'The Daily Tea'

Will be glad to have Jon Stewart back on "The Daily Show" next Tuesday, but John Oliver's summer run has been fun — and, of course, tempered by the occasional tea.

Still steaming over teapot museum

This is not, repeat not, a political blog. I have my own reasons for disliking the Tea Party, but that aside the loosely defined group is a hitch in my kettle mainly because its existence has made searching for tea news and information increasingly difficult, especially online.

But one Tea Party beef is actually related to tea.

Recent stories about Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum kept mentioning that one of his cardinal sins, according to competing candidates, is that he once cast a vote in favor of Congressional funds supporting the Sparta Teapot Museum in North Carolina.

"Why can't there be a teapot hall of fame?" asked Sonny Kamm, who launched the museum with his wife, Gloria, and philanthropist Philip Hanes (as in Hanes underwear). "And we said, 'why not!'"

Amazingly, they managed to secure $400,000 in state funds for the project, as well as another $500,000 from Congress. A furor erupted over the expenditure, however, and it was canceled.

Despite all that scratch, the museum closed in 2010. Too bad, sounds as if they put on some great exhibits.

Afternoon tea piping hot amid austerity

The Economist reports this week that, even in the face of Britain's own austerity measures, one thing hasn't seen a decline — and, in fact, has seen a bit of a boost: afternoon tea.

Despite the many reports that come in periodically about the decline of tea drinking in the evermore Americanized (i.e., coffee swilling) motherland — I recently linked to yet another one here — this business article reports that tea time at the Palm Court in London's famed Ritz is "thriving," and adds:

Since 2004, the Ritz has served “afternoon” tea from 11.30am to 7.30pm; it hosts nearly 150,000 people a year. Saturday slots at the Savoy are booked up three months in advance. The Berkeley hotel in Knightsbridge changes its tea menu (cakes and other goodies are typically part of the package) every six months: recent offerings have included a “Valentino clutch cake” and a “Dolce & Gabbana éclair”. The economic doldrums have not hit demand; they may even have enhanced it.

Glad to hear it (even though I was not really bowled over by the Ritz experience on my London tea trip last year), though instead of bolstering the parlors of the wealthiest 1 percent I'd rather see greater growth of access to tea among the other 99.

Occupy the Tearoom, anyone?

Links: Wolverine! Old folks! Argo Tea! Energy!

Some recent tea news links ...

— The UK doesn't have its own branch of America's new Tea Party, but one city council has had to cool off a brewing controversy over tea and budget cutting. According to this story, the Liberal Democrats in East Sussex demanded that the complimentary tea and cookies served at council meetings be scrapped because of the 600-pound annual expense. That got some residents boiling mad.

— It's highly likely that the people in the above story are all old, because Britons under 25 don't care so much about tea anymore.

— Actor Hugh Jackman has opened his own shop, the Laughing Man Coffee & Tea, in New York City. Proceeds from the shop benefit his Laughing Man charity.

— The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel published a good feature about the Bigelow tea plantation in South Carolina, including great photos and some intriguing recipes.

— And Time magazine profiled Chicago-based business Argo Tea!

— And this is not specifically tea-related, but here's an inspiring article from Tiny Buddha about "How to Accomplish Anything (by) Leveraging Collective Energy." A few salient points on this list got me through midterms. Word.

Census: tea on the rise, coffee down

Would you like a little data with your tea?

The U.S. Census Bureau has released its 2012 Statistical Abstract, a fascinating round-up of tables and figures from numerous government agencies relating to a wide variety of facets of American life.

A New York Times story about the report mentions one of its findings: "People drank more tea and less coffee..."

When digging into the "Food Consumption and Nutrition" pages, we see specifically what that means. Annual per capita consumption of tea rose steadily from 6.9 gallons (ha, I can do that in a week or two) in 1990 to 9 gallons in 2009. Coffee, meanwhile, slipped from 26.8 to 23.3, respectively. Take that, Starbucks.

Marketing 101, with Prof. Earl Grey

You can create all the funky new flavors you want, but don't mess with the original.

Twinings found that out recently when the venerated British tea company decided to "refresh" its Earl Grey recipe, adding "a dash of lemon and a touch more bergamot," and relaunching it under the company's Aromatics line of flavored teas. "The Earl himself couldn’t have imagined how wonderful his favourite tea could taste," Twinings claimed.

