Sipping for Senior Moments

From Sarah Price — Blog by Sarah Price

March 9, 2012

This morning, shortly after the Tucson sun stretched its groggy arms and rolled over the Catalina Mountains, Tony lumbered up the front steps of Maya Tea. Tony is our operations manager, and is habitually one of the first people in the office. He arrives second only to Angie, the woman who helps to blend and package our teas. Angie is the oldest employee of Maya Tea, in both years of employment and years of life. She has recently begun to exhibit some of those moments of forgetfulness and dissociation that we credit to seniors. (We all have them, of course, but seniors have an excuse.)

Every morning Angie rises early, takes down a mug of coffee and walks a brisk half-mile to the office. She begins her daily tasks just as dawn breaks, and greets Tony about an hour later at the front door. This morning, however, was a little different. Tony reached the security door and found it still locked tight—Angie hadn’t heard him pull up in his diesel truck. He rapped on the metal screen, which echoed his force with a tinny hum. Then came Angie’s voice from the other side—but instead of her usual “I’m coming, I’m coming…” came these words: Go away.

“Angie, open the damn door!”

“I’m going to call the police.”

Tony pounded metal in irritation.

“Go away I said, or I’m going to call the police.”

“Angie, it’s me. It’s Tony. Open up.” A few moments of silence passed, and then the padlock shifted. The screen door creaked open and Tony’s look of credulity met one of sheepish surprise.

“I didn’t recognize you…” Angie stammered, turning back to her packages of tea. Tony stood there for a moment before he began to laugh. “How about now,” he asked. “Do you recognize me now?”

The two of them were still teasing each other when I settled into my office chair, four and a half hours later. Tony bantered, “Angie, do you know who I am?” and she would mumble something in good humor as she weighed and sealed bags of iced tea. When I asked what was going on, Tony turned to me, laughing, and said “Oh, Angie was having a senior moment this morning.”

At the time I was trying to think of what I should write about for today’s blog. Amidst all the office comedy the words senior moment stuck in the sides of my mind somewhere. I thought to myself: maybe Angie could avoid these moments if she drank a cup of our Brain Elixir tea instead of coffee in the morning. She wouldn’t be so jumpy, anyway. Perhaps Tony wouldn’t have had to identify himself, or even knock twice—his image would have registered with Angie’s memories of opening that front door five days a week for the last several years. Her logic wouldn’t have required a helping hand, as the ginko biloba, gotu kola, tulsi, and white sage present in Brain Elixir are proven to support good memory functions and encourage clear and focused thinking.

Angie granted me her permission to use this morning’s events as a gateway for my blog, bless her heart. But the truth is, I didn’t need Angie. We all have moments like these, when our logic fails us. When we forget. When our normal processing slows. I am no different. I too start every morning with a cup of coffee to battle the weights that pull my eyelids towards the ground and drag my brain into the mud, and I too have specific events in my life that I could have catered to a blog about brain functioning—after all, I am a student. I have midterms coming up. I could benefit from switching up my drinking habits—so why did it take Angie to spark this idea?

Perhaps, like most healthful habits, we think of things too late. I could be supporting my brain now, in my twenties, in my classroom years, but despite my own needs it took this “senior moment” to get me thinking about thinking. No, I didn’t need Angie. When it comes down to it, any of us could use a little brain-boost. Any of us could have been the subject of this blog. But Angie’s story was the most fun. ;)

Mmmm... Maya Tea Mead!

From Sarah Price — Blog by Sarah Price

February 14, 2012

The first time I tried mead was in Flagstaff, a little college town tucked into the pines at the base of Arizona’s tallest mountain. I was on vacation, visiting one of my closest girlfriends and her husband. One morning—or early afternoon, rather—Tony (the husband) handed me a glass of what looked like liquor. I gave him my most incredulous look and pointed at the high-reaching hands of the clock. “You’re on vacation!” he argued. I shook my head. “Maybe if it was a beer,” I said, “but you can’t start me off this early with liquor. I’ll never make it through the day.” He pushed the glass under my nose—“It’s mead, not liquor. I made it. Myself.” Oh, hell—I thought. He made it. I was obligated.

