Speaker 1: Hi, I'm Daniel Scheffler, and I have some strong feelings
Speaker 1: about travel. This is everywhere today's travel commandment, thou shalt
Speaker 1: put yourself in the way of magic. So it turns
Speaker 1: out that tea is the number one consumed beverage on
Speaker 1: the planet. Wudn't you? Apparently water just doesn't count well
Speaker 1: t for me the brit Euros South African that I
Speaker 1: am is the hunk essence of my multiculture, passed from
Speaker 1: my European grandmother, who served a very formal tea every
Speaker 1: day for her entire life less run. She nearly made
Speaker 1: that century mark. Well Booby always serve tea with a
Speaker 1: freshly baked set of tarts, cakes, or cookies, or with
Speaker 1: a sort of ever evolving theme over tea. Bibby and
Speaker 1: I traveled to Sri Lanka for lyrical sweets and spices
Speaker 1: I'd never heard of, or we were off to Brazil
Speaker 1: for gooey cheesy bites called pooja the Caju, and then
Speaker 1: sometimes we were traveling to Persia for chickpe cookies with pistachio.
Speaker 1: She understood that spice and all things nice was just
Speaker 1: the way to her grandson's heart. So it makes sense
Speaker 1: that I had been teaching my very American husband all
Speaker 1: about beauty and especially the ritual of tea. He came
Speaker 1: from a home where tea was made in a microwave
Speaker 1: with a very sad tea bag from the grocery store,
Speaker 1: or it was served very ice and from a supermarket bottle.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think I once overheard his Italian family
Speaker 1: say that green tea was only drunk before a colonoscopy.
Speaker 1: So now, at four o'clock every day without fail, our
Speaker 1: body clocks flick a switch, ring ring, It's tea time, darling.
Speaker 1: And if you think about a team makes so much,
Speaker 1: it's long after lunch, dinner feels very far away, and
Speaker 1: Lena seems like a huge commitment. So tea it is.
Speaker 1: When I came out to mother when I was at
Speaker 1: high school, her response was not a problem, dear, let's
Speaker 1: have some tea. And when I was doing too many
Speaker 1: drugs and parting my head off any Betha and therefore
Speaker 1: at some point I had to let mother know that
Speaker 1: I had a substance abuse issue, her response was rather
Speaker 1: the same, not worry, We'll turn the cattle on for
Speaker 1: some tea. Even when I broke the news that I
Speaker 1: would be moving to America. She ever, casually just rung
Speaker 1: for some more tea. So many of my earliest travel
Speaker 1: memories were made alongside tea, from special Island Black Tea
Speaker 1: and Mauritius to fancy popotees in London. Take for instance
Speaker 1: Cape Town, where I lived as an adult and holidayed
Speaker 1: yearly for most of my life within without the family
Speaker 1: picture it South Africa. Nelson Mandela is still in prison,
Speaker 1: and my European parents are supporting the fall of apartheid
Speaker 1: as Paris, as the Eiffel Tower and Rio de Janeiro
Speaker 1: has Ipanema Beach. Cape Town has its own icon. That's
Speaker 1: a mountain. It happens to be rather flat and looks
Speaker 1: just like a table, hence the name table Mountain. And
Speaker 1: it rises as this bonfire of the Southern world's tip,
Speaker 1: where two opposing oceans hug each other, one warm, one cool.
Speaker 1: You have the Winelands winking from a distance. But then
Speaker 1: there is this man made birth of the Mother's city,
Speaker 1: the ever faithful pink of the Mount Nelson Hotel. And
Speaker 1: this is where afternoon tea was the occasion in view
Speaker 1: from pretty much everywhere. The Hotel's pink hues are always adapting.
Speaker 1: The Grand Old Building was first painted pink to signify
Speaker 1: peace at the end of the First World War, and
Speaker 1: now this ticular blush is formulated to fade to an
Speaker 1: idyllic shade between its frequent coats. It is a pink
Speaker 1: for your memories, one for the ages. You may say,
Speaker 1: not quite as bright as a peony pink, almost that
Speaker 1: Jackie Kennedy pink, but really much closer to my own
Speaker 1: skin color. At age six, pink was just pink, and
Speaker 1: just as soft as the motherly pink of my travel companion,
Speaker 1: my stuffed pink panther. Also, I thought at the time,
Speaker 1: because I was just a six year old fool. It
Speaker 1: was one of those long, hot afternoon walks where everything
Speaker 1: sticks to your body. The sun is no longer the
Speaker 1: friendly sky queen, but the curse of the Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 1: In the Cape Town gardens, squirrels suffer the heat, so
Speaker 1: they just stay in the trees and ignore my acorn
Speaker 1: laden little hands. And then I see the iconic white
Speaker 1: stone column gates where we're given our reprieve, and I
Speaker 1: know tea time is near. Moments later, we met with
Speaker 1: this meaty smell of freshly cut grass, and a picnic
Speaker 1: blanket is shaken out. I watched as the exhibition of
Speaker 1: delights unfold on these great lawns of the Mount Nelson.
