Tea in the pot — in the garden

At long last, I'm growing tea.

Unable to find the special varietals created for San Diego's particular climate, I ordered a Sochi tea plant from Nichols Garden Nursery up in Oregon. It arrived in splendid condition, a small plant well-established (a foot tall) and moist.

This Camellia sinensis Sochi variety originates, yes, where the Winter Olympics just took place — and one of the northernmost, historic tea-growing regions of Russia. This strain was developed to be especially winter-hardy, which I won't require in southern California, but we'll see how it does.

I've planted her in a firm mound within a half wine barrel salvaged from some debris on this property. I mixed some sphagnum moss, hopefully to aid in holding moisture in the soil (crucial here, especially during last week's awful spell of hot, dry wind). I've rigged a watering system throughout the garden, and it'll feed a dripping irrigation spout at the base of the plant, as well as a fogger I hope to run in the mornings. She'll have dappled shade from a nearby Scotch pine, and some late afternoon sun.

This is a hobby venture, not necessarily a productive one. I can't imagine I'd actually harvest and process any leaves — perhaps on a one-cup basis! Given the opportunity of this wonderful garden, I simply had to try to grow the plant that, on the other end of its life cycle, is so instrumental to my daily life. We shall see.

Tuesday tea tune: Bein' green

Spotted this attractive embroidery on Twitter recently. The Green Man has always been a favorite totem — I used to have a clay Green Man hanging on a tree trunk in a previous garden — especially in spring and summer.

Reminds me of a favorite XTC album track, too. A stretch for the Tuesday tea theme; just pretend Green Man loves his sencha ...

Tuesday tea tune: Spring into tea

Spring has sprung, spring classes have begun, the world is looking up. Here's a chill celebration titled "Spring Tea Ceremony" by Oliver Shanti ...

Herb gardening: the perfect nursery?

I finally found the nursery I've been searching for — for years.

Ever since reading Adelma Grenier Simmons' 1964 classic Herb Gardening in Five Seasons nearly 20 years ago, I've been summoning herbs from whatever patches of ground have been available to me. I'm on my fourth garden now, and Simmons' book has been the starting point for the planning of each plot. In previous locales, however, I never found a nursery catering to the wide selection of herbs my winter dreams demanded. Here in southern California, though, I found a good one, at long last.

Pearson's Gardens & Herb Farm is a sweet spot tucked into a hilly, twisty residential area of Vista, Calif., north of San Diego. Started in 1981, it's been a wholesale provider all that time until opening to retail just six years ago. They claim "the largest selection of herbs, spices, and ethnobotanicals in the state of California," and after spending three hours today wandering (OK, practically skipping) the crunchy gravel walkways among their rows upon rows of neatly arranged tables piled with flats I've no reason to doubt the claim. I enjoyed a nice long chat with owner Mark Pearson and made it home with 54 different plants.

Some photos from the nursery ...

The tea connections here: I enjoy herbal teas for many occasions and remedies — but I tend to prefer the fresh stuff. Unlike tea proper, herbs produced for infusion lose potency and flavor quickly. I've rarely been bowled over by herbal teas — save for cinnamon tea on a chilly night, that sublime experience of drinking cherry blossoms (ha, speaking of), and I do sometimes rely on my Everyday Detox — unless, frankly, they just came out of the ground. In particular, my ground. Lemon balm is a longtime favorite — fresh or dried, into the pot, heavenly. Thanks to Simmons, I've learned the sublimity of tea made with sage and/or rosemary. Good ol' mints and chamomiles, too, have calmed many an afternoon. I look forward to rebooting a from-the-garden-into-the-pot regimen this year.

Verbenas are favorites, too, and Pearson's sells more than a few, including pineapple verbena — which they've tagged directly as Moujean Tea, a name I'd not encountered before but is apparently common. It's practically a bonsai-worthy herb, the way it grows in tidy branches with small leaves, and bees love it. Despite its name, it brews up a floral, vanilla-flavored infusion. It's going to be all I can do to let the plants get established before I start plucking directly into my teapot.