I’m not sure what I expected, but surely it wasn’t the sweet, honey-like substance that I got. Even the dessert wines that I had sampled before were no match for this… what was it called? What was it? Mead?

Upon my questioning Tony gave me a brief description of mead—it is made from honey, fermented like wine, but is usually much stronger. His explanation, however, fell far short of what Tere gave our listeners in last week’s episode of Steeping Around. After sampling the oolong-infused mead from Volcano Winery, gifted us by the fine folks at Tea Hawaii & Company, Tere surprised Manish with her wealth of knowledge on the fermented treat. She knew the history of mead, the ingredients, and even a recipe, all of which she shared with the audience on the episode Mead, Mead, Mead.

Tere’s husband Keith also makes mead on a regular basis, and I’ve had the pleasure of trying his as well. Keith brought a bottle along to a holiday party last year, and all of the Maya Tea employees passed it around and complimented him on its slight, delicious peach flavor. What I didn’t realize at the time, however, was that the flavor came from tea.

The recipe for mead includes honey (a lot of it), water (less than you would think), and yeast. It’s that simple. Each ingredient can be experimented with to change the ultimate flavor of the mead—for example, a honey from the wildflower season in Tucson will produce a much more flowery mead than, say, one from the piney town of Flagstaff. Different types of yeast will alter the ultimate alcohol content (both Keith and Tony prefer a stronger product). And even the water can be altered, by infusing it. This technique gives the person creating the mead the utmost flexibility and creative freedom. The folks at Volcano Winery infused their water with the oolong teas grown by their partners on the Hawaiian islands. Keith’s was infused with Maya Tea’s Ginger Peach black tea. He and Tere have more recently made mead infused with our holiday tea, Santa’s Gingerbread, and swear by it. My experience has limited me to the fruity and plain varieties, but I imagine that a spicy, gingery mead would be well worth a try.

As I said, I didn’t realize that Keith’s mead was made with tea when I first tasted it. I didn’t realize it until two weeks ago, as I edited the podcast and Tere explained the methods that she and Keith used in production. I was utterly surprised, but perhaps I shouldn’t have been. After all, I know better than most how useful tea can be in the kitchen, how wonderful a flavor it can add to meats, breads, desserts, and even liquors. I’ve read articles about it. I’ve written blogs about it. We’ve had prior episodes of Steeping Around all about it. I should have known, and henceforth will try to remember: where there’s water, there can be tea. And it will taste great.

Mmmmm… Maya Tea-Mead. Cheers!

The International Marketplace: DAVIDsTEA and Maya Tea

From Sarah Price — Blog by Sarah Price

December 16, 2011

The advance of the internet has changed global economy forever, in ways that we never could have predicted. Consumers can shop virtually anywhere in the world without ever changing out of their pajamas or leaving the comfort of their favorite chair. We are all linked in a single marketplace online. But the market is linking outside of cyberspace as well. Just last month DAVIDsTEA, a Canadian retail tea store, expanded into the United States with the opening of its first two US locations, offering a line of 120 delicious teas to thirsty city folk. DAVIDsTEA began in Quebec and has since opened 69 additional locations in Canada. The two New York City locations are the first to break international borders.

If you are a nationalist, don’t worry. The gates go both ways. While DAVIDsTEA taps into the American market, Maya Tea is expanding into Canada. For those of you who do not know yet, there now exists Maya Tea Canada, offering our entire line of specialty teas for both wholesale and retail. Maya Tea Canada is operated by Dave Moore and Laura Evans out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Every week the couple prominently displays our line of teas at local farmers’ markets, much like we do here in Tucson, Arizona. And between markets, they are working to bring Maya teas into coffee shops and restaurants across the country, so that everyone can have an opportunity to taste our unique blends.