The reviews (many via a Facebook protest page) came in quickly, and they were not "wonderful":

• "I took a big gulp expecting it to taste lovely and bergamotty but to my utter dismay (and horror as I nearly spat it out) it tasted like lemon cleaning product - vile."
• "I have to say it is utterly gross. We wont be buying it in the office again."
• "It stinks, rather like lemon Fairy Up Liquid and is unpleasant to taste. I threw the contents of my box out into the compost."
• "I can't drink the new blend. The false lemon flavour is just horrid.
• "I cannot describe how awful this new tea tastes. The old award-winning tea was in a completely different league to this foul-tasting dish water."

A Twinings spokesman reported that, of course, the company had conducted "rigorous consumer tasting" before unleashing the new product and received a "strong preference feedback over the previous blend."

In a move that brings back memories of the New Coke scheme, Twinings announced last week on its website that they were giving in to popular demand — "Whilst many love the new Earl Grey, a group of Earl Grey fans have asked us to make the previous blend available. Not wishing to disappoint, we have introduced Earl Grey The Classic Edition," the statement reads — thereby shrewdly and cheaply reminding the British public of its national treasure.

The origins of Earl Grey tea and its bergamot-tinged recipe have been debated for ages, but Twinings made it the household name it still is today. The company first sold the blend in 1831, naming it after then-Prime Minister Charles Grey.

Blemishless virgins! Teenage boys! Drunk architects!

My news feeds have been peppered with strange tea-related stories recently. Here's a round-up:

— Women in China usually do the bulk of the tea picking, but at least one garden is looking for a few blemishless virgins to pick tea with their teeth. Stay classy, China!

— A British architect claimed in court to have no memory of grabbing a waitress and holding a knife to her throat after she asked him to pay for his cup of tea. His lawyer told the court he had enjoyed a successful career as an architect "before alcohol sadly took a hold."

— Teenage boys love afternoon tea. Really.

— They'll probably also really dig this hemp iced tea.

— I'm never clear on the ultimate legitimacy of overseas news outlets, and I run into links to newspapers like The Hindustan Times quite often. And I must say, this is one of the strangest columns I've ever read.

Radiation fears bedevil Japanese tea growers

Who woulda thunk the tea experience one day would include Geiger counters?

World Tea News reported this week that the Japanese government "is testing 100 tea processing factories and has halted shipments from the Warashina district of Shizuoka City." Four prefectures now are under scrutiny. (Also in the WSJ.)

In Japan, the miniscule amount of tea grown in the north is nearly all consumed locally. The green tea that's exported is primarily grown in the south and southern islands, far from any threat of radiation contamination following the March 11 offshore earthquake and resulting nuclear power plant disaster. (See a map of Japan's tea-producing regions in relation to the power plant here.) Still, governments everywhere are setting up testing protocols for Japanese tea to screen for any contamination.

Just a couple of weeks ago, I attended a green tea tasting at Tea Gschwendner. The company's master taster Thomas Holz mentioned that TG has been screening all its Japanese tea just to be safe, and has yet found nothing alarming.

Either way, with shipping halted and some harvests suspended — including this anguish voiced by a tea farmer forced to destroy his early harvest — Japan may suffer a tea shortage this year. There's still no reason to fear drinking Japanese tea, but expect prices to be meddling.

A lull in a Japanese China shop

Like other tea folks, we've been watching the news, incredible photos and scary video from the earthquake aftermath in Japan with great sadness. The one person I know in Japan ... was in New Orleans when the quake hit (his family back in Japan is safe, whew). This photo, however, of a Tokyo ceramics shop owner assessing the damage — dig those beautiful tea bowls — especially hurt ...




On a lighter note, New York Post travel editor David Landsel has been tweeting from inside Tokyo DisneySea, where 30,000 visitors who remain trapped in the parks have been treated to tea, cookies, chocolates and pork buns, he said. "What a bizarre (and wonderful) place to be trapped!" he wrote.

Want to donate to or help the recovery? Some suggestions and links. There's also this group.

Will the next mayor of Chicago drink tea?

Launching and running a tea business seems like a benevolent action that could only generate positive press — unless (a) you're running for mayor of Chicago and (b) your business tanks.