Tea relative blooming in January

My apologies for rubbing it in, to all you Midwestern folks shivering in wind chills and buried in snow, but I had to share the January view from my study window. That large, blooming tree is a camellia — not sure what variety, but a relative of the tea plant. I wasn't sure about that identification until its soft-pink, carnation-like blossoms started popping out early in December. A winter bloomer, here in beautiful SoCal!

Meanwhile, I'm engaged in my favorite wintertime activity: planning the garden. We've got a long, sunny terrace level at this new house, which I'm plotting full of herbs and veggies — and a tea plant or two, if I can (a) find an appropriate one and (b) keep it alive. We shall see.

Christmas tea tune: Jesus drank tea

Merry Christmas, tea folk!

As Christmas Eve falls on this lovely Tuesday, be sure to check out today's Tuesday tea tune: "Baby Jesus" by a fine Brit band, Kula Shaker. A sweet slice of early Moody Blues-ish, narrated psychedelia, the chorus of this track sings the praises of Jesus as "a real cool man" who not only showed up to parties and turned the water into wine but was a man of true character because "he probably drank tea"!

Click here to listen, or right/control-click to download. (Read more)

May days

Today happens to be the fifth day of the fifth month
I'll wear the straw sandals with blue-eyed cords I was given as they allude to ayame-gusa.
— Basho

New Year hibernation

When New Year week is over, people are likely to be sitting around the fireside to enjoy a kind of hibernation, making and drinking tea all alone. They do not mind having no guest. Their own favorite scroll in the alcove, a single flower, a kettle put on for themselves, a Korean salt-dish teabowl of their liking or the warmth of an oo-zutsu (large tube) teabowl — all are enjoyable. If perchance, a tea friend of their unexpectedly visits them, it must be doubly joyful. — Sasaki Sanmi

Tatezome new year's tea ceremony returns

Hey, locals: Each January, Urasenke Chicago presents a New Year's tea ceremony (Tatezome) and hosts a nice luncheon afterward at the Japan Information Center. I attended and wrote about it a few years ago, enjoyed a rewarding afternoon and met some lovely folks.

The next one is scheduled for Jan. 26, and here's a video of last year's ceremony ...

Tea people and the new year

The new year comes with the vanguard of the first streak of daylight accompanied by the burnished dawn wind, in a stately and majestic way. The new year is decked out awe-inspiringly, faultless and graceful. Tea people are pious, serious and peaceful as they welcome it. A new year brings out the gift of myth, classicality and delight. Tea people receive them with admiration, nostalgia and ecstasy. As everything is full of celebration, gratitude and joy, tea people are busy but happy.
— Sasaki Sanmi

Vote for the (lowercase) tea parties

If you haven't already, be sure to vote today!

Of course, there's a line of teapots emblazoned with dozens of different Obama or Romney slogans and graphics.

We're not overly partisan here at t2, but hey — we can't find any photos of Romney having tea. Just sayin'.

Tea and olives? Ew. Tea olive shrub? Ah!

In certain parts of the country, mostly in the South, there's a lovely shrub that struts its stuff this time of year. It's called the tea olive, and it's basically a bellwether for autumnal temperature changes. When the thermometer swings, the tea olive blooms — and releases a wild, wonderful citrusy scent.

No idea why they're named tea olives. Anyone?

Happy Halloween, and a serene Samhain!

Ask not for which desire the bell tolls

In Japan, New Year's Eve traditions include the ringing of temple bells 108 times each, symbolizing the exorcism of the 108 earthly desires for the hew year.



The onoe-gama is a kettle shaped like a Korean bell, used to serve tea and symbolize this calendar-ending, bell-ringing purification during the New Year's tea ceremony, joya-gama.

A pure, happy new year to you all!

A pot for remembering the dead

I drank some spicy chai while handing out Halloween candy last night. You?

The ghoulish fun isn't over, though. Tonight, as All Saints Day transitions to All Souls Day, heralding the celebration of the Day of the Dead — and I'm really wishing I had this stunning tea pot to celebrate with ...

'It's alive! ... And it wants a cuppa!'