DAVIDsTEA and Maya Tea are similar in many respects, aside from international ambitions. “Throughout his twenties, David wondered why he couldn’t get a decent cup of tea. He thought tea was too serious. He wondered, why can’t tea be more fun?” (davidstea.com) Manish Shah, owner of Maya Tea, had the same question. He developed Maya Tea as an effort to bring a family chai recipe to the community at large, and his efforts have expanded ever since. He is determined to make loose leaf tea more accessible to the general public, and more fun. After all, we all deserve to enjoy an excellent cup of tea, right?

The economy is tough, it’s true. But when the motivations are right, it is possible for companies to share both the marketplace and their mission. DAVIDsTEA and Maya Tea are like that. We don’t infringe on each other’s niche business (ours, wholesale supply and theirs, retail) and each, in a sense, compliments the other. As do the United States and Canada.

And so, we welcome DAVIDsTEA to the United States! And for those of you in Canada, we look forward to serving you.

And for those of you who are a little further away, don’t worry—there’s always cyberspace, and Maya Tea is proud to offer international shipping on all of our teas. Just visit www.mayatea.ca!

Thankful For Giving

From Sarah Price — Blog by Sarah Price

December 6, 2011

Last Thursday, thankfulness settled into my bones like a disease. This was long after I had sent the traditional “I am thankful for YOU” texts to my loved ones. It was hours after my family had gathered for turkey. It was after the sun had set, and I sat alone at my house. Tryptophan had taken a toll on my weary body. I ran a hot bath, lit a few candles, and poured myself a glass of wine.

It was in that solitary hour that I became overwhelmed with gratitude, as if it were the hot liquid that I lowered into. It seeped into my pores and took hold of my tense flesh. Thankfulness slowed my mind and massaged my heart. I thought of my family, my friends, the many people that I am so lucky to have in my life. I felt their presence, there, in my body. It was a feeling like love, like loss—a physical feeling that radiates from your chest and down into your limbs—and I was taken by it.

But as moving as this moment was for me, it was nothing out of the ordinary. If you ask anyone on Thanksgiving what it is that they are thankful for, the answer that undoubtedly comes is “good family, good friends, good health, and good food.” We are all thankful for the many blessings in our lives, and for the positive impact that others have on us. But how many of us look at it from the opposite perspective? How many of us are thankful for the things that we can do for others?

That is exactly the gratitude that Manish and G.T. Dave of Synergy Drinks express in the Thanksgiving episode of Steeping Around.

“If someone had told me when I first started that (Synergy Drinks) would get to where we are I would never have believed it,” G.T. muses. At only fifteen, G.T. began commercially producing the kombucha that had so influenced his own life. He wanted to make a difference in the lives of others, wanted to spread the positive effects of kombucha beyond his immediate family and into the greater community. It was a small start, a little line-up of a single product at a local health food store, and G.T. Dave would have no way of predicting the future growth of his product and business. The success of Synergy, according to G.T., was built upon the pure motivations of the company. “If you’re patient,” he says, “and if you’re really being fulfilled with the little stuff—just the little impact you’re making, the responses, or the creative aspect of what you’re doing—the money and success will eventually come. That’s the perspective that I had when I started, and that I have to this day. I feel so blessed to be where we’re at.”

Manish shares his sentiments. His own company, Maya Tea, began as a small booth at a local farmers’ market and also featured only one product, his mother’s chai recipe, blended and packaged into teabags. Today, Maya Tea offers hundreds of varieties of tea and is expanding to tea education, via Steeping Around. “We just do this putting one foot in front of the other, and one fine day you realize what kind of positive impact you’re having on other people’s lives.” For Manish, that day was the Monday before Thanksgiving, when a couple from California dropped by the tea shop to express their love for Steeping Around and to check out the company behind the show. Manish was surprised and delighted at the response of his fans. “It was something stunning to me,” he confesses. “What we’re doing really matters. I’ve got tons of things to be thankful for, but having a positive impact on so many people’s lives could be the best of all.”

