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Enjoy your tea, like a fine book
Summary
How to savor and study various teas, turning every sip into a rich experience akin to reading a great book
I started the year with the good intention of reading more and reading more attentively. I reached for Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book for advice. First written in the 1940s and updated in the 1970s, the book was intended to nudge people to read more systematically, analytically and consistently. Weirdly enough, many of Adler’s recommendations can easily apply to promoting a culture of tea. Adler himself writes in the book, “The beauty of any work of art is related to the pleasure it gives us when we know it well." It sounds snobbish but if you think about it, it’s not unlike genre against literary fiction or fast food vs slow food. I may or may not follow Adler’s advice on reading, but here’s my very loose adaptation of it as we embark on another year of tea discovery.
• We are programmed to respond to the call of caffeine at specified times of day that is satiated by a familiar cup. But if we are to actively pursue the exploration of tea, there is only one way to do so, and that’s to taste several teas.
Also read: How to appreciate India's CTC and dust teas
• On your explorations, you will encounter two kinds of tea, one that you can enjoy effortlessly and another which may challenge you to understand it. This tea may well remain beyond your grasp but as a tea explorer, you are tasked with making the effort to understand it.
• To understand a tea calls for more than a passing acquaintance with it. Taste it several times (for books, Adler suggests three readings) and get to know the tea. Start with obvious details: what tea is it, where and when was it made, who made it. Expand to other specifics: how do you brew it right, in how many ways can you brew it and how many times. Next, what are you tasting, what do you like about it (or not), and how does it make you feel. We learn the facts but also their significance to understanding a tea. And teas that are acknowledged as great or good deserve this attention.
• Be an active learner. There are two ways to do this, discover new teas on your own or learn from others.
• Some of the great teas are the most enjoyable. Sure, they may pose a barrier at first, being harder to grasp or understand right away. Great teas, when we come to appreciate them, can become staunch favourites.
• Try a tea multiple times, and taste it along with other similar teas to understand how they are alike and also how different.
• Find your vocabulary for tea and use it so that you are not a passive participant on this journey.
• Before you dismiss a tea as not one for you, ask if you have made an honest effort to appreciate it. When you judge a tea, your first criticisms are more about your personal preferences but “to complete the task of criticism", you must be able to point to qualities in the tea that provoked the reaction. As Adler writes, “Taste may not be arguable, but critical appraisals can be assailed and defended."
And lastly, where do you start? With books, Adler recommends the “great books" that have stood the test of time. In tea, we have a fine set of those too.
Tea Nanny is a fortnightly series on the world of tea. Aravinda Anantharaman is a tea drinker, writer and editor. She posts @AravindaAnanth1 on Twitter.
