Going Green

Kelsey (the unofficial star contributor to Dynastea!) sent me this interesting article a while back, but I sort of forgot about it, and I'm only returning to it now as I'm gearing every possible effort toward procrastinating studying for finals.

In case you haven't the energy to read it, here's the two-sentence version: an entrepreneur by the name of An Yanshi has devised an interesting and expensive green tea--one fertilized by panda poo. In a way, he describes, it's a way of returning to the original meaning behind the Chinese character for tea, which combines "man," "grass," and "woods." Of course, this is particularly relevant for those of us who love both pandas and tea, and besides its appeal as a fun novelty drink item, there is a cool component of sustainability; if this isn't going green, I don't know what is.

So, hefty price tag aside, would you drink it? I mean, Camellia sinensis has to be fertilized somehow, right? My normal answer to almost anything with a picture of a cute panda on it would be yes, but I'm not entirely convinced of the return-to-the-natural-way argument for this drink. It's supposed to be a tea for the refined palate of a tea connoisseur, but despite Mr. An's words against the tea's classification as a novelty item, it still seems to be one. Note the number of zeros in that price and the claim that it'd be the world's most expensive kind of tea. There is the tremendous amount of nutrients that are supposedly present in the fertilizer and the fact that pandas are pretty darn endangered, but if the pandas chosen are only too happy to put up their end of the bargain on the order of kilos daily, it's difficult to say what's really driving up the price.

Picture from here.

News from the Republic (of Tea)

So last week I signed up for an email newsletter from my new friends at the Republic of Tea, and it feels a bit like following a band you like to see when their upcoming concerts are. Anyway, the first few posts are background info on tea, so I thought I'd share. Here's the first: a decent primer on tea types and "flavor notes"!  Enjoy :)

[Interestingly, red tea isn't one of the "varietals."]

(Apologies for the odd picture quality; pixels have minds of their own.)

The Madhatter Manhattan

A few Wednesdays ago, I celebrated my twenty-first birthday. Now, I'm one of the last of my friends to turn twenty-one, and that hasn't bothered me much (why spend your time on other "dranks" when there's tea to be had?), but I was still a bit excited to try something new.

Homemade wine!

My first drinks were relatively ordinary--some very strong homemade wine that I'd made with my dad a few years ago, a fruity sangria, and a good red table wine at Thanksgiving dinner. When I was back at Hopkins a few days after, I had another birthday celebration at Golden West Cafe. There are so many reasons to love Golden West. First, it's easily the most hipster place I've ever seen in  Baltimore. If the giant moose head or the chandelier made of tree branches and twinkle lights don't do it for you, the plaid-clad wait staff surely will. The menus are repurposed covers of vinyl records, and behind the bar we found a pinball machine, a jukebox, and a game of Apples-to-Apples. Another somewhat related reason to love the place is that it's often a venue for concerts (the obscure kind of course). And oh yeah, the food is really, really good.

The Madhatter Manhattan. Totally sounds like a book.

Banana Nut Cupcakes.
Enough said.

I always get the same dish when I go there (apple-brie-pesto sandwich w/ sweet potato fries), but this time I had to consider an interesting drink to get with it. Naturally, I settled on the Madhatter Manhattan--a strong cocktail with Earl Grey-infused sweet vermouth, whiskey, bitters, and a cherry on top-- to see if I could taste the tea flavor in all that alcohol. (Full disclosure: I know so little about alcohol, I asked my friend Henry if vermouth was vodka. Apparently it's not.) This one's a sipping drink folks. Unfortunately, it was so strong I couldn't taste much of anything, including the Earl Grey, which I've always considered to be a pretty noticeable flavor. But the banana nut cupcakes made up for it.

Now I'm interested in seeing how other tea flavors can be incorporated into cocktails--or maybe into my own homemade wine! Must look into this.

 Another tea related occurrence was an awesome birthday gift from Kelsey and Henry, all done up in brown paper and string. From our China adventures, Kelsey's had inside knowledge of my intrigue with flower teas--the kind that actually open up into flowers in hot water--and so she presented me with a glass teapot and strainer with twelve flowering teas! This is a tea party waiting to happen. Thanks Kelsey and Henry!

Drowning your sorrows

Got the blues? Drown your sorrows in a steaming cup of peach tea! My current choice: Republic of Tea's Ginger Peach. The Republic promises "the sweet lushness of a fancy peach seasoned with the tingle of spicy ginger," but I find it more peachy than gingery. Though, not so much so that you forget you're drinking tea. (Goes well with a cheese danish.)