Speaker 1: Uniformed staff perform their ceremony, and a little piece of
Speaker 1: England reveals itself. Mother's rosy hands hold her parson cup
Speaker 1: and saucer quietly for a poor of tea milk. First,
Speaker 1: she always reminds whomevers within ear shot. The burly silver
Speaker 1: trays show me my own reflection, as many white gloves
Speaker 1: zippili passed them around our silky white picnic blankets, surrounded
Speaker 1: by all kinds of sweetness, A little cloud of paradise
Speaker 1: that recalled right under these gigantic African skies, the heat
Speaker 1: is all but forgotten. I am at a mad Hasse's
Speaker 1: tea party, and I am Alice, ready to fall down
Speaker 1: a rabbit hole and feast a wonderland of familiar surprises.
Speaker 1: So this is what we ate, petite white sandwiches with
Speaker 1: crusts evenly cut off, sickly sweet, wondrous cook sisters. And
Speaker 1: I dare you to google that oversized milk tarts with
Speaker 1: little rain flecks of cinnama on top, oversized pink fairy
Speaker 1: cakes that are soft to the bite, and then oozy
Speaker 1: white chocolate. Declares there was even a mini fat cook,
Speaker 1: which a direct translation would wield fat cake. As I
Speaker 1: lie on the grass with ants climbing on and over
Speaker 1: my toes, I count nearby palm trees. My hands are
Speaker 1: sticky from the clotted cream and strawberry jam I shmeared
Speaker 1: on my scone, and I'm still nibbling on. I resorted
Speaker 1: doing lazy, small somersaults on the picnic blanket. The Great
Speaker 1: Pink Hotel is Topsy turns e and upside Downsy with me,
Speaker 1: and I'm write down this sugary rabbit hole, and it's
Speaker 1: all curious and curious. So the refilled shiny trays circle
Speaker 1: and pirouett mother. She sits ladylike on a low cane chair,
Speaker 1: her eyes smiling from under her dark glasses. Something about
Speaker 1: the light, or the sun, or just the moment of
Speaker 1: sugary beauty makes me notice my skin color against the
Speaker 1: shade of the hotel. I am just as pink as
Speaker 1: the hotel, almost one and the same. But we're in Africa,
Speaker 1: where most people I've seen around me aren't the shade
Speaker 1: of pink. And it's in this moment, the simple, silly
Speaker 1: garden lawn moment, where I sat for the first time
Speaker 1: in my daft, short life thinking about the color of
Speaker 1: my skin. How a hotel's paint job and a semi
Speaker 1: formal afternoon tea could make me aware of not only
Speaker 1: my extreme privilege but also my very pinkness. But that's
Speaker 1: exactly my elaborate relationship with the tea. It's some how
Speaker 1: always with me through the heartache, some heartbreak, those joys
Speaker 1: and the delights. It's a bringer of truths, like after
Speaker 1: a particularly dire two years of living in Paris, falling
Speaker 1: off a bicycle, nearly drowning in an Amsterdam canal and
Speaker 1: then washing up on Cape Town shores to sober up, eat, pray,
Speaker 1: Love came out and I was on a plane to India.
Speaker 1: I know I wasn't even that original. Julia Roberts just
Speaker 1: pushed me right over the edge. What can I say
Speaker 1: but judge all you like. Sometimes it's the silliest things
Speaker 1: that open up the world, maybe even save your life.
Speaker 1: So a few flights later, an overnight train journey with
Speaker 1: live chickens and delicious curries, going around for tastings in
Speaker 1: my carriage, plus a squeezed rickshall ride. There I am.
Speaker 1: I'd found myself at the foothills of the Himalayas, walking
Speaker 1: over a giant swing bridge cautiously as I follow signs
Speaker 1: that read Parmenikitan Ashram, founded in nineteen forty two by
Speaker 1: Puya Shwami. Shook Davinanji Maharaji said that five times past,
Speaker 1: the Ashram attracts anyone and everyone. Every country imaginable is
Speaker 1: represented here, plus locals wanting to take stock of their
Speaker 1: lives also show up. And so I went, with many
Speaker 1: years in between, from one pink palace to another. The
Speaker 1: world here was different to Africa, but in the end,
Speaker 1: some things are just the same, like the gentle cycle
Speaker 1: of familiarity and that happy routine that happens all too fast.
