Checking the Tea Leaves

The older I get, the more I like to dabble in the extraordinary variety of tea. It’s a health thing, because I can drink tea without sugar. Not so with coffee. So I have burrowed into the joys of tea.

I’ve also found that it’s best to buy my tea in China. Now, I’m not a big fan of things Chinese because of the endless evidence of minimal quality control, as well as unethical behavior. But they definitely do know something about tea.  And Ali Express is the place to find a million varieties of tea – at every price point.

When we were in Sitka, Alaska, in 2010, we discovered Pu-ehr Tea. It’s strong and fermented. The beauty of Pu-ehr is it’s possible to use and re-use the same tea leaves up to five times in a day. This considerably reduces the cost of your cup of tea, without affecting your enjoyment. It also appeals to my Scottish sense of thrift. But Pu-ehr tends to be quite a strong flavor and I sometimes tire of it. So I’ve moved my affections over to Li-Shan Tea. This is a spectacular tea that comes in five levels of quality. And you get what you pay for.

But I digress. Jo and I wandered into Teavana, a tea-specializing shop in Burlington. There we met a young man behind the counter who definitely was a throw-back to the hippy culture of the 1970s. He wore a straw hat and had numerous tattoos. But he was very friendly and he offered us samples of teas. I said I wouldn’t mind trying the Oprah-endorsed ice tea and he quickly tried to steer me away from that. “It’s the one tea in the store that I wouldn’t recommend,” he said.

So I asked him about his Pu-ehr Tea and he said, “Oh, sure. We have many pure teas.”  No, I said, not pure…but Pu-ehr from China. It was as though I had pressed a secret button in his brain. “Ah, yes. You have come to the right place,” he said. He then went to his private locker and withdrew four paper-wrapped packages. “This must be your private stash,” I remarked. He laughed and said “We carry only one Pu-ehr Tea in the store. But this is my private collection.” He then proceeded to explain the fine qualities of each package. While he rhapsodized on, I sniffed his different wares and asked him where he gets it. He, too, orders directly from China. In addition, he walks a couple of blocks to the Dobra tea house on Church Street, Burlington. And they have eight different versions of Pu-ehr teas.

Matcha Tea

He then drew us into the Matcha teas from Japan. These are more like green tea powder which is mixed with a bamboo whisk and is infused at a relatively low temperature. He produced a sample of Matcha for us and I told him it didn’t really speak to me. In addition, I steer wide of green things and this was effectively green dishwater to my palate.

We left his store, thanking him for his interest in teas and congratulating him of his passion. We also rejoiced that up here in the northern reaches of Vermont, we were able to meet someone who is so passionate about the simple – and complex – mysteries of tea.