Karen Dunlap

An iris pond in flower
before the ancient hall,
I sell tea this evening
by the water’s edge;
it is steeped in the cup
with the moon and stars
one sip, you wake forever
from your worldly sleep.
–Baisao

We are all searching for moments when time stops, opens up. When something deep inside, says hello. Fleeting moments, shy they seem, angels they are. Vanishing as soon as you recognize them.

I drink tea because I love to lose myself in the moment. Poets, artists have long been inspired by this seductive nature of tea.

Stephen suggested I write about this. The love stories of tea. It got me thinking, does making tea and being a good lover require the same ’skill’ set? I’ve decided to explore this topic over the next few posts.

It takes practice to become good at something. Enjoying love and sex to the fullest extent requires us to be open, giving and compassionate. How do we practice staying open, especially as we age? How do we keep our hearts full of love? When we are single? When we have a partner?

I have no answer, exactly. Only that making tea daily has helped me to be open to life. It is a steady presence, within constant change. Over thousands of mornings, I have stood half asleep, at my stove heating water, looking at the leaves – washing out my teapot from the day before. Somewhere in that space, something deep inside says hello. Something that wouldn’t mean much to me if I only made tea occasionally. But over the years, has made a meaningful difference.

Approach making tea with the caress and care you would give someone you love.

Appreciate the water. Feel it on your hands. Think about the part of the earth it once rushed over before finding its way to you. Heat it. Hear the bubbles and sound start to form.

Look at the leaves, think of the rain and sun it needed to grow. Remember all the people it took to bring it to you, be thankful to them.

See the leaves becoming soft, changing color ever so slightly.

Listen to your intuition. Let it tell you when the tea is ready.

Taste with small sips, swirling it around on your tongue, let it remind, inspire, take you where it goes.

My friend Heather recently had surgery, and while recovering, rented tons of Pixar movies. Cartoons, she confesses, her indulgence. She asked what I would have watched. Looking around, I said softly, Masterpiece Theater with, ummm, a teapot of Lapsang Souchong. Have to tell you she looked horrified, she a film school graduate working on a major TV series. Laughing, she said I was probably alone, a camp of one. Am I? Have you SEEN the Forsyte Saga? Does anyone DRINK Lapsang Souchong anymore?

Say what you will about smoked teas, but I’m telling you we are hard wired to love the aroma of wood fires. Period. Why not exploit this instant sensation and feel good? Isn’t that why we really eat bacon?

I understood Lapsang Souchong in this new revelatory way, about a year ago, in the depths of heartache. God, I didn’t intend to feel better from drinking it, but I can tell you that breathing in campfire, something strong, primal like, welled up in me. I actually experienced a temporary relief. And discoveries like that, my friends, is really why tea drinking is great and surprising.

So, Lapsang Souchong, what’s the story on it? I thought I’d tell you the legend, with the caveat that smoked teas probably go back further than the 17th Century. But it is in the Wuyi Mountains, sometime during the Qing Dynasty that the smoked teas we drink today became to take form. I like the story; it reminds me that good things can come from unexpected circumstances.

The Legend of Lapsang Souchong

Time: Qing Dynasty (1644 –1912)
Setting: Wuyi Mountains, Fujian Province
Players: Army Unit, Tea Harvest Workers

Our story begins…with a traveling unit of soldiers passing through the Wuyi Mountains, they decided to make camp, taking shelter at tea factory. This would have normally been fine, but they happened to make camp during the short window of harvest season. Tea needed to be picked; it needed to be processed; tea does not wait. So, as the tea workers bit their tongues and bided their time, they came up with an unusual plan to save the harvest…all they needed was the soldiers to leave.

And when they did finally leave…the workers immediately began harvesting the leaves and here is where it gets interesting…they took local wood (pine) and made a huge fire. They heated the leaves over the open fire to speed up the drying process. It worked! Plus they had stumbled upon a delicious way to make tea, as the fire flavored the tea with delicious taste and aroma. All accident, all by chance.

The style of smoked tea became so popular that it began being copied all over China, which pissed off the tea growers in Wuyi – they invented it after all. So, to protect their regional style of smoky tea making and claim it as authentic, they began calling it Zengshan Xiaozhong, meaning “Real Wuyi Subvariety.” Over the years, our less melodic tongues in the West have changed the pronunciation to “Lapsang Souchong.”

Now where to buy some in 2010? Check out your local grocer, teahouse or favorite online tea vendor. Ask about their selection of smoked teas. If want to taste authentic Lapsang Souchong, specify you are looking for one from Wuyi region of Fujian Province. If you are open to smoked teas from other regions (why not?), just make sure they have undergone a process of being smoked over a wood fire. Avoid synthetic flavorings, really, treat yourself to the real thing.

In the last year, I’ve really liked the Lapsang at In Pursuit of Tea and The Tea Gallery.

Waking up to snow, the air is soft and still, delicate. I heat the water kettle, pull snow boots over my flannels and wrap around a scarf. The wind throws open the back door. I carefully walk, slide through the snow to the table, sit down, make tea, and listen to the sounds of the coming day.

My friend Alex, founder of Product Perks, and I have been working on a tea quiz to help people explore different styles of tea and teaware. It’s posted up in the corner, and I invite you to take it for a spin. I’ll be adding more explanations and changing up the teas now and then.

I have a small group of friends in New York City that practice gungfu cha. ‘Gungfu’ literally means ‘hard to make’ and cha means ‘tea.’ It’s sometimes referred to as the Chinese Tea Ceremony and it’s a way of tasting tea leaves by making multiple infusions in a gaiwan or a yixing teapot. The more you taste tea in this style, the more you begin to experience the unfolding of time, with rushes of sensation that sparks ideas.