Speaker 1: Mornings started in a very basic room, and I shower
Speaker 1: in this darkness, washing away all kinds of bullshit. And
Speaker 1: then long before dawn, I'm in a yoga class with
Speaker 1: a man who's older than a century and a whole
Speaker 1: lot more flexible than I am. After yoga, in a
Speaker 1: sort of semi darkness, I would prance around these icy
Speaker 1: floors on the Ashram's great halls. Setting up my meditation
Speaker 1: mat for class, I would light some candles, and that's
Speaker 1: when I would think about losing my religion, as if
Speaker 1: I ever had one. But first the boy must concentrate
Speaker 1: on eating, and so I do my other savor, which
Speaker 1: is an act of service that's not about you. Just
Speaker 1: imagine that it involves me serving breakfast in the pink palace.
Speaker 1: I eat only once everyone's been fed and smiling food
Speaker 1: at the Ushram. Besides, for the beige breakfast porridge tends
Speaker 1: to be yellow from all the termineric. Eventually you forget
Speaker 1: that food isn't always sunshine colored, right about the same
Speaker 1: time as your hands start to turn yellow too. After food,
Speaker 1: it's time for class, and first up other readings from
Speaker 1: the Bakaba Ghita, a Hindu scripture where there is Prince
Speaker 1: Arjina and his guide, Lord Krishna, and they are chatting
Speaker 1: heavily on the battlefield. I said carefully on a tiny
Speaker 1: cushion and peeled over these old books with drawings of
Speaker 1: this very theater of war, and I think about chivalry
Speaker 1: and how to obtain liberation, not dissimilar to our Prince Argana.
Speaker 1: And then some meditation, enchanting. All in Hindi are practiced
Speaker 1: to learn to shut off the senses and go straight
Speaker 1: to the heart. The head conveniently absent. The hardest part
Speaker 1: of my day is here. Afternoons are for sleeping, and
Speaker 1: the mountains all around rise into the blue sky with
Speaker 1: a way of holding you close. The days don't very much,
Speaker 1: and that is the point. Your day, without your phone
Speaker 1: or even a book, becomes the simple wave of a rhythm.
Speaker 1: Your body carries you. Nothing is done with the tricks
Speaker 1: to mind. Eventually my heart starts to open like a
Speaker 1: flower waiting for a bee to come to its work.
Speaker 1: My mind is clear. Thoughts deviating into any insecurity just
Speaker 1: washes away into this great river, never to be seen again.
Speaker 1: I spent several weeks of finding my pleasures in small,
Speaker 1: almost menial things. My daily work of washing yoga mats
Speaker 1: and sweeping the floors offered me a deep sense of peace.
Speaker 1: I run into the Ashrams director one morning. I call
Speaker 1: her Guru almost g as she would be the one
Speaker 1: taking over from the current Guru, and I beam as
Speaker 1: I tell her how content I feel and just how
Speaker 1: happy I am. She smiles quietly at me. Well, she says,
Speaker 1: it's easy here at the Ashram. What else are you
Speaker 1: going to do? At first I was stunned easy this,
Speaker 1: And then she says, when you leave next week and
Speaker 1: go into the real world, that's when the work starts
Speaker 1: off with my ego's head. So in between all this activity,
Speaker 1: the hours of meditation and not thinking just of myself,
Speaker 1: I did find one tiny, rebellious act of hedonism, a
Speaker 1: massala chai. Just outside the gates of the Ashram was
Speaker 1: this tiniest little store where a lovely man behind a
Speaker 1: stove with cats sleeping all around him, was brewing some
Speaker 1: spicy tea. He loved, making it strong and throaty, with
Speaker 1: black tea as the base, extra cardamon and cinnamon. He'd
Speaker 1: say it was good for my soul. He'd add in
Speaker 1: some fresh milk and honey, and I'm sure there were
Speaker 1: secret family recipe spices in there too. It was here
Speaker 1: I would sneak to every afternoon to come have the
Speaker 1: smallest shot glass of tea. So simple, so nothing, but
Speaker 1: so everything. Let's pause here and we'll be right back
Speaker 1: with my friend Holly Fry to give us a little
Speaker 1: historical context. Right after the break you've just been somewhere.
Speaker 1: What say we go everywhere? Now I'd like to tea
Speaker 1: up my friend Holly to talk with me about tea. Hi, Holly,
Speaker 1: I feel like I should issue you demerits for that
Speaker 1: dad joke, but I love you, so I won't. I
Speaker 1: don't have a dad bond, so I can dad joke.
