Tea. To many it still conjures images of ladies in floral dresses and big hats or zen masters pondering the mysteries of the universe as in the case of Thor: Ragnarok. When Doctor Strange offers Thor tea he responds:

 
Then a huge magically refilling beer glass appears in Thor’s hand because everyone clearly knows that beer is a more appropriate drink for a man who calls himself the God of Thunder. Ahem. (great fun film, by the way)  Now, I love beer. I have nothing against it, but ‘back in the day’ tea had a dark, criminal underbelly. Yes, the nobility and the wealthy drank it first, but as with anything perceived as exclusive everyone started to want it. So demand gave rise to everything from substandard knockoffs to black market trade.
 
Let’s look back to the 18th century. Britain became ravenous for tea more than any other western country of size. 
 
“Recorded imports into Britain rose from 13,082 lbs. in 1699 to 1,241,629 lbs. in 1721. By 1750 the total was 4,727,992 lbs.” 1  
 
But that is only the legal recorded amounts. The cost of tea was too much for most households to afford, especially with the duties imposed by the government and the East India Company monopoly on the tea trade. This unmet demand resulted in violent, prolific, smuggling. Some gangs that engaged in the tea smuggling trade went so far as torturing and killing informants and customs workers who tried to bring them down.

Yeesh. It’s like that spoof of “Breaking Bad” that some of the cast of “Downton Abbey” did on Colbert called “Breaking Abbey” where tea replaced meth. It is hilarious, but when you realize how like the drug trade parts of tea history are it is…slightly less hilarious.  If I saw a biker gang drink tea now I would not think it strange (Sons of Anarch-tea?  Yeah, that’s an image. )
 
The general public wanted tea but were against the cost of the legal version of it so millions were complicit in the smuggling trade2.  The cheaper tea was often not much real tea at all. To keep the cost down it was often cut with anything from leaves of other plants, used tea leaves purchased from servants and even sheep’s dung3. Even dangerous dyes were used, like copper dyes in inferior green tea, which may have added to the British switch from green tea to more black tea. A fine was imposed for such adulterations but it was difficult to impose on tea sold under the radar. It kind of makes that Versace knockoff you got from a NYC street vendor seem mild by comparison. Unless you intend to eat it, of course. I suggest you don’t. You don’t know where that thing has been.
 
In 1747 the was a large drop in the tax on tea which caused legal imports to Britain to roughly triple and smuggling to shrink. But by the 1770s smuggling resurged with large armed ships with large crews running the game.  During this time historians estimate that 4-7.5 million lbs. of tea was smuggled in exceeding the recorded 4-5 million legal lbs4.
 
Americans in the colonies were digging tea too and demand was increasing. As they were still under British rule the tea came through Britain for the first half of the 18th century. This tea came with heavy cost as the import duties paid in Britain were passed on to the cost in America. Because of this it is estimated that ¾ of all the tea imported to the colonies in 1760 was smuggled in5.
 
Then it got even more interesting. In 1767 there was a law passed that let the import duty on tea sent to America to be repaid which slowed smuggling for a time6. Then in 1773 the East India Company was allowed to export straight to the colonies and would include a threepenny tax per lb. As Britain had already taxed American newspapers, bills and legal docs prior and then initiated taxes on lead, paint, paper, glass and now tea7 it is fair to say America was getting tetchy. It was the Tea Act of 1773 that began the rumblings which would lead to the infamous Boston Tea Party. It was felt that Britain was attempting to secure greater and greater power over American interests. Customs officers had to be guarded by British troops. Apparently a man died and protests erupted when troops fired into a mob in Boston in 17708 (sound familiar?). The people began to organize preventing ships from docking and attacking tea warehouses. It was like tea had become a symbol of the establishment that the angry public wanted to bring down.
 
In the book there is an interesting log entry from the journal of a mate named Alexander Hodgdon who served on the ship the Dartmouth which arrived in Boston:
 
“Between six and seven o’clock this evening came down to the wharf a body of about one thousand people. Among them were a number dressed and whooping like Indians. They came on board the ship, and after warning myself and the Customs-House Officer to get out of the way, they unlaid the hatches and went down into the hold, where there were eighty whole and thirty-four half chests of tea, which they hoisted on deck, cut the chests to pieces, and hove the tea all overboard, where it was damaged and lost.9”
 
This was the Boston Tea Party, which resulted in the destruction of all tea on three ships that had arrived in Boston. The tea that had arrived in Charleston was left to rot and tea that had been sent to Philly and NYC was sent back to London. It was Boston that took the biscuit, though, sending a strong message to Britain who responded with closing Boston harbor and attempts to exert control that resulted in the war that led to American independence. No wonder coffee gained a foothold here. Tea was somewhat demonized for a time as a traitor’s drink.
 