What a profound blessing—to be able to give to others. Next Thanksgiving, I hope to have that kind of thankfulness seeping into my bones.

From all of us here at Steeping Around, I’d like to thank you, all of you, for allowing us the opportunity to give something back to the world. We could never have predicted where this path would lead, and such a wonderful trip it has been!

Good News for Tuna-Lovers!

From Sarah Price — Blog by Sarah Price

December 6, 2011

I love fish. All kinds of fish, really, but particularly sushi. As with many people, the concept of raw meat made me a bit queasy at first, but my skepticism dissolved with my first slice of Albacore tuna, complimented with a sliver of pickled ginger and a dot of spicy sriracha sauce. It was delicious.

To me, sushi is more than a meal. It is an experience. It is not complete without the chopsticks, soy sauce, wasabi and ginger, edamame, and a steaming cup of green tea. If you’re lucky, a good sushi chef will give you a few sweet orange slices after you’ve cleared your plate. I love everything about the sushi experience: the silky texture of the fish, the sting in my nose when I use too much wasabi, and especially the way that I feel when I walk out of the restaurant—nourished. Healthy.

Traditionally scientists backed up that feeling, touting the healthful components of fish. They called fish an “anti-aging superfood”, an excellent source of protein and beneficial fats and oils. But in recent years, we have been warned to keep this superfood to a minimum in our diets. The oceans are full of dangerous metals, and some of them have made their way into the fish that we eat. Mercury is the big one—all fish have some small trace of mercury in them, but predatory fish like tuna, shark and mackerel have especially high concentrations, so high in fact that we are advised to keep consumption of these fish to a minimum and pregnant or nursing women are not supposed to eat them at all.

I have taken care to block out all of the reports on the health risk of tuna. I order Albacore every time I eat sushi, and I thoroughly (if blindly) enjoy it. But I may be able to take the blindfold off, recent studies suggest.

Ironically, the reduced risk of mercury in fish has nothing to do with the fish at all. They contain the same levels of mercury that they always have. But if you take your sushi with green tea, as I do, your absorption of that mercury is cut in half. Researchers at the Université de Montréal have studied the effects of tea and coffee on mercury exposure, and the results are exciting: when subjects consumed at least 1 cup of tea or coffee (250 mL) while eating fish such as tuna, shark and mackerel, their exposure to the dangerous compound was reduced by 50-60%. Cooking the fish reduced mercury exposure by 50% as well, so that the subjects eating cooked tuna in conjunction with tea had virtually no exposure at all.

The research is young, but it is promising. It is promising for all of the pregnant women of the world. It is promising for all of the sushi-fiends, like me, who simply can’t get enough Albacore. It is yet another reason to sing the praises of green tea (as if we needed more reason to love tea).

Tea and Panda Poop

From Sarah Price — Blog by Sarah Price

November 17, 2011

This morning, via the company Facebook page, I learned about a controversial new endeavor in the tea world: tea grown in panda poop. The notion elicited disgust from some of our customers, but I want to examine it further: should we fear feces?

Poop is gross. Anyone who has ever changed a diaper knows this. Even the fecal matter or horses or cows (which consume strictly hays and grasses and leave behind mostly the same) is gross. You wouldn’t want to eat it, and I certainly wouldn’t put any in my cup of tea. But that’s not what they’re doing with this panda poo—they are using it to fertilize the soil.

Is poop gross? Not when it’s in the dirt, in my opinion.

