An evening with Victor Mair

9th century Fiestaware

Dr. Victor Mair is a linguist.  What can a linguist offer to further the study of tea?

In 1998, his book, “The True History of Tea,” co-written with Erling Hoh, was a month from completion when he learned of a shipwreck being excavated in the Java Sea.  What’s known as the “Belitung wreck,” named for the nearby Indonesian island, turned out to be the most important archaeological discovery in southeast Asia: a ninth-century Arab trading vessel loaded with Chinese export porcelain.  And one of these bowls bore this inscription: 荼盞子.

“Tea-bowl (thingy).”  It was the capstone of his research.

Great ape?

You want milk and sugar?!

In case you hadn’t heard, I’ve been promoted from “Tea Monkey” to “Manager” at the Random Tea Room. We’re a single-barista shop, so this involves more operational rather than supervisory responsibilities. As you can see, I’m currently implementing our “Friendly Faces” customer service initiative.

“The True History of Tea” Atlas begins!

The second “Philadelphia Tea Institute” book club is underway: Victor Mair’s “The True History of Tea.”  I’ll have a review in a few weeks, but in the meantime I thought I’d share a study aid I’ve been working on: “The True History of Tea” Atlas!

It’s hardly an atlas, but Adagio and Jason Walker already have “tea maps.”  And it’s only 1/18th complete: the vast mass of facts in this book is what compels the creation of aids to cognition.

I welcome comments if you have corrections, but please keep in mind that places you don’t see on the map may be added later, or else aren’t mentioned in “The True History of Tea.”

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to figure out how I’m going to serve Hunan Baishaxi tonight in Tibetan fashion, without any yak butter.

Review: The Tea Drinker’s Handbook

We’ve just finished our first “tea book club”: eight of us spent eight weeks reading François-Xavier Delmas‘s “The Tea Drinker’s Handbook.” This book is produced by the French tea company Le Palais des Thés, and is the English version of “Le Guide de Dégustation de l’Amateur de Thé.”  (Is that “How to Taste Tea Amateurs”?  I much prefer the English title.)  The course was a runaway success, and there’s lots of excitement about what’s next for the “Philadelphia Tea Institute.”  I would note that the intense study is what kept me from blogging for two months, but all my blog’s readers were probably in the class with me.  My impressions of the book follow.

Read about tea farming, dress the part.

Hardness 2

Hard water no work for tea.

Let’s check in with some earlier hypotheses about water hardness.

• hardness is a specific measure of minerality (TDS) for limited, “industrial” purposes

I still wholeheartedly agree. I might rephrase and say “hardness is a measure of a specific subset of minerality…” etc.  But I realized something else about the use of “hardness” to describe water taste.  Here’s a definition from the Water Quality Association:

“Hard water is water that contains an appreciable quantity of dissolved minerals (like calcium and magnesium).
Soft water is treated water in which the only ion is sodium.”

This is one of many muddled definitions I’ve seen where hardness is erroneously used to describe minerality.  Let’s reiterate: hardness is a measure of multivalent cations, like calcium and magnesium.  There are many minerals that can be dissolved in water that don’t make water hard, like sodium.  There’s no such thing as “soft water”; there’s only water that’s been made less hard, or “softened,” by substituting something like sodium for magnesium or calcium.   And the WQA is a trade association that represents companies that sell things like “water softeners.”  Water softeners will cut down on scale in your pipes and appliances, but they won’t necessarily make your tea water taste better.

What are trees for?

Does that look shady to you?

Hoping to find some information that’s generalizable to the production of tea, I’ve been sporadically reading “The Geography of Wine: How Landscapes, Cultures, Terroir, and the Weather Make a Good Drop.” The author, Brian J. Sommers, has taught a geography of wine course at Central Connecticut University for many years.  I lose patience reading it, as I’m transported to a college lecture hall where the professor talks overlong, desperately grasping at metaphors, trying to hold the attention of jocks and communications majors forced to take a science class.  Also, using the concept of “geography” to envelop such disparate disciplines as soil science and political culture without seeming arbitrary and disorganized takes some boldness that I haven’t seen in this book so far.

Hardness?

Been plowing through my latest acquisition, “The Professional Barista’s Handbook.” There are three pages devoted to tea.  That’s two less than the section on water, and one-fifth of the size of the milk chapter.  I’m not sure what to think when author Scott Rao writes, “It would be nice to see a few more cafes treat their tea programs with a fraction of the respect they give their espresso programs.”

But I knew this before I got the book.  From the introduction: “My coffee library was chock-full […of nuts? No,] of colorful descriptions of brewing styles, growing regions, and recipes, with a few almost-unreadable scientific books mixed in.  I would have traded in all of those books for one serious, practical book with relevant information about making great coffee in a cafe….This book is my attempt to [create that book.]”  Rao could be talking about my tea library.  Coffee is still way ahead: tea doesn’t seem to have the culture of tech-oriented coffee geeks debating the finer points of chemistry.  Now coffee has Rao’s books, and tea doesn’t have that either.

Misadventures in Minerality

I'd rather drink muddy water, and sleep in a hollow log

You may have read that we like to play with water.  Lacking an agenda for the weekly tea seminar, I bought a bottle of Gerolsteiner, the sparkling water with a hefty 2527 total dissolved solids, and resolved to brew tea with it.  I heard they were doing this in the next Jackass movie.
I was a little worried about boiling sparkling water.  The internet reassured us that the water would simply lose its carbonation, which was desirable in our case.  If you lean over the kettle while it’s boiling carbonated water, do you inhale carbon dioxide and pass out?

With tea, all things are possible.

Use a strainer, I don't want that much hair

After Tea – “We Will Be There After Tea”

Love this song.  After Tea was a band that broke off from the Dutch band “Tee Set.”  This 1968 single reached #16 on the Dutch top 40, and was also popularized by British band The Spencer Davis Group and Germany’s Die Rattles.  If you can’t penetrate the Dutch accent, here’s the lyrics.  Not sure if the singer plans to add hallucinogens to his tea to reach these spacey destinations, but I prefer to think he’s just got some wicked good Dong Ding.

Proud Monkey

The official title for an employee of the Random Tea Room is “Tea Monkey.”
I am the newest Monkey.
Please visit me during my weekly shift on Sunday evenings from 4-10 PM.  The second Sunday of every month is the popular sensation “Classical Revolution,” so plan accordingly.