Quite a ride for a beverage sipped in some of the West’s most opulent hotels and enjoyed around the table of many a common home today.  
 
Tea - there is a world of history in your cup.
 
 
The source for this post is an interesting book written by a man who began his work in the tea trade at the age of 21 in 1960. The book is: Tea: Addiction, Exploitation and Empire, by Roy Moxham. This post touches on just a piece of what the book covers. If you are interested in tea history I recommend it.  Here are the pages I drew from:
 
Moxham, Roy (2003) Tea: Addiction, Exploitation and Empire, New York, Carroll & Graf
 
1 pg 24, 2 pg 25, 3 pg 29, 4 pg 26-27, 5 pg 46, 6 pg 46, 7 pg 47, 8 pg 47, 9 pg 49

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by Cassandra Vincent

No matter our knowledge or passion sometimes things go awry – best intentions and all that – resulting in a tea travesty. Have you ever…
 

1. …poured the water to steep your tea and forgot to put the tea in?
2. …left tea to brew and forgot it?
3. …let a perfectly good cup of tea cool to the point of tepid blech?
4. …ripped open the outer tea packet and ripped the teabag as well?
5. …put sweetener in your tea having forgot that you already did?
   
6. …mistook the salt for the sugar?
7. …poured milk in before making sure it was still good resulting in sour or curdled grossness?
8. …accidentally dropped something in your tea that rendered it undrinkable?
9. …put sugar and milk in before realizing you never took the bag out?
10. …forgot to use the strainer when pouring steeped loose leaf?
11. …forgot to hold the lid of a non-locking teapot while pouring causing it to either fall into your cup or crash to the floor and crack?
12. …tried to put your mug back down on the table without looking and missed?
13. …used water too cold for black tea and created muddy water?
14. …used water too hot for green tea and made it a bitter beast?
15. …forgot to clean the leaves out of your teapot which then grows mold and you don’t tell anyone because that’s gross and if you’re writing a blog encouraging quality tea use how could you do something like that (this happened to a friend of mine)

 
We have all been there, luvvies and we will all live to tea another day;)

Car accidents are interesting things. The everything-is-moving-smoothly-then-out-of-nowhere BAM! is shocking, to say the least. I was a passenger in a car that got T-boned by someone running a red light and though my life didn’t exactly flash before me I am very happy to still have the privilege of breathing. I appreciate every cup of tea I have (unless it accidentally oversteeps and it gets gross, then I just toss it away and start again) but that first cup I was able to get after all the craziness was so sweet – like a warm hug of deliciousness. There are various statements about tea being the cure for everything, especially with the British. Though it may not cure everything, tea is another reason to be happy to be alive – to taste something soothing and delicious and full of life energy.  This is just a short post to relay the cause of the silence. I hope that you find many reasons to be glad to be alive today and I’ll soon be sharing more adventures in tea. - Cassandra

by Cassandra Vincent

Oh Tea…you are not who I thought you were…
 
Does a tea you once loved suddenly taste lackluster to you? Are you afraid that you’ve lost your love of tea? Are you afraid to talk about it? It may not be you, it may be your tea…or at least how it is stored.
 
I was at my bandmate Philip's place and we made a pot of tea from a loose leaf black blend he had. The first sip was uninspiring and I mentioned that the tea tasted flat like it had lost its character. He was so relieved that it wasn’t just him. He thought that maybe he was going off tea or that he was somehow making it wrong. I looked at the bag it was stored in: not airtight resealable – there was quite a bit of air in there and no tight closure. I asked him how long he had had it and he said months. It’s not that tea can’t last that long, especially black tea, but when it is stored such that air or light or moisture (or heat or odors) can get in and wreak havoc the glorious flavors have a much shortened life span.
 
There are a myriad of opinions and articles on tea storage but here’s what works well for me and I hope it helps keep your relationship with your favorite tea in a good place:

1. Opaque resealable bags – My favorite are the multi-ply ones that have what looks like a foil inner layer. If you press the air out prior to resealing these will do a good job at protecting your tea from light, air and odors. Your wise placement of them in a cool dry place will keep heat and moisture at bay too. Avoid clear plastic bags for obvious light reasons but also sandwich bags and the like are not meant for any long term storage and they can imbue the tea with a plastic essence. Blech! Save yourself from that disappointment.
2. Canisters and tins – These are great if you use your tea quickly or if they have a vacuum packing design whereby you can ‘suck’ the air out. A regular tin leaves room for air to be stored with the tea. Air and tea don’t make good roommates. I have found filling the gap with baking parchment paper to be helpful but only on a shorter term basis. Similar to placing wax paper atop ice cream prevents ice build up the air isn’t directly touching the tea and seems to help retain the tea’s character a bit longer. Another option if your loose leaf tea comes in a bag that doesn’t reseal well is to press the air out of the bag and put the whole thing into a tin. I tend to keep smaller tins also. I love the beauty they lend to my tea area – beautiful tea deserves beautiful storage.
   