If you’ve never planted in Arizona soil, let me tell you something about it: It is virtually worthless. Compost, or fertilizer, is not an option. It is a requirement. Just a few inches under the pale, crusty dirt is a layer of what we call “caliche,” which is essentially a natural cement and your shovel’s worst enemy. Once you’ve busted through it and made your dirt more pliable for planting, you have the problem of drainage. The desert floor is as thirsty as its inhabitants, and it consumes water at an unbelievably fast rate. You can virtually flood a garden, and it will be bone-dry again within an hour. It is hard to keep our soil wet and the roots of our plants satiated. Very few species thrive in this kind of environment, and as a result there is little decomposing plant matter to provide nutrients to the dirt. The cycle is complete. So we fertilize—the compost helps our dry dirt to retain water and compensates for the nutrients that it otherwise lacks. It enables us to grow more than cactus or shrubs in our desert state. I wouldn’t take my soil without it.

Poop of all kinds has been used in composts and fertilizers for centuries. This is not a new concept. Manure is a frequent ingredient: cow, horse, chicken, sheep, and even pig poo. Plants love it. What about guano (bat feces) or castings (the excrement of worms)? They are the champagnes of poop, the really high-end stuff, and gardeners will pay a pretty penny to massage them into their soil.

Of course, there are several caveats to the poo issue: I wouldn’t want my edibles grown with the feces of a carnivore, such as a canine, feline, or any of us nasty humans. I mean, just smell the difference between what comes out of us and what comes out of, say, a cow—or, better yet, don’t. Hold your nose. The cows have us beat hands-down, and so, I would assume, does the panda.

Panda bears consume bamboo, and very little else. There is nothing stinky or gross about that. In addition, their digestive systems are very inefficient and their bodies only take up about 30% of the nutrients they consume. Their excrements, as a result, are full of good fibers (which help to retain water) and other helpful nutrients and byproducts, like nitrogen. It would be a shame not to give those nutrients back to the plant world.

But will consumers pay top dollar for tea grown amidst the poo of pandas? That has yet to be seen. The developer of the tea, An Yashi, expects to fetch up to $36,000 per pound for his dried tea leaves. Let me say it again: thirty-six thousand dollars per pound. Compare that to our most expensive tea offering: Jasmine White Tea Pearls, which retail for nearly $200 per pound. Needless to say, we, here at Maya Tea, will not be bringing the Panda Poo Tea into our inventory.

Which begs the question: How much is the panda poo really worth? How much does it really affect the resulting cup of tea? Sure, it makes the soil rich. It creates full, beautiful plants. But, when all is said and done, are the individual leaves so much better than those grown with, say, bat dung? Maybe they are… but, $36,000 better?

Not likely. I’ll take my tea with guano, thank you.

And so, here is my evaluation, take it for what it’s worth: Panda Poo Tea is not gross. (But it might be just a little silly.)

Halloween and Kombucha Tea

From Sarah Price — Blog by Sarah Price

November 8, 2011

Last weekend I threw a Halloween party. Halloween is my favorite holiday of the year—it is the one holiday that you don’t have to stress out about. You do not have to buy presents for anyone, there is no large meal to prepare for. Instead, you get to dress up in costume and carve pumpkins, and everyone still manages to get together and smile. There is something truly magic about it.

This year, however, I was a little stressed. I wanted this party to be exceptional, and spent nearly two full days preparing for it. When the first guests arrived I had yet to buy the beverages, my costume was only half-completed and I was still fastening a large spider web to the corner of my living room. I couldn’t even talk to anyone—not until the last chore was done. Fortunately I had the help of some good friends, and before I knew it the celebration was in full swing. The Nightmare Before Christmas was projected onto the wall of my house while a live band jammed at one edge of the yard. Ghouls, goblins, unicorns, and Marie Antoinette could be seen dancing around in the firelight. Two kegs of delicious microbrew fueled the thirsty crowd. Everything was settled—everything was perfect. Nothing had been forgotten.

Except one thing.

At nearly midnight, my zombie friend tapped my furry, blue shoulder and asked me what there was that his friend the Joker could drink. “Well, I said, the keg of Trippel is on the left, Newcastle is on the right…” I had been rehearsing this line all night and it hadn’t failed me yet. “No, no, he doesn’t drink alcohol. Do you have something else?”