For Halloween today, Bigelow Tea reflects on the tea habits of Boris Karloff, the actor who portrayed Frankenstein's monster in the first films of that classic series. They've got some other wonderfully incongruous photos — the one above is Karloff with tea and toast on the set of "Son of Frankenstein," 1939 — in the post here.

Also check out this one, of Karloff demurely taking tea in the studio makeup room. And this one sipping tea with co-star Colin Clive.

In fact, as Gregory Mank reveals in his book Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration, Karloff's insistence on breaking for tea annoyed some of his co-workers — including Bela Lugosi.

Autumn reflection

Another autumn!
Young chestnuts just keep smiling
even though they are astringent inside.
This is no different from me.
— Tameie

A fine excuse to enjoy espresso again

Today is National Coffee Day, and I'm not a bigot. I have catholic tastes. I am large, I consume multitudes. This afternoon, I did something I haven't done within my searchable memory: I drank some coffee.

Once upon a time, this wasn't so unusual. Coffee was my first stimulant as a young fool. Many a Sunday mornin' have come down with a cup o' joe. I enjoy coffee with dessert, especially. The bitter vs. sweet — happy warfare for the territory of my tongue.

I made a bean-line to Stella, a shop in my 'hood where I often retreat for afternoon laptop labors. They have a decent tea selection, and they know how to steep. But everyone else comes for the espresso, and if I'm going to join them for coffee then I want to taste coffee. Also, why volumize the experience with more water and milk? I ordered a shot.

Anything served in tiny glasses has my attention. I have racks of cordials here at home for the port, the sherry, the grappa, the homemade limoncello, and there are a couple of wee stemmed shot glasses in the freezer with the aquavit. Would that tea could be concentrated down to such a form — though I actually enjoyed some matcha once in a Los Angeles tea shop that billed it as "green tea espresso."

I'd forgotten two things about real espresso. One, the joy of crema. No dairy products required, just expert preparation to deliver that little cap of textural bliss on top. Second, the jagged experience of caffeine without tea's theanine. What a trip — the imbalance, the rush of yin, the feeling of being all jacked up and nowhere to flow. My body was alive, but my mind was still weary. No fair.

The first day of autumn, at last!

There is no sign of autumn wind.
Is it really risshu?
— Onitsura

Have faith, tea friends! Autumn begins today!

Old-school autumn, anyway. Aug. 7 or 8 corresponds to risshu, the first day of autumn, on the old Japanese lunar calendar.

It certainly doesn't feel like it, of course. So many of my friends and family live in areas of the country that have positively baked for two solid months now. Even in Chicago, it's been considerably hotter than last summer. Some days I can't conceive of any tea other than iced.

While risshu, this early in the planet's actual revolution, doesn't correspond with any real or noticeable changes toward cooler weather, it's at least a comforting reminder that, yes, the earth is moving and we will be in sweaters before we know it. Summer downpours recently shut down Chicago's Lake Shore Drive, but six months ago a blizzard did the same.

Sasaki Sanmi writes of risshu: "It is still the middle of the lingering summer heat: shining hot, sultry or sweltering. It is not easy to seek out chashu in this month. ... Clear your mind of all mundane thoughts, and you will be able to find coolness. This is true; whether you can beat the hot weather or not depends on your state of mind."

It's all in your mind, yeah, right. But we'll make it. We always do.

Heat Miser vs. Snow Miser

Here's a great article in The New York Times about cold-brewing coffee and tea.

I've never bought into the cold-brew, having tasted some before and found it lacking. This story explains why — because the hot and cold products are chemically different from each other:

Hot water also cooks as it extracts, forcing chemical reactions that transform some of the extracted substances into other things, and driving some aroma substances out of the liquid. Cold water, in contrast, extracts more slowly and selectively, produces a simpler extract, and doesn’t change the original flavor substances as much.

So cold-brewed teas and coffees are chemically different from their hot counterparts. They tend to contain less caffeine and less acid. And, of course, they taste different. If the flavor of hot tea or coffee is your gold standard, then cold brews won’t measure up.

I make plenty of iced tea during the summer — just enjoyed another pitcher of TG's Manjhee Valley first-flush, which does well over ice — but I prefer a strong hot brew poured over ice. You?

Then again, hot and cold have always been fighting.