Tea is looking to refresh old chapters
For a beverage that's a part of breakfasts everywhere, rarely does one stop to think of tea as being 'more' than a source of caffeine.
Does the world need to care about tea, any more than it already does?
It’s the most consumed beverage in the world, second only to water. It has made it to breakfast tables everywhere, so it is already as staple as it can get. And tea’s long-standing reputation as the beverage du jour for boosting health, calming nerves, and nourishing souls hardly needs reaffirming.
But is this it for tea?
Does the fact that tea has made it to the daily routines of billions of people automatically eliminate the possibility of any higher pursuit? Can it get any more rewarding?
The short answer: a resounding yes.
Tea is a complex subject, much like wine and coffee. And like them, tea can convey a lot if you allow it. A sip can tell you about the place of its origin. The climate and season that conditioned it. The skill of the plucker and intent of its maker. It can transport you to very specific moments in time; sometimes bringing back to life familiar scents and scapes. Elevated, tea has inspired time-honoured traditions, and at its highest, tea has shaped cultures. I wish the world saw tea for all this and more.
Sadly, unlike wine or coffee, nobody feels the need to know about their tea. Sure, there’s nothing wrong with seeing tea as a vehicle for caffeine and refreshment; that is the primary job of tea. Yet to look at tea solely as this is to miss out on all the other things that have made tea a cornerstone of cultures and a common feature of breakfast tables everywhere.
Between 2014 and 2017, as an in-house writer for a tea marketing company in India, my job was to take a tea taster’s shorthand description of tea (words like grassy, hints of oak, and wet stone) and turn it into a human-readable narration that could adequately help a tea buyer like you understand what you were purchasing. The job was mostly building syntax using said shorthand, this time with adjectives and verbs, but the work was more difficult than it sounds. How do you build an attractive sentence for a tea that supposedly tastes like burnt wood and flowers at once? Often, I would get to taste the tea I was writing about, sometimes alongside the tasters themselves. And, slowly and steadily, the world of tea opened up. A training program and 400+ tastings later, I was tasting tea on my own.
I found the act so strange initially - just sitting with a cup of tea and thinking about the words to describe what you can smell and taste - but I realized that in doing so I was allowing the tea to reveal itself. I realized that by thinking deeply about what’s in my cup, pursuing it with near-meditative rigour, tea just comes alive. Some days, the flavours and aromas would come together in such a powerful way that they would unlock long-forgotten memories - a sudden burst of nostalgia. These were rare moments when the chemistry between leaves and hot water culminated into something more than the matter in the cup, gripping you on a higher-than-sensorial level. On such days, I would feel like I have traversed multiple realms of consciousness at once and this was the hardest kind of experience to capture in words. But, driven by all that intellectual stimulation and dopamine hit, I would revel in the challenge.
It was this experience that expanded my mind and sensibilities of tea irreversibly; a kind of feeling that self-affirms.
As a result, I look forward to my daily cups with greater anticipation. The discovery of new and familiar scents and flavours, the mental journey to the land of the tea’s origins, and feelings that stay with long after that last sip, I find it all greatly comforting and deeply satisfying. Which is why, tea, for me, is not ordinary.
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Growing up, tea (and food in general) was more simple. Chai (black tea simmered in milk) was a common feature of mornings; sometimes the only thing we’d have for breakfast, with a biscuit or two to make it count as a meal. Mum would usually hand me a heavily milked-down version of chai in an attempt to get me to drink more milk. Nonetheless, it was rife with the goodness of tea and whatever spice my mum could land her hands on - carom seeds to ginger to curry leaves - strained and served piping hot in a large mug, never a porcelain teacup. You could describe its tastes as creamy with brisk and spicy Eau de thé. But I remember chai mostly as this generous thing my mum put up on the breakfast table every morning. It was also the first thing she taught me to make.
Back then tea, by itself, never really held an especially elevated place in my life. Sure it was a congenial little beverage that was a part of daily routine, social experiences, and solitary meanderings, but I don’t think I ever expended a penny’s worth of thought to seeing tea as being ‘more’ than just a part of something. Definitely not something that warranted a deep, obsessive pursuit.