Regarding the Republic of Tea, I'm ashamed to say that I haven't explored this brand very much at all. I think this is the only tea of theirs that I've tried, and only because of Peach Tea Craze 2011--a period of a few weeks this past spring when the only thing I would drink was peach tea. But I enjoyed the flavor even before that fateful fortnight. Like any respectable black tea, it's good hot or iced, which weirds some people out, but I think it makes for a perfect gloomy day tea because you can be revived no matter which season your gloom occurs in. My gloom came by way of a too-many-meetings-and-too-much-work-and-oh-yeah-it's-pouring-outside kind of day yesterday. I finished my tea so fast I forgot to take a picture, so I went hunting around Republic of Tea's site, and to my delight, found not only Ginger Peach Black Tea, but also Ginger Peach Oolong, Red, Green, and White Tea. And they come in full leaves and bags. So, not only can you suit your mood by serving the tea hot or iced, you can also suit the occasion by picking a particular level of oxidation. I think it's safe to say my allegiance is with the Republic.

At the risk of making this post all too commercial, I found one other really cool thing Ginger Peach-related: Brewed Iced Tea on Tap! Think of boxed wine only like, way, way better. (Has anyone tried this? Is it actually any good?)

Pictures from here and here.

Ghost Street

 Now it's many weeks after the fact, but I haven't had the chance to mention a few tea adventures during my last week in China. A few days before I left, Kelsey and I traveled to a big eating district--an area of town called Ghost Street (Gui Jie). This name apparently comes from "Ghost fairs" or markets that would be held until wee hours of the morning, and the lanterns that kept the street lit would look spooky, like ghosts. (this would have been a nice post for Halloween, but alas, things come up.) We went to a place called Hua's Restaurant that was sort of made to look like an avenue from the inside and had really good food. Our dinner came out in courses--first, potato pancakes, then a chicken dish with fried rice, and finally a crunchy caramel-covered apple treat. 

But, before all that came a steaming pot of a beautiful, honey-colored jasmine tea. (I've already mentioned a conversion to non-black teas, and a particular fondness for one jasmine tea, so it was a no-brainer when the waitress gave us a choice between jasmine or oolong.) What was particularly interesting to me about this tea was the color--I hadn't expected such a rich gold color from a floral tea (yet more surprises!). And, being one who usually takes sugar with my tea, I was also pleasantly surprised that this tea needed no sweetener; it wasn't the least bit bitter. I suppose this is a trait of lighter teas, but I'll have to investigate it further. It suited the atmosphere, the food, and our conversation--a perfect dinner tea.

Bubble Tea

One thing that sets East Asian tea apart from almost all other tea movements is its push to invoke as many of the senses as possible. Taste and smell are pretty obvious, but those are also ubiquitous. Taiwanese tea-brewers, for example, go one step further; their tea activates your senses of sight and touch, and it’s them we have to thank for the amazingness that is Bubble Tea.

I was first introduced to Bubble Tea, or Boba tea, at Silk Road Café, situated in the Mattin Center of the Johns Hopkins Campus. While I have nothing but good things to say about their mango smoothies, and their Chinese food is supposedly more authentic than say, Panda Express, I cannot defend their lychee-flavored bubble tea. If you aren’t familiar with it (shame on you!), bubble tea consists of either a black tea or fruit tea base and has “bubbles” (tapioca balls) in it. Some stories attribute its creation to a single tea stand in Taiwan where children would be fascinated by actual bubbles in the tea. Before long, tea-brewers had thought up ways to recreate the bubble effect, and one successful variation used tapioca. After your tea is brewed, flavored, and iced, it’s put through a sealing machine; instead of a cup lid for a soda cup (which your drink can still spill through if it tips over), you get a completely sealed cup that you can pierce with a straw. The straw, by the way, is extra wide so that you can consume the tea and the bubbles together. In Asia bubble tea is almost always milk-based and is usually known as “pearl milk tea,” with the tapioca balls called “pearls” in a charming twist. The lychee-flavored variety at Silk Road was not milk-based, and the lychee taste was close enough to the tapioca taste that I felt like I was drinking and eating the same thing. That turned me off the stuff for a while.

Peach milk tea (sans bubbles)
at a place outside the Silk Market
in Beijing.

When I visited my brother for a week one summer in Richmond, he finally convinced me to try a Thai-iced-tea flavor and a Taro flavor. I love Thai iced tea, so that one was immediately a victory. And at the time I had no idea what taro was (an Asian dessert potato), but the drink was a lovely purple color and that was enough for me to want to try it (which I did, and it was awesome).  Since then, I’ve been excited enough about the stuff to search for it everywhere and get it I whenever I can. I even went back to Silk Road to try their Thai-iced-tea-flavor—better than the lychee because it’s milk-based, but still not the good stuff.