Speaker 1: It's one or the other, but not both. No, I'm
Speaker 1: Ella's dad, Ella my dog, so I'm a dad. No
Speaker 1: dad bond. Ellasie had today and studio with us always,
Speaker 1: She's the best co host on the planet. So let
Speaker 1: me tell you a little something about Ella and tea. Yes,
Speaker 1: Ella has learned to drink good tea, and I think
Speaker 1: the antioxidants so good for her. So I'll make her
Speaker 1: a green tea and she'll lap it up. Interesting. Now,
Speaker 1: do you research what tea leaves are appropriate not for dogs?
Speaker 1: I would presume. Well, my friend Sarah, who you met
Speaker 1: in Nashville, who knows every single thing you could possibly
Speaker 1: imagine about tea, she told me what tea's good for doggies? Perfect. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In fact, I make an iced tea for Ella with
Speaker 1: ice cube, so you put it the hot tea in
Speaker 1: ice cube trade and oh, refreshing. Yeah, and green tea
Speaker 1: ice cube for ella. So you have spent significant amounts
Speaker 1: of time drinking tea, drinking tea and also in one
Speaker 1: of the country's most famed for drinking tea, right Britain.
Speaker 1: You know te do? Do you know that it's estimated
Speaker 1: that a hundred and sixty five million cups of tea
Speaker 1: are consuming Great Britain every day. I think it's like
Speaker 1: pg tips, which we call build His Tea in England.
Speaker 1: I think that's what they consuming. Probably it's not always
Speaker 1: the good stuff, but it's a big part of I mean,
Speaker 1: if you go to Epcots, which takes bits and pieces
Speaker 1: of each country and puts them together in a little world,
Speaker 1: there is a tea shop in Epcot because that's like
Speaker 1: the representative of Great Britain. There's an interesting story about
Speaker 1: how Great Britain became so tea obsessed and moreover, how
Speaker 1: they started producing their own tea. And it's not super
Speaker 1: great because it involves some theft com Yes, so as
Speaker 1: a quick run down. So, Catherine of Braganza, who was
Speaker 1: the Portuguese wife of King Charles the Second, is often
Speaker 1: credited with bringing tea to England in the sixteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: There is actually a reference in the diary of Samuel
Speaker 1: Peeps from two years before she got there of tea,
Speaker 1: so it's actually a little unclear when he really hit
Speaker 1: the British Isles. But the East India Company figures into
Speaker 1: this story that was established in sixteen hundred and as
Speaker 1: tea became more popular in England, that company was like,
Speaker 1: we should be monetizing this, and so eventually the East
Speaker 1: India's monopoly on tea trade, particularly to the colonies, also
Speaker 1: shaped Britain's history. The passing of the Tea Act in
Speaker 1: seventeen seventies three shaped American history because it led to
Speaker 1: the Boston Tea Party. But during this time all tea
Speaker 1: was still coming exclusively from China, and the East India
Speaker 1: Company was not cool with this because they felt like
Speaker 1: they were forced into a business relations ship that they
Speaker 1: did not want. They did some dicey things, including starting
Speaker 1: to export a lot of opium to China. This eventually
Speaker 1: led to the first opium more which could be its
Speaker 1: own whole discussion. But what they eventually started doing is
Speaker 1: they found a man who was a scientist who studied
Speaker 1: plants named Robert Fortune. He had gone to China in
Speaker 1: eighty two on a plant finding expedition, and he spent
Speaker 1: a lot of time there. He kind of pushed into
Speaker 1: the edges of where foreigners were allowed to go. And
Speaker 1: then he went back to London and then a few
Speaker 1: years later the East India Company said you have to
Speaker 1: go back, and this time you have to steal tea,
Speaker 1: and so he went for several several years he hired
Speaker 1: locals that were experts in the tea trade and that
Speaker 1: new people. At one point he allegedly disguised himself as
Speaker 1: a local, which seems weird because he was very tall
Speaker 1: and very British looking, so I can't imagine how he
Speaker 1: blended in. But he ended up stealing a variety of
Speaker 1: seedling seeds, etcetera, shipping them to India where they started production.
Speaker 1: There's a cool glass case that was invented just for
Speaker 1: this purpose, called a Wardian case. It was invented by
Speaker 1: doctor Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward and it was like, essentially like
Speaker 1: a little seedling terrarium where like a seed could be
Speaker 1: planted and it could live out its life cycle in
Speaker 1: that little box, and they could ship them that way
Speaker 1: so that when the plants got to where they were
Speaker 1: going could open it up and they would be ready
Speaker 1: to transplant into soil after a hardening off period for
Speaker 1: all of my gardeners out in the herd. But fortune
Speaker 1: in the end, when he died, which was in eighteen eighty,
Speaker 1: he had introduced about two hundred and eighty different plants
Speaker 1: species to the Western world from China. That is how
Speaker 1: many plants he yanked out of that country and put elsewhere.