It was only when I started working in tea that I came to see the range and unbelievable depth that existed in this world. For the first time, I started to see tea as being more than ‘chai’. Its place in my life was exalted, much like how it was for the people who grow it. And I could also finally begin to understand the reasons for chasing mastery and connoisseurship in the art of coffee, wine, and now tea.
I never became an expert. I don’t think one can. But I do know a thing or two more than the average tea drinker, and that’s purely from experience and special access to good tea. Since I moved out of the industry in 2017, it has been difficult to keep up with the new developments. Also, it doesn’t help that little progress has been made to bring to a wider audience authentic single-origin and traditional styles of tea. If at all, these teas are relegated to the shelves in Harrods or small tea boutiques and online sellers. Across both, only a handful of traditional tea styles make it to the listing because there is far greater demand for flavoured blends and herbal teas. It also doesn’t help that traditional styles and varieties like Muscatels, Pu-erh, and Gyokuro are expensive. Blends are any day cheaper and more profitable to stock. Sure there exist people in this world who go the length to procure traditional teas straight from tea estates and specialized ateliers, but it’s a tiny group and their pursuits are mostly recreational. It’s especially rare to find a community dedicated to preserving, nurturing, and celebrating the unique kinds and virtues of tea from different regions. Unlike wine and coffee, which have exclusive, near-obsessive communities dedicated to discussing labels, terroris, and production methods, tea - real tea - lacks its share of champions.
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Tea crossed into the territory of health and wellness a few years ago and unlike other superfoods, tea has garnered an unwavering reputation as a beverage for everything from boosting immunity to losing weight. And while this certainly makes tea more pursuable, I think it can hardly be called a move upward. For tea.
You see, for hundreds of years, tea had been a part of daily life in the East. It eventually found its way West through trade and colonization and immediately became an object of elite admiration. But the thing that made tea desirable was not the oriental origins as much as it was the rituals and ceremonies that supplemented the experience of the beverage. Both time-honoured and newly ritualized behaviours (like afternoon tea) made the beverage most appealing, elevating tea’s perceived value greatly. This gave a major thrust to tea demand and consumption, which peaked around the 19th century. However, it was in the 20th century when, to meet demand and stay profitable, tea production was mechanized, standardized, and output commoditized across tea-producing English colonies. Slow, traditional methods were quickly weaned out by daunting profit policies, stifling craft, and culture along the way and resulting in the gentrification of tea.
Tea production experienced a revival of sorts around the mid 20th century. In India, for instance, a renewed interest in tea as a cash crop led to the development of new plant varietals that can thrive under unruly conditions and yield more output. Both production and export flourished on the back of these new varietals, and today, once again, India is producing many metric tonnes of tea. As are other tea growing regions. Sadly, in trying to cultivate new and profitable production methods, nobody stopped to take responsibility for preserving and cultivating experiences. And this is how tea missed out on its “third-wave” movement.
It is a fact that experiences help elevate the value of a commodity. It’s an antidote to genericism. So in the age of niche choices, even the best orthodox tea without trappings of culture and experiences is no better or higher than bottled water.
I believe the present generation is the best chance the world has for cultivating a culture of tea. One that can hold tea and its place in daily life to a higher standard. To this end, I’ll park my bets on millennials and gen Z - both technology savvy, knowledge-driven generations. They are armed with information and flush with spending capabilities. They live with a higher sense of awareness of their impact on this world. And they also have a natural knack for sensory immersion. This last bit is important.
You see, the task at hand is to take something that has been around for generations and find a way to make it interesting and enhance its place in daily life. It requires asking new questions about tea, beyond simple notions of good and bad, and finding ideas that reinvigorate the culture of tea itself. If tea can be anything in this world, let it be the thing that opens minds and feeds both body and soul. And who better to explore and guide the new wave of tea than the present generation of experience-hunters and conscious consumers.
As for this publication, little ink has been devoted to writing about tea in any context other than scientific study or a tasting guide. I think it's time tea gets a little bit of cachet. To this end, I am writing to cast a spotlight on the many subtleties of tea that make it more than a staple. I am writing to make a case for tea as a beverage worthy of wine-like critical appreciation (no more, no less). And finally, I am writing to share what’s in my cup, hoping that it helps you explore what’s in yours.