I was eager to get this stuff as much as possible when I was in Beijing, and indeed I did. My first was a “green bean” flavor at a place in Houhai, one of the many Beijing bar districts. Despite their green-pea-like appearance, Chinese green beans are actually dessert beans, so don’t be alarmed if you see a picture of a pea pod on an ice cream wrapper or pastry item. Also, they are delicious—one of the best flavors I’ve had.

After some searching for a tea place with bubbles (a lot of places just have bubble-less milk tea), we found a spot called “Color Tea” near Tsinghua University in the Wudaokou district. They soon hooked us with their compelling slogan (“Drink Tea”) and their rewards card (“Buy six drinks, get one free!”), and it became our regular haunt. I tried the Taro—really, really good—and the also impressive hazelnut flavor, but I missed some of the more unusual flavors on the menu, like Irish coffee. Still managed to fill up a whole rewards card though!

Color Tea's clever business strategy--a rewards card.

Cheese tea!

For my last weekend I helped Kelsey fill out her rewards card because she was there for a week after I left, and I decided to try something crazy (go big or go home, right?). Scoping out the menu, I found the craziest thing on it and went with it. It was “Cheese Tea.” The tea itself wasn’t milk-based, but it was remarkably similar to bubble tea. The barista put a few dollops of something that looked like pudding or soft tofu (the cheese!) into the cup before filling it with a chilled black tea, and gave me an extra wide straw with it. The bits of cheese did come out in bubble-like bits through the straw and did taste a bit like pudding. I wasn’t able to finish the cheese (he put quite a bit in, and the flavor takes some getting used to), but I did have all the tea. It really wasn’t bad, and it definitely wasn't as gross as I originally thought it sounded. A good breakfast snack and certainly one that comes with a unique taste, smell, look, and texture―pair it with a toasted bagel, but leave off the cream cheese because this drink's got that department covered!

An newly discovered vice…

It’s official—I’m back in the United States! I’ve loved the past two months and I’ve enjoyed all of my adventures (save one or two), but it’s good to be back home for a bit. China is fantastic, but I must say that the lack of both cheese and granola in the Central Kingdom has been a little depressing. Luckily I’ve had a certain hot, and sometimes cold, liquid in which to drown my sorrows. Seriously, I can’t over-emphasize the prevalence of tea there. I’ll admit that this came with a few drawbacks though. For one, I’ve discovered a new vice of mine.

I had my first taste just in the last few weeks of my trip. I had seen them online back in the US and throughout my time in China, and had previously sort of liked the idea so I didn’t feel too guilty about it. Then I started to see one everywhere I went. As I headed into my final weekend in China, that first buzz still hadn’t worn off. I had to have another. Sure, I can handle one more, I thought. But even after a second dose, I was still greedy. I began inventing reasons—“I’ll never get this chance again,” “The price is unbeatable!” and even “They’re more authentic here.” And I gave in. It’s an addiction. I’m referring, of course, to teapots. Somehow, unbeknownst to me (okay, fine, it was totally “beknownst”), I wound up with three teapots within the last two weeks of my trip.

An edgy red set for my own kitchen...
assuming my roommate lets me.

A lovely blue set for my mom.

Trust me, it’s been no simple feat either. Being a “Laowai” (or “foreigner”) there can easily mark up the price of anything you want to purchase by a few orders of magnitude. The blue set began at 750 yuan and the red set at around 350 yuan, but with some intense haggling (naming an impossibly low price and walking away usually does the trick) I got them for 70 yuan each (about 11 US dollars). The really unique (and supposedly antique) teapot I bought at the Panjiayuan Antique Market started around 450 itself. The vendor didn’t speak too much English but he kept saying something like “Look, old,” presumably as a major selling point. He’d groan dramatically each time I entered a number into his calculator, then sigh heavily, enter his own number, and offer it to me with a flourish. That battle ended at a higher than expected but still reasonable 90 yuan. Guess what was in my carry-on luggage.

My favorite purchase: an antique teapot from the Panjiayuan Antique Market

It may come as a surprise that these three teapots (two of them in whole tea sets) are my three first… ever. But that’s the great thing about tea—you don’t need anything fancy to fully enjoy the finest. However, that’s not to say I won’t be having a cup or several with the help of my recent acquisitions. Come and join :)

Chang'an Opera

One of the attractions of visiting a new country for me is the possibility of experiencing the performance or fine arts culture there. In my experience, each country sort of does it differently, and it’s really interesting to see foreigners and natives alike come together at these things. So when I found out I’d be in China, Beijing no less, I pretty much knew that I had to go see the Peking Opera—whether my friends liked it or not. Luckily, they were all into it, and enough so that we sprung for the best seats in the house! And since we’re in China, where would those seats be but at the center tea table in the front row. Guys, I think we need to bring this to America.