Speaker 1: But moreover, India's production became so massive that it took
Speaker 1: market share away from China, where he had originated, and
Speaker 1: China spent the next hundred years trying to catch back
Speaker 1: up and become the able leader, which it finally became
Speaker 1: the largest exporter of tea again in the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 1: It's an interesting story about how this beautiful plant that we,
Speaker 1: you know, have come to associate with so many daily rituals.
Speaker 1: But there is also this underbelly to the story that
Speaker 1: China literally was robbed of its tea culture so that
Speaker 1: the rest of us could have whatever we wanted whenever
Speaker 1: we wanted it. But that's the beauty of tea, right.
Speaker 1: So Sarah and I went to Thailand Vietnam, and we
Speaker 1: discovered these ancient tea trees that they say a thousands
Speaker 1: of years old and carry the wisdom of thousands of years.
Speaker 1: And you know from the tea party you and I
Speaker 1: went to with Sarah in Nashville. She talked about the
Speaker 1: wisdom of tea and the beauty of tea and the
Speaker 1: togetherness of tea, and how the Moroccan culture has spread
Speaker 1: it in the way that it's all day that you
Speaker 1: can drink this beautiful tea. I mean, I'm a big
Speaker 1: fan of beverages all day long. So I've seen you
Speaker 1: with a bridge. Do you ever see me without some
Speaker 1: sort of beverage in my hand? Never coffee tea. I've
Speaker 1: seen you take a beverage to the restaurant, cocktail Like
Speaker 1: I'm not going to leave my cocktail here at the bar.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna take it with me. I do usually
Speaker 1: have a beverage with me even when I shower that
Speaker 1: I know, I'll put coffee in a travel mug first
Speaker 1: thing in the morning so I can take it in
Speaker 1: the shower. So I'm a big fan of this idea
Speaker 1: of drinking tea all day. So the other thing that
Speaker 1: I would love to talk about when it comes to
Speaker 1: tea is Americans call rent tea black tea. So what
Speaker 1: do you know, Lipton tea is actually red tea because
Speaker 1: black tea is fermented tea called puer and it's from
Speaker 1: an area in China called Lijng, which is in fact
Speaker 1: where the tea trade and where the tea caravan started.
Speaker 1: So tea moved first east into China, south into Thailand,
Speaker 1: main mar Vietnam and Cambodia, and event actually made its
Speaker 1: way to Taiwan where it was totally changed. And then
Speaker 1: the Japanese took tea and refined it into the most beautiful, incredible,
Speaker 1: artful thing. Whereas the rest of tea became much more commercial,
Speaker 1: the Japanese took tea into a high art of tea.
Speaker 1: So there's all these incredible misnomers. And when you travel
Speaker 1: and you drink tea and you ordity and you start
Speaker 1: learning this stuff, it's such a beautiful way into a
Speaker 1: local culture. Like South Africans drink Roybal's tea, which is
Speaker 1: actually a herb. South America has no tea. Marte is
Speaker 1: not a tea. It's a herb, right, and a delicious
Speaker 1: one at that, and a delicious exactly um Europe has
Speaker 1: very little tea. It's mostly tisan except for Portugal. They
Speaker 1: have the Azores, which is the only coffee growing area
Speaker 1: and tea growing area in all of Europe. But now
Speaker 1: with global warming, the real thing, global warming, all these
Speaker 1: regions are changing. So they used to be like the
Speaker 1: coffee and tea be all that is changing because you coffee,
Speaker 1: for instance, needs higher and higher elevation to grow promptly,
Speaker 1: so all these coffee plantations are going up and up
Speaker 1: the mountains like in Colombia. And tea needs proper drainage,
Speaker 1: and because of global warming and all this stuff changing,
Speaker 1: there isn't enough drainage now for these tea regions, so
Speaker 1: they're changing. And for instance, China now has like a
Speaker 1: completely new region of tea in the north as the
Speaker 1: one that lives in Georgia. Peaches don't grow there very
Speaker 1: well anymore. Too hot. Yeah, they've shifted up north into
Speaker 1: the Carolina's peaches do much better now. Similarly, we have
Speaker 1: picked up some of the citrus trade from Florida. So
Speaker 1: should I call you the Georgia orange now a post
Speaker 1: to Georgia peach If that feels correct to you, go crazy? No, wait,
Speaker 1: what about the Georgia tangerine. All right, all right, all right,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, it fascinates me to think about. There was
Speaker 1: also in in Robert Fortune's travels through China. He did
Speaker 1: discover that early on the Chinese realized that English people
Speaker 1: were not all that bright, and they were actually coloring
Speaker 1: some of their teas to make them a more uniform color.
