This is a re-edit from one of the first newsletters I sent out last year. It was a section inside a Monday Digest and many of you were not subscribers yet, so I thought I’d share it again in a post of its own.
People who know me often say that when it comes to tea, I’m more English than my Luton-born husband. It’s no doubt my preferred source of morning stimulant, as I never really got into coffee. I remember being a teenager and going for lunch with my parents to a restaurant. I would be excited all throughout the meal until after the dessert (for which I always saved some room), then I would get incredibly bored. My parents would while away ages drinking coffees and what in Spain we call la sobremesa. It basically means that you linger for another good hour after you’ve eaten, sitting down chit chatting with the sole company of a coffee, or two, and/or a liquor.
Probably it was also the adult conversation what I found boring, but the fact that they always had to have coffee after the meal made it too maddening for me. That was until I found my own substitution (and I started to have meals with my chosen company).
I got into tea through infusions actually. In Spain they are not uncommon. We have them as digestives or sometimes if you have an upset stomach or a cold. My grandma Rosa built my taste for them during the summers I spent with her in the Catalan countryside. She would always get freshly dried herbs at the herbalist and make a delicious infusion after lunch. Her own mix included lemon verbena, thyme and something else that doesn’t come to mind; and she would finish it off with a drizzle of local honey. I can still vividly remember that taste now, many years later. It felt herbal, warm, sweet and comforting. My grandma and I would sit in front of the TV, with the shutters half-down to keep the afternoon sun from disturbing our siesta, which would definitely follow, and enjoy that cup of tea together.
That wasn’t really tea, though. A few years later, my friend Marta introduced me to black tea, and I began experimenting with it at home. At first, I couldn’t quite figure out the timing—when exactly were you supposed to add the milk, or if you were meant to add both milk and water. To a Spanish person surrounded by coffee drinkers, it was not obvious. I had been making disastrous cups of tea until I went to London with Marta on our first adult trip and I observed the fine art of pouring milk into the brewed tea cup. It was like magic. The milk swirled in, creating a cloud of cream I could have stared at forever. This felt like a revelation. Not only did it taste wonderful—properly good, as they say in London—but it was a thing of beauty too.
Despite this, I was still doing it wrong, very wrong. Some years later, during my travels around South East Asia, I met Ross, who is now my husband. His view on tea was much more natural than mine. I was fascinated by it, but for him it was as normal as brushing your teeth in the morning. He was the one that corrected the latest (and some may say worst) of my tea making mistakes. He introduced me to the kettle. I will say, before the hate comes, in Spain back then we had no kettles. Why would you? Nobody was making tea! My grandma would boil some water on the stove to make the infusions, but I was too lazy to wait for the water to boil, so yes, I would warm my water in the microwave. I know.
The main problem with this technique is that the water doesn’t really boil, and if it does, it’s difficult to know when. Therefore, you are not really brewing the tea, you are just warming it. At first I didn’t think it was a big deal. I thought it was Ross being too picky, but then I started taking it seriously too. With the kettle, the taste was much more intense and there was a certain pleasure in knowing you are doing good to the tea leaves, that you are respecting the process.
In China they also take tea very seriously and I joined a couple of tea serving ceremonies when I visited the country. There, the tea is served differently, and it is different. They have a preference for green and white teas, and it is of course, never served with milk. The temperature has to be right, the tea has to be poured twice (the first one discarded), and there’s a rhythm to it that is hypnotising.
I have since then tried many different kinds of teas. I have been to tea plantations, and I have seen the process of drying the tea leaves and learned what makes a certain kind of tea. I have enjoyed teas in many different places, with many different traditions. And I have loved them all. From the delicious Masala Chai in India, to the Oolong tea in China, to the Thai tea in Thailand and the Teh Tarik in Malaysia, to the classic English Breakfast at home. And then the infusions, that I still highly enjoy.
I haven’t yet tried a tea I don’t like. My routine starts undoubtedly with a cup of black tea with milk, though now the cow milk has transformed into oat or almond milk since discovering I am lactose intolerant. Then, the day continues perhaps with another one of those if I am feeling cheeky, or perhaps with a beautiful cup of Earl Grey mid afternoon, but normally I go on with infusions that don’t have any theine (the caffeine found in tea) such as camomile or mint tea. When I find the time, I also love to prepare my own masala chai at home or a nice matcha latte. And there’s a special place in my kitchen where various kinds of tea from different parts of the world are kept for special occasions.
Every time you read one of my newsletters you can picture me writing it with a cup of tea next to me, often warm, sometimes iced. I feel it creates a comforting environment and it also helps me stay focused, not so much because of its stimulating effect but because of the beautiful association I’ve created between tea and writing. And I normally write about food, which, more than anything else, is my cup of tea.
I hope you liked knowing the story behind this newsletter’s name!
If it spiked your curiosity, last year I interviewed the founder of Mother Cuppa Tea, a company that focuses on herbal teas in the land of strong black tea to bring attention to women’s hormonal needs. You can read it here.
Loved reading this story! I have been embracing tea lately.
Beautiful!