Our wonderful table.

Each tea table seats five people and while the table itself is a bit underwhelming, the experience around the table was well worth it. For a mere 180 yuan a seat (about 28 US dollars), you get a perfect view of the show, an endless supply of a tea (ours was this amazing jasmine tea), and a plate full of delicious cookies and mooncakes. Of course, we happened to get there just about a minute before the show started, so we were the tacky foreigners making our way to the only empty table at the front as the lights dimmed. In fact, I’m pretty sure we were the only foreigners in the theater.

Even besides the tea table seating, Chinese opera is nothing like any Western opera I know of. First, there’s not necessarily much singing. Only two out of seven acts really featured singers though all of them were accompanied by traditional Chinese instruments. The rest of the performance was divided into spoken story-telling and acrobatics. Unexpected, but extremely awesome. (Imagine if you'd gone to see "Madame Butterfly" and gotten "Enter the Dragon" instead!) 

Second, the instrumental accompaniment was a much more visible part of the show. (I use the label “instruments” a bit generously here because I couldn’t recognize any of them apart from labeling them as woodwind or string.) Instead of being hidden in a pit, the small orchestra, if the term even applies, was seated off to the side on the stage. There also didn’t seem to be much of a dress code for them; they wore anything from t-shirts to button-downs—surprising, given their conspicuousness. And besides that, the same musicians didn’t necessarily play the whole time; there were plenty of change-ups, even in the middle of acts. While this was a bit distracting, it made particular instruments stand out more when an especially enthusiastic or skilled musician was up.  

This act was mostly singing.

This act was mostly talking.

The final trait that sets Chinese opera apart is the actual content and the audience reception. None of us even knew the name of the show when we got there, much less any of the characters, but it seemed to be a collection of a few different stories. (Of course, not all operas are like that.) And audience members at the Chang’an Theater were perfectly happy to clap during an act rather than at the end of one if a performer had done something cool. This was fine, but the trouble was we couldn’t always tell if something cool was happening at a given moment. The skill level of acrobatics and intense instrumental or voice solos were easy enough to identify as difficult, but sometimes the whole audience (except our tea table) would break out in applause after a monologue and we’d have no idea why. Our solution? Drink lots of delicious tea and pretend to know what was going on.

Which brings me to the real highlight of the show—the tea. I’m not sure whether it was a consequence of our late arrival or whether there is just a “house” tea in opera theaters, but we were immediately served a pot of steaming jasmine tea without any menu or order. I’ve mentioned my tendency to go with black tea over non-black tea, and this especially applies to floral teas. Their flavors generally seem to end up being too arbitrary or un-tea like for me, and I can’t recall ever having picked a floral tea over another tea genre. Oh, how the times have changed! That jasmine tea was without a doubt the best non-black tea I’ve had and certainly the overall best tea I’ve had in China. Undoubtedly the opera experience played a part in making it memorable, but the tea itself was fantastic on its own. It very much resembled a green tea, making me wonder whether it was just a floral green tea (Do those even exist? I’ll investigate.) rather than an actual jasmine tea, and it went so well with our light snacks that I finished most of my plate before remembering to take a picture. If I had to pick a type of food to eat with this tea, it would definitely be dessert. (It has a natural slight sweetness and an aroma that could make you fall in love— perfect with a plain cheesecake!) And, like all the other teas I’ve had in China, the same set of tea leaves lasted us ages—the entire two hour show—needing only hot water to revive the flavor. Definitely a genre I’ll be exploring more, especially alongside some mooncakes.

(If you want to experience a bit of our operatic adventure, here’s a bit of the show that Kelsey, a fellow traveler, managed to catch on video.)

Matcha.

For those readers who didn’t know, Dynastea is actually coming to you from a great tea-hub of the world! At least, for now. This summer I’ve been interning at Tsinghua University in Beijing and, as you might guess, it’s practically impossible to spend such a lengthy amount of time in China without consuming green tea (or “matcha”—a sweeter Japanese powder tea used as a flavoring) in some form or other. Having always been a masala chai or English Breakfast person myself, I don’t usually find the lighter flavors of the green variety to be my cup of tea. I find black teas to be stronger, more flavorful, and more full-bodied—there’s a reason they are the most consumed type of tea in the world! Still, there’s a unique taste to green teas that I’ve missed by shunning them so long. And, more importantly, they seem to suit a particular tea-induced mood niche. So what’s the difference between black and green tea anyway?

