Phoenix Morning

It's almost summer, no doubt about it.

I'm up before 5am, and there's plenty of birds to keep me company. It stays light so late I lose all track of time (although that phenomenon does seem to span multiple seasons). All this means more hours in which to drink tea—I do drink it after dark, but usually only an oolong that I've been nursing all day and I can't bear to part with, or a pu-erh that's older and wiser than I am.

The other morning I was lucky enough to have a bit of a gorgeous Phoenix Song Dynasty to start the day. It's a carefully twisted, semi-oxidized oolong from China that seems to reveal more of its green-ness with each steeping. Woody, lightly sweet and intensely fragrant, this is a tea you can get lost in before you even realize what's happened.

But after five cups, I had to break down and have something to eat. I wanted something as floral and lingering as the tea, and this strawberry ginger jam was the answer.

It's something I make every late spring, as soon as those little plump rubies appear in the farmer's market. They're around for just a few short weeks and it's hard to not just eat them out of hand, but this jam helps extend the season a little longer.

Strawberry Ginger Jam
Makes: about 1 1/2 cups

1 small lemon, peel and pith removed, flesh coarsely chopped
5 cups strawberries, hulled, halved if large
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger
1/4 teaspoon black pepper

Place all ingredients in a medium saucepan; heat to boiling then lower to a gentle simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes or until thick.

This is lovely slathered on olive oil cake for breakfast, or just eaten on a spoon—whatever lets you get back to the tea more quickly.

The Demon Bean

I get asked, "Do you drink coffee?" a lot.

OK, maybe not that often. But it usually comes up with anyone I drink tea with on a regular basis. I don't dislike the idea of coffee—it's just another feel-good plant plus hot water formula—but I find it overwhelming on all sensory fronts. It's strongly scented, strongly flavored, loud to prepare and often to consume. Tea's subtlety, on the other hand, tends to lead me inward, as I watch the leaf unfold and take in its aromas on a wisp of steam. My mind has to quiet to fully absorb the experience.

I can appreciate coffee in a few contexts, though. Since working as a barista (which was interesting due to my intense dislike of espresso) I can enjoy a beautifully made shot once in awhile—and understand how much skill and focus went into producing it.

It's been the best training for my palate as well, as preparing good espresso requires frequent adjustments and constant tasting. Tasting something I like (tea) is easy; tasting something that I really don't requires enough focus to get past my emotional reaction and pay attention to flavor analytically.

And then there's Cafe Du Monde (800 Decatur St.), in New Orleans. I don't get to go there as much as I'd like, but when I am, anything other than a cafe au lait to accompany those deep-fried, diabetic bombs known as beignets just wouldn't taste right.

Records of Miscellanea

"Tea lightens the body and changes the bones."
-Tao Hongjing, Za Lu

Have a Cup of Tea

I recently was sent an old digital photo (hence the resolution) that despite the blurriness, hit me sharply. Initially, of course, it was vanity- because I could see myself drinking tea.



The picture is from a years-ago trip throughout Europe with a slew of touring musicians, and I suddenly realized that this was the first time I was exposed to the ritual and daily enjoyment of tea. My obsession was then still embryonic, but I noticed the way I cradle the drink, thousands of cups later, hasn't changed.

And then I thought that the photographer, and one of the subjects, are no longer here. These old friends both passed away last year, both well before their time.

We didn't get to drink enough tea together, so I made two cups this morning in their memory.

Assam, for my friend from Detroit. Sencha, for my friend from Japan.



Both were incredibly creative, musical spirits. The most time I spent was with them, actually, was on that trip in the photograph. I remember crunching through deserted, icy streets in small Swiss towns with Ichiro; his English was superb but he was very quiet, and the rare times he would speak the words were thoughtful and deliberate as poetry. I also have vivid images of running all over London with Dan, who had a digital camera- this was 1997, so it rather astonishing technology (even if we utilized it to no serious end, like documenting the size of a slug next to a pence lying on the sidewalk)- and having endless cups of milky, sugary tea at everyone's home who hosted us.

The attempt to honor them with words is impossible, at least for this unskilled writer, and I know the tea cannot conjure them. All it can offer is a moment of respect.

Party Like It's 1773

The first time I heard about the Boston Tea Party, I'm sure I was half asleep next to a hissing radiator in my second grade classroom. Due to my school's proximity to the scene of the crime, it was hammered into the curriculum each year around this season.