Former senator and U.S. ambassador Carol Moseley Braun is one of the hopefuls seeking to replace retiring Richard M. Daley as Chicago's mayor next month. I've considered her as a candidate not only based on her record but, admittedly, also because she's a tea lover. She likes to take afternoon tea at the Four Seasons here, and in 2005 she launched her own tea and spice company, Ambassador Organics.

Braun was an ambassador in New Zealand from 1999 to 2001. Perhaps she experienced the country's fledgling tea industry — now producing some tasty oolongs — and got inspired. But, alas, Ambassador apparently has not fared well. When you're up for public office, you release your tax returns. Braun's show the company has lost at least $365,000. Not great news for someone seeking to manage a city with a $6 billion annual budget, though navigating the emerging markets for tea might not be directly comparable to making sense of Chicago's fiscal labyrinth.

It's a shame, because Ambassador sources only organic, biodynamic and fair-trade teas. "I founded my small business not in a downtown office, but in a South Side neighborhood, guided by the same principles and values that I fought for in government," Braun said recently. I've only tasted a hibiscus herbal blend, but I remember it was as snappy as Braun's personality.

Climate change is diluting Assam tea

Eegad — I've thought casually about this before, but here's a good story about how climate change is affecting tea production in the Assam region. As you know, you can't grow tea just anywhere; it's pretty finicky about its conditions. With rainfall totals dropping and temperature rising, yields are getting smaller. And it's no better in Darjeeling.

It gets worse: This report (and this one) claims that climate change is even make Assam tea less potent. If you drink Assam, no doubt you do so because of its strong, bright flavor. The unsettled climate seems to be diluting it.

You know what that means. Prices will only go up.

Perhaps it's a delicious irony that the right's radicals, who deny the facts of climate change, named their new party after a possibly endangered plant.

Tea is one of Oprah's favorite things (and VWs!)

Oprah's final season on TV is chugging along at full hype, including yesterday's big finale of "Oprah's Favorite Things" — which included the above assortment of teas by Oprah's favorite tea source, Talbott's. "Everyone knows I love a spot of tea," she said as she gave away some to her audience.

After that, she gave everyone in the audience a 2012 Volkswagen Beetle. Those have teacup holders, right?

(Thanks, Tess!)

CSI: Darjeeling

We love Laura Childs' teashop murder mysteries here at t2. While those stories are bloody good fun, it seems a cup of tea sometimes is found at real-life crime scenes. Here's a round-up of recent incidents where things boiled over ...

A British woman becomes annoyed with her companion, so she puts bleach in his tea. She was jailed on a charge of "maliciously administering a poison or noxious thing with intent to injure, aggrieve or annoy." The man is standing by her.

This man was arrested for chucking his cup of tea at his wife.

British prisoners may have poisoned the tea of two guards.

Enjoying your tea at a shop near a busy street? Maybe don't sit next to the window.

Two women stole several cases of bottled iced tea from a convenience store, then (oops) hit an elderly man with their car while trying to make their getaway.

I know you have to get all that food to the wedding, but why don't you stop for some tea first. Atta boy. ... Uh oh, someone stole your catering van!

We hear about people being scalded by to-go coffee all the time. This to-go tea sent a toddler to the burn center.

This is an oldie, but I'll link it again: A woman shot in the head makes tea for the police when they arrive.

Watch the 'Tea Mavericks' panel discussion

I finally caught up with this interesting tea event, a discussion with five "tea mavericks," held last week at Samovar in San Francisco. The folks are Rishi Tea CEO Joshua Kaiser, noted tea writer James Norwood Pratt, Numi Tea CEO Ahmed Rahim, the leader of info-sharing website Digg, Kevin Rose, and tea source expert David Lee Hoffman, with Samovar founder Jesse Jacobs. It's about an hour, and you can watch here ...

Tea Mavericks of America from jesse jacobs on Vimeo.

Lollapalooza, Lady Gaga and cans of quenching tea

A month away, welcome back, all. What have I been doing in the meantime? Sweating and hiking through Lollapalooza, for one.

