December 20, 2022

Daily Diary, Day 840: My Favorite Things #12 Tea

For those of you who have read my books, you probably have noticed how often I have my characters having a cup of tea. That is because drinking tea is definitely one of my favorite things.

When I was young, tea and coffee were for grown-ups. Except when I was ill. Then I was permitted to have hot tea (Liptons’s black tea), with cream and sugar, so I’ve always tended to see tea as a treat. I assume the limitation on my use of tea to special occasions was because of the caffeine, although this didn’t seem to result in denying me iced tea in the summer. That now seems like a contradiction and one of those things you wish you had asked your parents when they were still alive.

My parents tended to drink coffee during the day, and my Dad was always trying to cut back. It sounded as if there was always a pot of coffee on at the office where he worked, so I suspect that on weekends when he wasn’t constantly drinking cup after cup, he was getting withdrawal headaches. Drinking coffee didn’t seem to disturb his sleep, and my Dad really loved to sleep. He was a big napper.

When I went off to college, it seemed most of my classmates took up drinking coffee (clearly seeing this as a sign of adulthood because they had also been denied this beverage at home.) I didn’t. I think the main reason was that the taste of coffee never lived up to the smell, which I quite like. Plus, my reaction was: why learn to like something that apparently wasn’t that good for you? I had the same reaction to cigarettes, which I never even tried.

No one made a big deal about tea and caffeine back then, and so I started having tea occasionally. This was in the late sixties, so in addition to the basic Lipton’s bag tea, I also learned to like Chamomile (or SleepyTime tea) for night-time. But not every day, and certainly not to the degree I now drink tea. Actually, until the past decade when cholesterol became a problem for me, I still preferred to drink milk at meals.

However, while in college I had my first exposure to what I would call an exotic tea. There was a kind of farmers market outside of our small college town where you could get fresh fruits and vegetables. They also sold things like locally made cheeses and had different kinds of teas. We would ride our bikes out there about once a month and stock up on cheese, fresh bread, and Formosa Oolong tea. Great memory. Then, in graduate school, I discovered Earl Grey tea, and that became my go-to hot beverage for decades.

About fifteen years ago, good friends of ours moved to San Francisco and started sending me different kinds of teas as birthday presents from a shop near their apartment. And that is when I discovered Pu-erh Tea and fell in love.

Initially, because this tea can be pricey and you can’t find it easily in stores, it was the special tea I had sparingly. Then, one day, the special pu-erh tea our friends sent me as a present was called Sticky Rice Pu-erh, and my love of pu-erh became an obsession. This is a tea where the pu-erh leaves are mixed with an herb Nuo Mi Xiang that gives the tea a taste of rice. Hard to describe, but I can definitely tell the difference between this and other pu-erh teas.

I searched online until I found a place called Upton Tea Imports that carried it, and several other kinds of pu-erh, that I like...almost as well as the Sticky Rice. I started ordering from them in bulk so I would never be without this tea.

However, they also sent samples with your orders, and I had fun trying different blends, including a couple of decaffeinated teas, including a Rooibous Chai I like. One of these blends led me to my second favorite tea, also caffeinated, a Lapsang Souchong tea, which for some reason reminds me of that oolong tea I had back in college.

So, I now have about 4 cups one of my pu-erh teas, and 2-3 cups of Lapsang Souchong every day. I take my tea with cream and sugar (well, with 2% milk and stevia). I use an electric kettle, and brew the tea in a thermos to keep it hot, and only switch to decaffeinated teas at dinner time

Someone once asked me what pu-erh tea tastes like and I said sweet earth. This description didn't get them to try a cup, but it does the best job for me of evoking the richness of this kind of tea. there is a kind of pu-erh called Sheng, that has a light flavor like green tea, it is the Shou version I love, producing such a dark brew that it does look like coffee.

And while it is a fairly caffeinated tea, it doesn’t make me jittery, which may be because I never steep the leaves for very long. I also reuse the leaves, which is recommended for Pu-erh. Unlike most black teas, reusing it, or brewing too long, doesn’t make the tea acidic. What is unique about shoe pu-erh teas is that they are fermented, and this is what keeps them from being acidic and the actually improve with reusing. Here is a link to a long article about the origin of the tea from the UptonTeas catalog.

The Lapsang Souchong, which is a relatively new favorite, is a black tea that has been smoke-dried over a pinewood fire. And it definitely smells and tastes of this smoke, completely different from the pu-erh, but very pleasant. Here is a link to a history of this tea.

Interestingly, pu-erh is touted as providing special benefits. Here is a quote from WEBMD: “People use pu-erh tea for improving mental alertness and thinking, high cholesterol, obesity, diabetes, and many other conditions, but there is no good scientific evidence to support these uses. WEBMD

While it would be lovely if it turns out that my pu-erh habit does infact address all those problems (as well as improving my mental alertness), I drink it and other teas because I love the taste and, like my salads, they are a lovely addition to my days.

For example, as I was writing this post, I am on my 3rd cup of tea, and I am having it with a slice of whole wheat bread that just came out of the oven, slathered with real butter. Yummy.

So, what is your favorite beverage?