Oh man. I froze for a moment, my jaw slacked open, stumped. I hadn’t thought about soda, juice, or water bottles. I felt terrible.

“What about that tea that I saw in the refrigerator?” asked the zombie. Oh, tea. I sprung into action. Thank god I worked in the tea business.

“Tea! Yes! I have tea! What kind would you like?” And I grabbed the Joker by the coat sleeve and drug him to my kitchen. I opened my cupboard and pointed to my tea shelf. “I have green tea, I’ve got Puer, a whole bunch of herbal teas. In the fridge there—that’s a hibiscus-sugar solution, for kombucha. It’s probably too sweet to drink. But if you’d like some kombucha, we brew that here. It’s hibiscus-ginger flavored.”

“I don’t know,” said the Joker, his face stunned under his thick white makeup. “What’s kombucha?” He didn’t know what he was getting himself into. I launched into a spirited diatribe about the health benefits of the fermented tea, its unique flavor, and its careful preparation. I pulled a chilled bottle from my fridge, opened it, and insisted that he try a sip. He looked hesitant. “Really,” I said, “if you don’t like it we’ll make you something else. Just try a sip and see what you think.”

I think the Joker left the happiest of all—and it’s not because of that wide red grin on his face.

There is a lesson here, and I hope that you’ve all caught it: try to think of all your guests when you’re throwing a party. There should be an option for everyone. Might I suggest tea? A large pitcher of iced tea is inexpensive and easy to prepare, and it’s much better when it’s not an afterthought.

And, for those of you who are like my friend the Joker and have not heard of kombucha before, tune in this Thursday to Steeping Around —this week’s show is all about this delicious, fermented tea treat.

Join the Resistance! (Against Colds)

From Sarah Price — Blog by Sarah Price

October 27, 2011

This past weekend your smooth-talking host was the emcee for a concert in Tucson. But his voice wasn’t as silky as it usually is on the air—Manish was recovering from a cold.

It is cold season. Here in Tucson, the temperatures dropped about twenty degrees over the past two days, and my toes certainly noticed the change. Off went the cooler, and on went the pajama pants, long-sleeved shirt, and socks. Every year these temperature changes come along with pink noses and a chorus of sneezes—I am bundled up, determined to escape the trend.

My roommate is an elementary art teacher. Every day she comes into contact with nearly two-hundred children, and their germs often follow her home. Last year, I caught a new cold every three weeks or so. I was sick nearly the whole winter season. This year, it’s not going to happen. I’m going to load up on teas.

Manish and Tere talked about colds this week—not what they are, but how to prevent them. And also, what to do if you’ve already got one. Manish and I both will be sucking down these incredibly helpful teas over the next several months, and you should too.

Here’s a breakdown of their suggestions, as well as links to some of the teas that they talked about. Join us in the resistance!

If you don’t want to GET a cold, like me:

First of all, drinking hot tea helps no matter what. But the particular types of tea that you drink can add to the benefit that you get from everyday consumption, and if you really want to avoid a cold, the teas you choose can make a difference.

Chai contains a variety of healthy, warming spices. These spices will help to break down any mucus buildup. They are usually counter-balanced with milk and sugar, however, and the milk actually causes additional mucus to build. But if you choose to skip the milk, chai is excellent for cold prevention!

You’ve probably heard of Echinacea. Studies have shown it to boost the immune system. We’ve included it in two of our immune-boosting teas:

Seven Seas Herbal Tea: A mixture of cinnamon, licorice root, rooibos, peppermint, ginseng, sarsaparilla, and of course, echinacea. This is one of our classic herbal teas, and is helpful for relaxation, colds, flues, and the like. It is caffeine-free, and it’s flavor is lightly sweet—great for kids!