I bring this up here only because the biggest performer at last weekend's annual concert festival here in Chicago's beautiful Grant Park was tea-lover extraordinaire, Lady Gaga. (Of course, we keep calling her a famous tea lover — but the tea cups she carries around as apparent fashion accessories are always empty.) I did my utmost to lurk backstage, hoping to spot our lady taking tea. Alas, nothing. Here's my review of her performance, though, plus all our other Lolla coverage, if anyone's interested.

In other Lady Gaga news, rumors abounded a couple of weeks ago that the pop star was the focus of a bidding war between tea companies vying for her spokeswomanship. This report and others suggested she was going to sign with Twinings, and there's talk of a special Gaga blend. Little Monsters Matcha, anyone?

Another Lollapalooza note: One of the sponsors again this year was Sweet Leaf Tea (their Lollapalooza blog is here). Weather was just not-hot enough that I didn't feel I had to constantly be chugging water all three days, so I was able to enjoy several of their bottled teas to stay hydrated. The cans — cans! — of green tea with citrus, and some with mint, were pretty great. I always say this, but getting the sweetness just right in bottled teas always seems to be a challenge. These Sweet Leaf varieties aren't too sweet; they're nicely balanced and really quaffable. Superb on a very noisy summer day, anyway.

How (environmentally) green is your tea?

Over the years of my affair with tea, I have contemplated the environmental impact of this romance. Here I am demanding a product from the other side of the globe, having it shipped via sea or air, then trucked to my mailbox or market. That's a lot of carbon-spewing transportation. Add in certain processing procedures and packaging, and suddenly tea of any type doesn't seem very green.

Nigel Melican, one of the tea techies at Teacraft, last year studied the carbon footprint of tea, as cited in an article by Jennifer Leigh Sauer (she writes a great ecological-minded tea blog called Bon Teavant). Melican's research actually quantifies the carbon output produced by a cup of several different beverages, and finds that tea isn't so bad, after all:

Sauer sums up, saying that "tea's carbon footprint (measured by the number of grams of carbon dioxide per cup) can vary greatly from over 200g CO2 per cup to -6g CO2 per cup, depending on how the tea is grown, processed, shipped, packaged, brewed, and discarded. On average, a loose tea which you drink at a tea lounge has about 20g CO2 per cup. As a reference point, the carbon footprint of a cup of beer is 374g, a can of Coca Cola is 129g and a cup of cow's milk is about 225g. As such, loose tea is a far better choice environmentally than any of these."

Want to make your tea experience extra-green? Take into account several other factors, she adds:

• Drink loose-leaf tea instead of bag tea. Packing tea into boxes and bags, adding nylon strings, plastic wrap and printing is fairly carbon-intensive. Loose tea usually comes in less packaging.
• Recycle your tea. Quality oolongs, especially, can be resteeped several times without significant loss of flavor. When you're done, compost it or fertilize certain plants with it. Find other post-brew uses for the leaves, such as deodorizing your fridge. One of my favorite methods: Throw the leaves in some eggs the next morning.
• Use gas heat to fire your kettle. I've always preferred gas stoves to electric, simply because it makes for quicker, more even cooking. I'd never thought about this breakdown before: "According to Melican, 'Gas is best as there is only one conversion loss from burning the fossil fuel to produce heat energy to raise the water temperature in the kettle. With electricity, you get five separate losses: 1. turning fossil fuel into steam, 2. steam into electricity, 3. grid losses along the wires (voltage drop), 4. transformer losses as voltage is stepped up and down, and 5. in heating the water in the kettle.'" Plus, hey, the extra heat from a gas burner helps keep your kitchen warm.

This discussion was revived last week when more, similar information cropped up in some articles in the UK press, such as this one claiming: "If you drink four mugs of black tea per day, boiling only as much water as you need, that works out as just 30kg of CO2e each year – the same as a 40-mile drive in an average car. Three large lattes per day, by contrast, and you're looking at almost twenty times as much carbon, equivalent to flying half way across Europe."

The real shock for Britons was the extra bit of information that if you add milk to tea, you're increasing the carbon footprint of your cuppa by about three times. That's not only because of the processing and transportation of the dairy, but because cows belch and otherwise emit a great deal of methane into the atmosphere.

Further study and more detailed figures on tea's energy consumption are here.

How do you hold a moonbeam in your cup?