Indeed, 90,000 pounds of tea being dumped into Boston Harbor by barely disguised, openly disgusted colonists on December 16, 1773, was a seminal event for American independence. I wasn't quite yet obsessed with tea at that point, though. What finally got me interested in it was recently reading over some newspapers and books from the time (coincidentally, while sitting next to a somewhat quieter, new radiator in my hometown library- my former elementary school. So what if it took 30 years for me to pay attention?)

Tea was taboo in New England in the late 1770s; in order to show solidarity to the burgeoning movement of Down With The King (And Taxes, Too), colonists chose to stop consuming it.

"Do not suffer yourself to sip the accursed, dutied STUFF. For if you do, the devil will immediately enter into you, and you will instantly become a traitor to your country."
- Newport Mercury, Jan. 24, 1774

Apparently, a big part of this anti-tea movement ended up focusing on women. The boy's club could put down their cups for the sake of liberty, no problem. American ladies were a bit harder to convince:

"The women are such slaves to it, that they would rather go without their dinners than without a dish of tea."
- Abbe Claude C. Robin, New Travels Through North America, Boston, 1784

It was also feared that these insatiably thirsty women might badly influence their high-minded mates.

"For the New-England husbands, however they may intimidate British merchants and the British administration, are, in their own houses, too much on the hen-pecked establishment, to be able to carry such a measure against the Sovereign and absolute authority of their fair helpmates."
- Gazetteer and New Daily Advertiser, June 14, 1770

The hens finally got it together, though. "To their immortal honor," the women of Boston took a solemn oath never to drink another cup (Essex Gazette, December 28, 1773). The patriotic pressure that turned this country off tea led us straight into the waiting arms of coffee- and the often marginalized state we American tea drinkers find ourselves today.


So raise your cup, and wonder: Would I give up tea in the name of freedom from oppression? Hmm. After a sip of this Wuyi oolong from Lock Cha, I'm not so sure.

You Always Remember Your First

The older you get, the less firsts there are to experience- or so it seems. This is a sad state.


What astounded me on my trip to the home of tea was experiencing so many new things, every single day, that I'd never even imagined I would. I'd dreamed about it, of course, but I also dream about waking up in a pile of money and Steve McQueen bringing me breakfast in bed (and neither of those have happened yet).

I didn't believe that I would ever be pulled into a room that was full of tea leaves quietly oxidizing. I could never have conjured the aroma of this process, both floral and green, complex and comforting as the scent of a beloved person, or even pictured the fading glossiness of the leaves as their moisture almost visibly evaporates.






As happens to me almost daily, I simply wasn't prepared. My initial peek at a little tea processing in an small, sparse room, just that first sniff of freshly picked Tieguanyin- it absolutely knocked me out.

I floated through the subsequent walk through the tea fields, the conversations of the farmers and buyers around me, even the sitting down and tea tasting itself.


I can't ever forget it.

The Source

I'm still here.


What's kept me away from writing about tea, ironically, is working in it. It's immersed me in a way I never imagined a job could. I've been making, drinking and learning about tea in a way that finally starts to satisfy the long hunger for it.

And then, one week ago, I was in a tea field, at the top of San Lin She, in the middle of Taiwan. It was the culmination of trip to tea farms around there, northern Taiwan, and Fujian, China, and I'm still reeling from it.



Now, sitting at home, watching the sun rise over Brooklyn, I am sipping a cup of High Mountain Oolong from this field; the farmer handed me a bag of the leaves after I drank about 20 cups of it he brewed. All I could do was smile and say thank you (which was my only spoken interaction with all the incredibly talented farmers I met) but it was enough. I shouldn't have been astounded- I've made and shared tea with hundreds of people over this past year- but the act of preparing and drinking tea together is so achingly beautiful, welcoming yet intimate, that it's simply all you need to communicate.


Words almost cheapen it; pictures too, even. Describing or documenting an experience can take you out of it sooner than you're ready. Obviously I'm not quite recovered yet- I think part of me is still running between those serpentine bushes, waiting for the rest to come back. (The producers, though, I'm sure were glad to get rid of the crazy white girl rubbing her nose all over the plants.)



All I can do is make another cup of this tea, and let the unfolding taste and aroma- warm melted butter over sweet, green clover- take me there.