Immunity Tea: A part of our new medicinal herbal line, Vana Spa Teas, this blend was designed specifically to boost the immune system, and each of the herbs do just that. It contains alfalfa, astragalus, echinacea, lemon balm, and licorice root.

If you HAVE a cold, like Manish:

One of the best things you can do if you’ve already got a cold is drink fresh ginger tea. Acquire fresh ginger root from your grocery store or Asian market, and grate about one inch of it into water. Boil for several minutes, allowing all of the good juice to infuse from the root. For additional benefit, add 1/4 to 1/8 tsp. turmeric. Add honey to taste. The warmth and burn from this delicious tea will loosen phlegm and mucus, and you will feel the effects immediately, on the first sip.

Plain and simple green tea will help. The caffeine, theophylline, and L-theanine will help you to breathe better, and will give you a little extra energy to fight your cold.

For concentrated green tea benefits, drink Matcha. Matcha is powdered Japanese green tea. The leaves are dried and then stone-ground to a fine powder, which you simply add to water, hot or cold. When you drink it, you are actually ingesting the entire tea leaves, rather than just the constituents that come off at boiling point. You will get significantly more antioxidants and other beneficial components, and it tastes great.

And finally, whenever you are sick, one of the most important things for you to do is sleep. Chamomile is an excellent sleep-aid, soothing and sedative. Our Relaxing Mint tea contains chamomile, peppermint, and lavender. The peppermint will clear your airways so that you can breath, and the chamomile and lavender combination will lull you into a healing sleep.

I’ve already begun. As I type, I’m sipping on the Immunity Tea. We’re only a couple of days into the season down here, but so far, so good! Viva la resistance!

Milk and Tea – A Bitter Debate

From Sarah Price — Blog by Sarah Price

October 25, 2011

I am an American, and I have never tried milk with my tea. I do take it with my coffee, just a bit for color, but I have never (not even once!) tasted it with black tea. The English would be appalled.

There have been bitter debates over the proper way to prepare and drink tea for nearly as long as the leaves have been harvested. This may sound a little melodramatic, but I’m not exaggerating—the debates have been bitter, and they have been long. People take their tea very seriously. Several years ago, before I started working in the tea industry, I read a brief essay by Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) called, simply, “Tea,” in which he urged Americans to try loose leaf tea. Among his other suggestions, Adams addressed milk: “Some people will tell you that you shouldn’t have milk with Earl Grey, just a slice of lemon. Screw them. I like it with milk. If you think you will like it with milk, then it’s probably best to put some milk into the bottom of the cup before you pour in the tea. If you pour milk into a cup of hot tea, you will scald the milk. If you think you will prefer it with a slice of lemon, then, well, add a slice of lemon.” As a footnote regarding pouring the milk first, he adds: “This is socially incorrect. The socially correct way of pouring tea is to put the milk in after the tea. Social correctness has traditionally had nothing whatever to do with reason, logic or physics. In fact, in England it is generally considered socially incorrect to know stuff or think about things. It’s worth bearing this in mind when visiting.”

Then, after I had been working with Maya for about a year, a customer brought in for me an article written by George Orwell (Animal Farm) entitled “A Nice Cup of Tea,” in which he described his personal “golden rules” for tea preparation, of which there are eleven. His tenth rule opposes Adams’s in regards to milk: “Tenthly,” he says, “one should pour tea into the cup first. This is one of the most controversial points of all; indeed in every family in Britain there are probably two schools of thought on the subject. The milk-first school can bring forward some very strong arguments, but I maintain that my own argument in unanswerable. This is that, by putting the tea in first and stirring as one pours, one can exactly regulate the amount of milk whereas one is liable to put in too much milk if one does it the other way round.”

Something you may not know about me: I am a literature buff, a real book-junkie. Douglas Adams is one of my personal heroes, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for George Orwell. Both of these men were English, and both took their tea with milk—in fact they insisted on it. So naturally, I think I ought to give it a try.