One of my favorite people to drink gungfu cha with is the photographer Michael Halsband. He began learning about tea and making gungfu cha on an extended stay in Hong Kong while completing his Surf Book. Having tea with him, you get Hong Kong technique with touches of his own mischievous style. My favorite move of his is how he uses the gaiwan lid to rock the base plate when he is rinsing everything with water. It’s quick and it makes a clear chime that circles in the air a few seconds.

Last Sunday, there were 3 of us. Me, Michael and Bubba. He made for us his beloved Shui Xian, a Water Sprite Wuyi Cliff Oolong from 2007. Shui Xian is a style of Wuyi Cliff Oolong that is heavily roasted. It is good to let it age a few years – giving the roast a chance to relax. His brewing style is on the strong, aggressive side – and he brought out an astonishing deep, red amber color in the tea. He pushed the taste right to the limit, while still being sweetly complex.

Michael has his tea set-up on the table at the back of his photography studio, in reach of his stereo. Three large windows pour light in. I sit surrounded by contact sheets, work prints and film cameras. My two rivers of interest (tea and photography) merge deliciously for a few hours.

We often talk about following intuition – how there’s a similarity in developing photographs in the darkroom to brewing tea. First, learning technique – then, beginning to break the rules – following your intuition. How the tea starts to guide you on water, how to brew and drink it. Pretty similar to making an art piece – that feeling on knowing what to do next, and when it’s completed.

If you haven’t made tea this way and you are reading this – it is time to experience it. If you don’t know where or how, send me an email. I’ll figure out how to hook you up.

Hojicha is the underdog of Japanese teas. It will never be as beloved as sencha, matcha – or as rare as gyokuro. But, in time, it could take genmaicha.

It’s not top shelf, but I have fallen in love with hojicha all the same. It wasn’t always like this, there were years when I turned my nose. What roasted tea twigs? Yuck! I mean, wasn’t there a reason for it being the cheapest price per lb tea exported from Japan?

Sometimes it takes something big for me to change my mind about something. For hojicha, it was tasting it in Kyoto at the Ippodo Tea House. This picture was taken there, as I leaned back in my seat. It was served in a rustic clay Kyushu teapot, with very hot water and paired with a red bean mochi. The feeling of the tea moved to all my limbs and I sighed with content. This was Kyoto, this was roasted tea as it was meant to be.

As for it being cheaper than other teas? It has to do with less value placed on the stems of the tea plant – where there is less flavor. The roasting helps bring the flavor forward and prolongs its shelf life. It’s a perfect tea to chose on a restaurant menu – it’s so sturdy – and will taste great no matter the care in brewing.

Oh, and the secret to Ippodo’s hojicha? A delicous second roast. And if you are in Kyoto, they roast it on Tuesdays – and for a 4 block radius – you can breathe in the sweet aroma of roasted tea.

He held out a lime and said “you can’t smell anything until you cut it open. The limes at home (Bangladesh), you can smell without cutting. Even the leaves.” In some sort of aha moment, I agreed, remembering how deeply satisfying it was to drink gyokuro in Japan. Could it be true? The further away a food gets from where it is grown – the more essence it looses?

This question was heavy on my mind on my recent trip back home to Oregon. Does this happen to people too? After 6 years in NYC, was I loosing something in me that I wanted to keep? Was I loosing an essence? Would I have to dig deep to find it again?

Jen picked me up from the airport and drove me to her house in Cannon Beach, a town of barely 1,000 people. The air smelled like sweet wood and oysters – we hiked through the woods to the beach, the immensity of the beauty slit me wide open. In the presence of a good friend, in pristine nature, I didn’t have to dig deep at all, I was home.

So, yes, tea does come from far away – by boat or plane. It’s going to have some jet lag. It’s up to us to revive it. The elements that make delicious tea are oddly similar to what makes life joyful. Paying attention/bring present, fresh water, beautiful setting and good friends. And in tea making, following your intuition is always rewarded.

Welcome to my new website! Thanks to my brother, sure support techies, unknown heros who write free code, Ellen, Charles and tea from Ippodo – all the necessities of this girl learning how to build a website.

For my first post, I’d like to sing the praises of perhaps the most under-rated teapot: the Japanese kyushu. Here’s a picture of the one I’ve been using almost daily since May. I found it in Shiga Prefecture, Japan at a small local store selling tea and ice cream – believe I paid something like $10 US for it. First I used it to only make Japanese teas – then I expanded into trying some of my favorite other styles of tea. Assam, pu-erh, oolongs – and they all turned out great.

In the eastern approach to making tea – there will always be multiple infusions of tea leaves – it’s implied in the very nature of preparing tea. The teaware is generally small in size (yixing, gaiwan, kyushu), allowing for easy multiple steepings.

Using a kyushu is simple. Preheat your teapot by rinsing it with hot water (optional). Add tea leaves. Add water. Steep. Pour out all tea, down to the last drop. Keep leaves for another infusion.

You’ll generally find two main styles of kyushu: delicate porcelain and rustic clay. Use the porcelain style for making teas that taste best with lower water temperatures (sencha, gyokuro). Use the rustic clay style for teas that require hotter temperatures (hojicha, black teas).

A word on re-steeping the same tea leaves: it should be done the same day. Throw out used tea leaves after 24 hours. If you want to keep re-steeping the same tea leaves longer – just be sure that you steep the tea once a day to keep it from molding.