3. Glass and ceramic canisters with gaskets – If these are opaque they are similar to metal tins in usage. It is best having a gasket with these, especially a good food grade silicone one, for keeping air out.  Clear glass canisters need to be in a dark place to be effective, and if they are pretty it seems a bit counterintuitive to hide them so leave those for the quickly eaten biscuits:) Otherwise, as with metal canisters, leaving the tea in the bag it came in and sticking the whole thing into the glass canister is an option too.
   
4. Refrigeration – I only refrigerate matcha and not for very long if it is opened. Matcha degrades quicker than any other tea I have had and it doesn’t just become a ghost of itself. It metamorphoses into a gross bitter beast of a thing.  So, just don’t ignore your matcha. It gets mean.
5. Buy only what you can consume quickly – This is my main mantra for having really fresh tasty tea on hand. I am lucky I have a tea shop in walking distance that is owned by an importer. So I tend to get my mainstays in small amounts weekly. It really works. But ordering online can give you a similar effect. Joining a monthly tea subscription is another idea. It can give you both freshness and an opportunity to explore new teas.
6. High quality loose leaf lasts longer than broken bagged tea – The fuller and more twisted or rolled the leaf the longer it appears to maintain its character. It makes sense: less surface area for air, light etc. to work on means slower degradation. If you do love your bagged tea, especially a classic like PG Tips for example where each bag is not separately air tight sealed, you would benefit from moving it to airtight, opaque storage after opening.
7. Store tea away from other strong odors – I’m not accusing anyone of storing tea with dirty laundry or in the cat box, but even places with pleasing odors are not a friend to tea. The main culprit being the spice cabinet. Spices are wonderful, but not when they enter your tea uninvited. A good air tight container will prevent this but anything less and you’ll be sipping your tea with a side note of oregano.

 
So there you go. Like Philip you may have a better palate than you realize and if your favorite tea tastes ‘off’ to you, it may be worth your while to rethink your storage. After all good relationships take care and attention. I hope that you and your tea bae have a long, satisfying, delicious relationship.

by Cassandra Vincent

Tea can open your ability to savor. Savor the moment. Savor a sensation. Savor a taste. Savor a feeling. As tea prep is  a process there are many steps along the way where you can practice the art of the savor. I have been practicing with puerh tea. I think it is a great choice because of how many steepings it can take and how the experience morphs through the steepings.

Here are some questions you can ask throughout the experience of making your tea to deepen your awareness of the tea, of the moment and of yourself.

It begins with the dried leaves
What do they look like?
There is a great joy in learning to differentiate the look of a Chinese green tea in comparison to a Japanese green tea for example. Get friendly with the leaves. Are they broken? Twisted? Rolled? Powdery?  Long? Short? Flat? Wide? Do they look like a bunch of bug legs in your cup? (seriously, there are many teas referred to as 'spider leg')
What color are they? Greenish? Teak-colored? Dark brown? Black? Mixed?
Do they remind you of anything? An insect? Another plant? A feeling?

What do they smell like dry? This is one of my favourite things. The differentiating of types of tea by their scent. Like perfume, each tea region and type of tea  are so very different.
Are the leaves earthy? Floral? Fruity? Vegetal?
Do the scents cause any memories or feelings for you?

The steeping tea
How does the color develop? Is it green? Yellow? Amber? Red? Dark Brown?
What aroma is released from the time the water hits the leaves through to the end of steeping time? Is there any sense memory from the aroma? (Does it take you back to that time on the beach when...)

Then the steeped leaf
What do the wet leaves look like? Do the leaves unfurl? Expand? How has their color changed? What about their aroma? What scents are there that were not present in the dry leaf?

The taste
What is the first flavour when the tea hits your tongue? Does the flavour change as it rolls to the back? How about after? If you slurp to aerate the tea does that change the flavour? Does the experience change with subsequent sips?
If this is a tea you have had before is this experience any different than the previous one? Is your palate sensing a greater array of flavor? Did you eat garlic before having this and it is totally messing with your tongue? (If so I recommend using one of these)

The effect
How does the tea make you feel? Energized? Mellow? Both? Did you get a tea high?  Is your tongue buzzing? Do you just feel better?

Keep record of your tastings

Keeping a tea journal is a great way to build your knowledge of tea and your preferences. You can do this with a basic notebook, but there are some great tea journals out there designed specifically for the tea lover. I have one from TeaSource that is handy and portable. You could even use multiple, one for each tea type you explore.

Tea is a great tool of focus. A moment to appreciate. To reflect on all the energy that went into the tea's creation. To reflect on the memories over a cup of tea. To feel the comfort of it. To expand your experience.

To savor life, lovelies. Every crazy, beautiful, freakish, roller-coaster step of the way.