Most people seem to distinguish teas by color—a concept thought to originate from the British. According to this system, black teas are simply the ones that turn the water a dark color, green teas turn it green, and so on for red and white teas. This method of classification, while intuitive and sometimes accurately descriptive, is rather misleading; there are plenty of teas that turn your water “in between” colors, and how can one really distinguish between a dark brown and a black anyway? The correct distinction between types of tea is by the processing of the tea leaves themselves. To lump all black teas together would be sort of a crime (and the same goes for green teas), but I’ll do it here for the sake of comparison. Black teas are oxidized or baked fully, leading to the break down of their chlorophyll, while green teas have much of their chlorophyll content left during processing, though the leaves are still usually dried. This lack of fermentation leads to a much leafier taste, and one that can last through a surprising number of brewings. Unlike black tea, a few leaves of this stuff can go a long way at the right temperature of water.

At first sip, green teas seem to be well suited to contemplation or even conversation. You don’t need much to keep your cup going strong and it’s surprisingly easy to slip into chatter when you’re filling someone else’s cup—seriously, those things are tiny. Okay, obvious. Still, there’s something else that distinguishes green tea from its more oxidized counterparts. Take masala chai, for example. Hot, sweet, even pungent, and as a tea usually had with spicy food, it’s not uncommon for the combined effect of drink and dish to be a little too much for people. I’ve previously criticized green tea for its lack of strength or spice but this actually works to its favor here; it isn’t overwhelming when consumed with a meal. A great example is the tea (pictured at the top) I tried at a Japanese restaurant on Chengfu Lu in the Wudaokou district. It was served with the food and it went well with it.

Green tea popsicle with a red bean filling.

Green tea ice cream. Straight up.

What has particularly appealed to me about green tea here in the Central Kingdom is its prevalence in a number of different food areas. I’ve had green tea ice cream, a matcha milkshake, and even green tea bread! True, you might find some of these things back in the States, but the main reason to try matcha and other green teas in China is that they naturally complement Asian flavors. Both my milkshake and my bread had red beans in them, and while the beans were surprising to find at first, they do taste really good with the tea flavor.  And it hardly needs saying, but a steaming cup of green tea (or several) goes well with a table full of Chinese or even Japanese food—the authentic stuff!

Pilot.

Asia--pretty much the world’s center for funny-looking leaves swirling about in cups of hot water. As a not-so-native Indian, I’ve had chai flowing through my veins ever since I was old enough to drink it. (And before! My grandfather was known to drink sixteen cups a day. Small cups, but still.) When I visited Bombay last December, I was reminded of an oft made observation—the country runs on tea. It is consumed throughout the year and around the nation. You can find it at a humble drink stand or at a seven-star hotel—yes, they have those there. And, if you entered the home of any Indian family (especially in Goa) and they didn’t offer you some, I’d be very, very surprised. An observation I didn’t make until many years after moving to the States: for all their consumption of the stuff, Indians seem to only have one national version of tea. For example, if you are offered tea by an obliging host, the conversation goes something like this:

“Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, thank you.”

And that’s it. Okay, that seems ordinary and polite enough, but contrast it with an exchange that might occur, say, in my apartment:

“Would you like some tea?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Okay, what kind would you like?”

“Well, what kinds do you have?”

“Um, you’d better come and see.”

And so follow several minutes of conversation on herbal, spiced, and green versions of my favorite caffeinated beverage while the water heats up. In India, people seem to know exactly what kind of tea. And, what’s all the more surprising is that, baring great differences in quality and preparation, the tea you sip in your aunt’s living room is going to taste the same as the tea you’re doing your best not to spill in the sleeper car of the train to Mangalore. It’s amazing. Or, at least it is to the unrefined and chai-thirsty palate of someone like me. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: they just don’t make chai in the US like they do in India. It’s either the wrong amount of cardamom or the inexplicable presence of nutmeg, but I haven’t found an American take on chai that’s quite my blood type. (Don’t get me started on those “chai lattes” at Starbucks!)

But, while my hopes for a chai transfusion might be sparse in the US, the country does have so much to offer in the world of tea—variety being number one on the list. There’s nothing like drinking a foreign tea in its native country, but trying new teas is always an adventure. I’ve learned that there are so very many types of tea, with different tastes, and for different moods, and I’m eager to discover more. In fact, I’m convinced there is a tea for every mood and almost every occasion. A bold statement, you might be thinking. Well, you haven’t had much time to consider it. Why don’t you let it steep for a while? I’ll go put the kettle on.