Speaker 1: As a consequence, they were adding an awful lot of
Speaker 1: toxicity to it. But it was one of those things
Speaker 1: where they were like, English people don't really understand this.
Speaker 1: We'll just make it pretty for them and they'll keep
Speaker 1: drinking it. Um. So again, it's one of those things
Speaker 1: where the nomenclature is not universal because it's been shifted
Speaker 1: in all of these export and then people adopting it
Speaker 1: in their own way. But also from the beginning, China
Speaker 1: kind of realized other people don't get this, but it
Speaker 1: is our main export, so we will cater to them
Speaker 1: in whatever way seems to work. I love talking about
Speaker 1: tea with pretty much everyone because he's such a beautiful
Speaker 1: pot of my life and it always has been. But
Speaker 1: I love the idea that you can travel and find
Speaker 1: small ways of connecting with people on the road with tea.
Speaker 1: And something about travel, and it's hard to get tea
Speaker 1: and coffee done in the right way. I always travel
Speaker 1: with a bag of tea and a bag of coffee
Speaker 1: with a grind and a whole set up so that
Speaker 1: wherever I'm traveling in the world, I can make a
Speaker 1: cup of tea that's real and amazing. Your bag is
Speaker 1: filled with Star Wars things like, I know that you're
Speaker 1: not traveling with I'm not traveling a tea paraphernalia, but
Speaker 1: you could. I think I'm too lazy. Also, when it
Speaker 1: comes to coffee at the end of the day, I've
Speaker 1: seen I'm a junkie, not a connoisseur, right Like, I'll
Speaker 1: take it anyway I can get it, and I'm just
Speaker 1: pick put it in my anus. I like it. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, I love a good cup of coffee, but
Speaker 1: if it's not so good, I'll still drink it because
Speaker 1: I need this. I've seen you dump bad coffee when
Speaker 1: I give you better coffee, which I appreciate. But if
Speaker 1: I didn't come along with the better coffee, drinked the
Speaker 1: mediocre coffee. Happily you say mediocre, but I would downgrade that.
Speaker 1: You know, if it's pencil shaving soaked in water. I
Speaker 1: might not drink it, but that's maybe. How did you
Speaker 1: know the difference I've seen you consume my do. I
Speaker 1: like a lot of coffee. Speaking of which, I think
Speaker 1: it's time we go have a cup. That sounds great,
Speaker 1: you can have tea, I will Okay, great, Thanks for
Speaker 1: hanging with me today. Again, it's always like a treat
Speaker 1: for me. I feel like the spoiled child. Great, I'll
Speaker 1: ring a bell. This is a great moment for us
Speaker 1: to travel to advertising land and we'll be right back
Speaker 1: with everywhere. Welcome once again to everywhere. Let's hop back
Speaker 1: to it. Welcome back. I'm with my best friend Sarah Scarborough,
Speaker 1: tea huntress and founder of Fire Parties. We recently went
Speaker 1: to Thailand and Vietnam to find thousand year old tea trees.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about that. It's interesting wherever you go in
Speaker 1: a world, they have tea and it always looks different,
Speaker 1: tastes different in whichever culture that you're in. But the
Speaker 1: one common thread that runs throughout the world of t
Speaker 1: is that t is always about connecting with other people
Speaker 1: and connecting with yourself and just taking a minute to
Speaker 1: slow down and connect with people. So coffee in many
Speaker 1: ways is to alert and T is the opposite. It's
Speaker 1: to slow down. Give me a little thought about that. Well,
Speaker 1: T is interesting. So it does have caffeine, so there
Speaker 1: is an alert state associated with it. But it's also
Speaker 1: so it has a you know, acid called alfening in it,
Speaker 1: and alfening is what people take to sleep and to relax.
Speaker 1: It increases the alpha waves in your brain. So the
Speaker 1: combination of the althening and the caffeine gives you that
Speaker 1: zen mind, that calm, alert focus. And another thing that's
Speaker 1: interesting chemically that's in T is the categin which are
Speaker 1: the antioxidants that T is so famous for. What they
Speaker 1: do is they bind to the caffeine and so they
Speaker 1: slow down the release of caffeine in your body. So
Speaker 1: whereas coffee releases in your body over the course of
Speaker 1: two or three hours, tea can take up to twenty
Speaker 1: hours to release throughout your body. So you have this calm, alert, focused,
Speaker 1: zen mind for an extended period of time, which is
Speaker 1: a completely different feeling than when you have coffee because
Speaker 1: it's an immediate up and then down. I want you
Speaker 1: to talk to me a little bit abound how tea
Speaker 1: started and how tea traveled and how tea is such
Speaker 1: a beautiful metal ful foot travel right right, Well, T
Speaker 1: is the ultimate voyager, I think. And this is something
Speaker 1: that a lot of people don't know. But thousands and
Speaker 1: thousands of years ago, there were people in you Non China,
Speaker 1: where the tea is born, where it's from, and they
Speaker 1: revere these old tea trees like gods, and they worship
Speaker 1: them and they look at them as their spirit will
Speaker 1: guide and they drink these leaves and it gives them
Speaker 1: health and spirituality, and it was their original medicine too.