When I was a house dweller, as opposed to my current condo life, I gardened more extensively. At some point I noticed the lunar planting tables in the Farmer's Almanac. Hokum, surely — but I tried it. I didn't keep detailed records (I'm more a scatter-and-cocktail kind of planter), but the year I planted and harvested according to the moon cycles was noticeably more bountiful than the year before.

I mention this only because I've begun seeing this kind of discussion revived in the world of wine. The UK Guardian, for instance, recently had this story about whether the phases of the moon affect not just how a vine will grow but how the wine itself will taste on certain days. According to a lunar calendar devised by Maria Thun, there are so-called "fruit" days and "root" days – those days in the lunar calendar when water and saps rise or fall.

"I was sceptical at first, but then had a eureka moment," says Jo Aherne, winemaker at Marks & Spencer. "Our wines showed beautifully at a press tasting one day and far less well the next. We couldn't understand it. The wines were all favourites of ours and the bottles were all from the same case. Someone checked the calendar and we found that the first day had been a fruit day, when the wines were expressive, exuberant and aromatic, and the second a root day, when they were closed, tannic and earthy. Further rather unscientific tests have confirmed our view."

I've hunted for information about other beverages, including tea, and come up short. Is there a tide in the cup?

Celebrity tea lover: Jake Gyllenhaal

You couldn't drag me to see the silly-looking "Prince of Persia" video game about to hit movie theaters, but Jake Gyllenhaal is still a cutie and in this video he discusses shampoo and conditioner — over tea in a lovely private room somewhere, with some killer sweets on the table ...



There's a nice tea moment at the end, where Jake indicates he's a tea lover. Then the bimbo interviewer, of course, asks him what kind of mate he's looking for, to which he replies, "Just someone to sit and have a nice cup of tea with." Aw.

Sweeping up some links from the tea tin

• When I met with Rod Markus of the Rare Tea Cellar a while back, he described himself as the kind of guy who seeks out the rarest of anything. "If I saw a $30 doughnut, I'd try it," he said. Perhaps he's already tried the most expensive tea in the world. Here's an article about such a tea, Yellow Gold Tea Buds, just more than $100 for 50 grams. What makes it so expensive? It's harvested on one mountain, on one day — with golden scissors. Wait ... it's also painted with gold flakes. How'd you like to have the gig of painting the tea leaves? Yeesh.
• This sounds kinda cool: Coca-Cola is test marketing a machine for restaurants that allows customers to brew single servings of tea, almost like going to the fountain for a soda. Tea on demand.
• How do Cylons make their tea?
• The milk-first/tea-first debate continues to rage in England. Here's a sharp and convincing argument for milk-first, with great animation. (Thanks, Dave!)
• How'd you like to have tea in bed with "Top Chef's" Padma Lakshmi?
• Bill Daley at the Chicago Tribune caught up with the buyers behind Ineeka, one of the better local tea companies. Nice story, with good sidebars about brewing and an intriguing black-tea barbecue recipe. (See Lainie's latest Ineeka review.)
• Elsewhere in newspaper profiles of small tea businesses, here's one piece about Tea District, and another. Who's ready to launch a tea biz?!
• Reports from the first World Tea East — from World Tea ... plus an interview with World Tea's George Jage (includes a recipe for Darjeeling vinaigrette!).
• Mmmmm, coconut water green tea!
• A contest for baseball-loving tea drinkers. Terry Francona likes a cuppa?!
• Several weeks ago, an 18-year-old bright guy in Texas made tea — from poppy seeds. And then promptly died. His father is now speaking out about the dangers.
• Beautiful photos of snow in Darjeeling.
• And, finally, here's a lil' video from the Art of Tea folks, so good you can almost smell the stuff ...

Art of Tea Promotional Video from One Lens Media on Vimeo.

'Exper-teas' story in the Sun-Times

That's Rod Markus from Rare Tea Cellar. Some of the posts here recently — about his teas, about Chas Kroll's event, etc. — have been by-products of a story I've been preparing for the Chicago Sun-Times, which finally published today — read it here! It's a long one, about what it means to be a tea master or a tea sommelier. As you'll see, few of them have any formal education in tea; they drink, they learn. And now they have the coolest jobs on the planet. (OK, next to Tim Gunn.) Also, enjoy the lovely photography of three different Sun-Times shooters in the photo gallery.