff. I had some beautiful Jasmine tea that I’d picked up at one of the Chinese supermarkets in Glasgow and I couldn’t face it. For years. Even when I liked green tea, it wasn’t an everyday drink. It was something I had to be in the mood for, something I drank after some excellent Asian cuisine or as an accompaniment to a good book. I’ve spent most of the last five years refusing green tea anywhere that wasn’t a Japanese restaurant – for some reason, even the complimentary cups they do at Wagamama’s are reliably great – and exploring other teas. I’ve discovered lots of teas I love along the way, but every time I came across some nice looking green tea, I’d feel wistful that I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it the way I once had and so would pass it over.

A few months ago, I was visiting my parents and discovered a small stash of Jasmine tea bags. Out of curiosity I made a cup and a beautiful aroma rose out of the cup, it was a truly gorgeous cup of tea. I gathered up the remaining bags and rationed them out over the following months. Slowly, carefully I’ve been experimenting with green teas again. Mostly Jasmine teas, but with more generic green teas, a flavoured green tea here, an iced tea there, the surprisingly pleasing matcha latte when I’m in the mood. (Why are matcha lattes so good? I’ve accidentally put milk in green tea on several occasions and its vile. It shouldn’t work – and admittedly depending where you get them, it sometimes doesn’t – but somehow, a good matcha latte is divine.) At work the other day, I unearthed a box of green tea, which a Malaysian colleague had brought back for the office from a recent holiday to Korea. It is one of the mildest, loveliest green teas I’ve ever drunk. The box is massive and now lives on my desk, because I’m the only one who drinks it. It’s amazing. I’ve rediscovered my love of green tea.

But I’ll be keeping that to myself most places, in fact lets just keep it between ourselves, because we’re about due for another cycle of ‘green tea is good for you’ and if people find out I’ll start to receive boxes of unloved green tea once more. And I’d really like, to just keep on, enjoying my green tea.

I came to tea drinking later in life than most, despite coming from a family of tea drinkers – my gran in particular would feed you tea until you burst if you were too polite to tell her to stop.

Over the last few years I’ve developed a thing for loose leaf teas, culminating in my getting a tea pot – with filter – for my birthday a couple of years ago. Until I had a teapot of my own, I’d never really understood the whole tea-making-drinking as ritual thing, with steepings and timings and the rest. I had plenty of experience of the ‘tea as cure-all’ thing, though honestly even then there’s only one friend of mine who defaults to feeding me tea when I’m distressed and she makes the best tea in the world as far as I’m concerned – only from her will I always take a cuppa unquestioningly whenever offered. (Oddly enough she’s the only other person I know who owns a teapot – who owned one when we were students! - even if she makes it with tea bags and milk) But here I am as an adult, discovering the process of tea making as meditation. Of time spent in contemplation of the process, focused but unfocused, forgetting the rest of the world and its stresses and strains, to take a little time for oneself. Soothing and necessary. Time to rest and unwind, refocus on the things that matter.

I'm drinking Yunnan tea today, out of a little set of mini-tins of Chinese teas I got as a present. (Proper, curling dried leaves, that look like plant when they've been brewing for a while, none of this dust nonsense you get some places. Leaves you could read a fortune in if you were so inclined.) It's rather pleasant.

One of the most useful craft projects I’ve ever undertaken was to make myself a tea cosy. Years ago, I came across a book of tea cosy patterns, a delightful blend of kitsch and charming, and fully expected it to spend its life much admired and un-used. With the arrival of my own teapot, the necessity of a tea cosy became apparent. It was fine if I made a pot of tea to share, but if I was making tea just for me, by the time I went for a second cup it was cold. Also, frankly, I didn’t particularly like any of the cosies in my mum’s collection and so it was make my own or be mildly irritated every time I made a pot of tea. My tea cosy is blue. Well, actually, its turquoise cable-work with a dark blue – with sparkles - trim at the top and bottom. Largely because the turquoise was left over from another project and I feared I might run out and the dark blue is an almost perfect match for the teapot. It looks cute and quaint wrapped in its cosy, and more importantly, the cosy keeps the tea at perfect drinking temperature for me. So I can spend an afternoon working away – on college work, crafting, writing articles or just curled up with a good book – and never need to move further than to reach over and pour another cup of tea.