Speaker 1: So in that lineage of t t revered as something
Speaker 1: holy and something sacred. And in the British lineage, which
Speaker 1: is more of what we're familiar with in the West,
Speaker 1: is more about commerce and it's more about yield, and
Speaker 1: it's the entire system was built on business. So the
Speaker 1: East India Trading Company was built because of the tea trade.
Speaker 1: They're drinking tea in a much different way as a beverage,
Speaker 1: and still they're using though as a time to connect
Speaker 1: with other people. So these two ways of looking at
Speaker 1: tea and the types of tea that are being drunk,
Speaker 1: and these two lineages are completely different and I think
Speaker 1: that you know, wherever you go in the world, you
Speaker 1: can find tea, and it always is a manifestation of
Speaker 1: the culture that you're in. So it can be froth
Speaker 1: macha at a temple in Japan that you're drinking in
Speaker 1: silent and it can be a spicy sweet chi at
Speaker 1: the stall in Calcutta on the side of the road
Speaker 1: where people are chatting and eating samosas with it. And
Speaker 1: it can be a sweet tea on a front porch
Speaker 1: in Nashville and still though connecting, spending time with each other.
Speaker 1: It could be a beautiful oolong at a teahouse in Taiwan.
Speaker 1: It could be tea direct in Malaysia. Every culture has
Speaker 1: a different tea and so in a way, you can
Speaker 1: really travel the entire world just by having cups of tea.
Speaker 1: And it's a great way to travel around the world
Speaker 1: to tap into the tea culture because that cup of
Speaker 1: tea will tell you everything about the culture that you're in,
Speaker 1: so about the agriculture, about the palate of the people,
Speaker 1: about what's important to them, the way that they connect
Speaker 1: with each other. For example, Japanese are known for loving
Speaker 1: the umami, the savory and so the tea from there
Speaker 1: is often very savory and almost oily, and it's taken meditative.
Speaker 1: Often the macha and the whole tea ceremony comes from there.
Speaker 1: The Germans are known for loving the bitter taste, and
Speaker 1: so in the tea world, Germans are famous for loving
Speaker 1: of first flushed our jealing that's really brisk and has
Speaker 1: those bright, kind of strong notes. In the United States
Speaker 1: were known for loving things that are a little bit
Speaker 1: more sweet. So our teas are generally more multi you know,
Speaker 1: we like to put sugar and milk in our tease.
Speaker 1: So it's a great way of understanding and culture. Tell
Speaker 1: me a little bit about how tea traveled from. Tell
Speaker 1: me where it came from and how it traveled. So
Speaker 1: tea was born in you non province, China, probably was
Speaker 1: being drunk and worshiped there for thousands of years before discovery.
Speaker 1: But discovery was seven BC, legendarily by the herbalist ember
Speaker 1: shen Nung, And he apparently a leaf dropped from the
Speaker 1: tree into his bowl of hot water, and he was
Speaker 1: so astounded by the health benefits and the way that
Speaker 1: this plant made him feel, that he spread the use
Speaker 1: of tea to all his people all around China, and
Speaker 1: so for thousands of years, tea was being consumed in China.
Speaker 1: And then it was the Zen Buddhist monks that were
Speaker 1: sent from Japan to China to learn about and bring
Speaker 1: culture back to Japan, and instead they brought back tea,
Speaker 1: which I think is sort of the same thing. So
Speaker 1: they discovered tea and they fell in love with it
Speaker 1: for the zen mind that it gave them, and they
Speaker 1: brought tea back to Japan, took it to their temples
Speaker 1: and cultivated it. And there's a saying that there would
Speaker 1: be no tea without Zen, and there would be no
Speaker 1: Zen without tea, because they are one and the same.