This morning I brewed a strong cup of English Breakfast, appropriately I thought. I went to the fridge and looked for milk. The jug on the second shelf had a pink lid, and something in my psyche told me that both Orwell and Adams would object to my using skim, but in all of their directions neither of them made any mention of what type of milk ought to be used, so I put their hypothetical objections conveniently out of mind.

I poured the tea first, and the milk second. My natural instinct is to go with Adams on his milk-first defense, it is an argument that makes natural sense to me and is a method that I have applied to my coffee habbits in the years since reading his essay. But today, for tea, I took Orwell’s suggestion to heart. I have never before had milk with my tea, and I wanted to screw it up as little as possible.

I didn’t know how much to add. I poured a little, stirred. I took a sip. I turned to my boss, Manish, absorbed in email across the room—“Does this look right?” He turned his head, his brows twisted in a look of question. Add a little more, he said. I do. I took a sip. “How about now?” He looked at the glass and then at the jug of milk in my hand.

“What kind of milk is that?” he asked. I turned the jug from side to side, showing him that there was no label. “That’s your problem right there,” he said. “It’s skim.” I knew it, I thought.

“It’s all that we have. I think it’ll be fine…” I answered. I took another sip. The color looks about right, I think. Slightly lighter than I usually take my coffee. I’m sure this is about right. I took another sip.

It’s not bad, but is it better than drinking tea on its own? In my opinion, no. Douglas Adams would disagree. George Orwell would dismiss me for ignorance. Manish would insist that I had done it wrong (though he prefers plain tea as well). But amidst these connoisseurs and their bold opinions and arguments, I take solace in the notion that this was a simple experiment. Flawed? Certainly. But interesting.

I take one more sip of English-Breakfast-with-milk and then set the glass on the countertop. I reach for my coffee, ready and brewed, with plumes of milk settling into its layers. This is natural for me, and comfortable—what more could you expect of this American girl?

A Cup of Communion - Tea for the Spirits

From Sarah Price — Blog by Sarah Price

October 20, 2011

Tea is ancient—so old, in fact, that we can’t be sure exactly when, how, or by whom it was discovered. There are countless stories of its first use and history has yet to prove which account, if any, is true. But the spread of tea is widely documented and proven to be due to a very particular sect of people: monks. Monks carried the seeds of tea plants with them as they traveled and grew them wherever they went, introducing the drink brewed from the mature leaves to consumers around the world.

But… why?

We are all tea drinkers; we like the flavor, the smell, and the effects. It was much the same for those early tea drinkers, with particular emphasis on the effects: tea aided the early monks in their practice of meditation, keeping them alert and focused.

But… how?

We’ve been talking about tea and health for nearly eight weeks. Most of the effects of tea that we’ve discussed have been physical, but we’ve touched on the way certain components in tea can effect the mind, as well. Caffeine helps us to stay awake, alert, and focused. Theanine, on the other hand, provides a calming effect on the body and makes us feel at peace. The combination of these two is unbeatable: calm alertness. Focused peace.

The monks were tuned in to this. They drank tea and achieved a sort of mental jump-start to their meditation. Tea helped to calm and clear their thoughts for their religious ritual. It is in this way that tea benefits spirituality as much as mentality or physicality.

Some good news: you don’t have to be a monk in order to prosper from tea’s spiritual offerings. You don’t even have to meditate—at least, not in the traditional sense. Manish explains this notion in this week’s show: the western idea of “tea time” is, in a sense, as good a meditation as any. When we take time out of our busy lives to enjoy a cup of tea, we allow ourselves to disconnect for a moment from all the details that so plague our consciousness from moment to moment. We give ourselves time to reflect, time to grow. And when you share a cup of tea with a friend, you are in a sense participating in communion.

I knew there was something special about my morning cup of tea.

…haven’t listened to this week’s episode yet? To get a better idea if what I’m talking about, take it straight from the man himself: click here to listen!