Speaker 1: And so from there it continued to spread through Asia,
Speaker 1: and then it was on the trading routes that went
Speaker 1: west into Europe on the Silk Root, on the Tea
Speaker 1: horse Road, which was part of the Silk Root, and
Speaker 1: these trading caravans would take tea from Asia and then
Speaker 1: across the deserts. So like Moroccan mint, tea was because
Speaker 1: the nomadic tribes moved westward and they would pick these
Speaker 1: potent herbs, so artemisia and mint and sage from the
Speaker 1: desert and then they would blend it with green tea
Speaker 1: from China and they would add sugar that was also
Speaker 1: being traded on the route. And then from there it
Speaker 1: first came to Europe in the dowry of Catherine de Braganza,
Speaker 1: and she was a Portuguese royalty, so that's what we
Speaker 1: look at for the first time that it made its
Speaker 1: way to Europe. I think she moved to the Netherlands
Speaker 1: and then that's when the British started to set up
Speaker 1: tea plantations in their colony of India. And then along
Speaker 1: the around the same time, they discovered that tea was
Speaker 1: also indigenous to Aam in India, so they had indigenous plants,
Speaker 1: but they also had stolen plants from China, and then
Speaker 1: they began to call to the black tea in India
Speaker 1: and then they started the East India Trading Company and
Speaker 1: that was the genesis of the Opium Wars because there
Speaker 1: was the trade for obium, silver and tea going on,
Speaker 1: and it was all about the British not wanting to
Speaker 1: be reliant on the Chinese monopoly of the tea trade.
Speaker 1: So that's not made its way to Europe. And then
Speaker 1: if we continue the story of tea, it went from
Speaker 1: Europe with the colonists into America. So tea then made
Speaker 1: its way, of course into society, and at the St.
Speaker 1: Louis World Fair in nineteen o four, tea was introduced
Speaker 1: in both tea bag form and an iced tea form.
Speaker 1: So that's when history notes the first tea bags and
Speaker 1: the first iced tea. And that's also really interesting because
Speaker 1: if you think of the way that we consume historically
Speaker 1: tea in this country, it's all of it is iced
Speaker 1: tea and tea bags, and everything that goes in iced
Speaker 1: tea or tea bags is the lowest grade black tea
Speaker 1: that's grown, you know, maybe in Argentina, sometimes India, And
Speaker 1: that's so completely different than the birthplace of tea, where
Speaker 1: they're taking care of these tea trees for generations and
Speaker 1: there birthing babies underneath these trees, and they're having weddings
Speaker 1: around these trees, and the trees are part of their
Speaker 1: family in their community. And um, black tea is great, breakfast,
Speaker 1: he's great, Chai is great, Darjeeling is amazing. It's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite teas. And I love those traditions of tea.
Speaker 1: And you know what we do is we work a
Speaker 1: lot through fair trade and through organic production and partnerships
Speaker 1: at origin to be able to affect positive change in
Speaker 1: the origins where the British set up the industry in
Speaker 1: such a way that it has led to slavery and
Speaker 1: sex trafficking and lots of pesticiety use. I mean that
Speaker 1: was the reason that I started the company eighteen years ago,
Speaker 1: was to affect positive change, to connect tea lovers with
Speaker 1: tea growers to improve the lives of both. And if
Speaker 1: you just only drink black tea, you're really missing out
Speaker 1: on so much of the joy of tea. There's another
Speaker 1: category of teas that we pour tea ceremony with that
Speaker 1: are called living teas, and there's a number of different
Speaker 1: criteria that they have to have to be called living teas.
Speaker 1: For example, they come from seed, not cuttings. But when
Speaker 1: you sit around and drink these teeths, you can have
Speaker 1: a magical experience. And every tea affects you in a
Speaker 1: different way. So there's one too that I love to drink,
Speaker 1: and every time I drink it in ceremony, I have
Speaker 1: visions like real clarity on my life and my true
Speaker 1: nature and who I am. And tea taken in this
Speaker 1: way is in the category of plants called in the agans,
Speaker 1: which are god plants. The anthogens are like ayahuasca, marijuana, peyote,
Speaker 1: all the different plants that give people in sight and
Speaker 1: spiritual clarity. And tea is also in this family. It's
Speaker 1: just a lot more subtle than you know Alaska for example.
Speaker 1: You know, tea is magic that way, it really is.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what I love to share with people,
Speaker 1: is that of what is available in the world of
Speaker 1: tea in this country is black tea. But there's this
Speaker 1: whole other world of tea out there, and it's about
Speaker 1: sitting with people and having time and a session, and
Speaker 1: it's about the vitality of this leaf. And it's the
Speaker 1: way it makes you feel and the way it opens
Speaker 1: up your heart and the way it gives you clarity,
Speaker 1: and the way that you can connect with people over it,
Speaker 1: you know. And there's such a big world out there.
Speaker 1: There's so much more. Thank you, Sarah, Well. I had
Speaker 1: a good time. I hope you did too. If you'd
Speaker 1: like to reach us, go to Everywhere Podcast on Instagram,
Speaker 1: Everywhere Part on Twitter, or the website Everywhere podcast dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm Daniel Schaffter signing off, I'll be seeing you everywhere.