Speaker 1: We're in the rolling forest of Sri Lanka where silon
Speaker 1: tea is handpicked and harvested. We're here to find out
Speaker 1: what makes this te so special, making the TV's silhott
Speaker 1: This is taken only the bud. This t is very
Speaker 1: very expective. Eighteen sixty seven is the first plant being
Speaker 1: planted in Sri Lanka. So since then there were some
Speaker 1: people will skilled people being brought from the south of India,
Speaker 1: and so generations they have been here. Each of these
Speaker 1: delicately plucked leaves are then impact. It's very difficult to
Speaker 1: sort of have a missionary to pluck t robo cannot
Speaker 1: think and certain things. On top of all, the fact
Speaker 1: is the most important thing is the human touch is
Speaker 1: very very important teeth process, especially in tea. Tea is
Speaker 1: one of the world's most ancient beverages and today remains
Speaker 1: the most consumed beverage in the world after water. Too
Speaker 1: many of us we know tea in its most modern form,
Speaker 1: which is that we steep the tea in our mugs
Speaker 1: by unwrapping those little paper envelopes that hold string tea
Speaker 1: bags from dried and crushed leaves. However, that's not how
Speaker 1: much of the world drinks tea, and the history of
Speaker 1: tea is complex and its practice spans across multiple Asian cultures.
Speaker 1: Earliest record state drinking tea to the third century a
Speaker 1: d in the u Non Province of China, when indigenous
Speaker 1: tea plants in the wild were harvested and used for
Speaker 1: medicinal purposes. Soon thereafter, it was brewed as the precursor
Speaker 1: to the tea that we know today. And today's show,
Speaker 1: we're going to explore global expressions of tea, the rituals
Speaker 1: and ceremonies that accompany tea, and we will learn how
Speaker 1: the leaves harvested from this shiny leaved, shrub like plant
Speaker 1: produces one of the beverages that is the most consumed
Speaker 1: around the world today. On point of origin, it's teatime.
Speaker 1: One of my absolute favorite parts of visiting New York
Speaker 1: is when I have an opportunity to come to the
Speaker 1: West Village, find a little corner in your tea shop
Speaker 1: and move through the menu methodically drinking all the oulong's.
Speaker 1: It's one of my absolute favorite places on earth. So
Speaker 1: thank you so much. That's very kind. We're lucky to
Speaker 1: have the audience that we have in the neighborhood that
Speaker 1: we have. So all the cheese that we know, you know,
Speaker 1: in the supermarket, that's from anything from Lupton to you
Speaker 1: know the recent trend just match um green cheese, oolongs,
Speaker 1: black cheese, white cheese. Everything that we see that's not
Speaker 1: an herb or a flower, they're all on the same plant.
Speaker 1: This plant is called Camelia sinenses. So this is Elena
Speaker 1: Law who is the owner of ta company in the
Speaker 1: West Village of New York. Elena is a first generation
Speaker 1: immigrant who grew up in New York City. She didn't
Speaker 1: have any direct connections to the world of tea, but
Speaker 1: she was born in Taiwan, which is sort of the
Speaker 1: next best thing. Yes, I actually didn't come from a
Speaker 1: tea family. I didn't come from a key business or
Speaker 1: either in production or trade by any stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 1: But I did grow up in Taiwan, where every family
Speaker 1: drinks tea. It's ingrained in the Chinese culture or any
Speaker 1: Chinese heritage countries where like tea drinking as tea gifting.
Speaker 1: You know, it's a very much part of your life
Speaker 1: and you don't think twice about it, sort of like
Speaker 1: New Yorkers and pizza, you don't really think about the
Speaker 1: dough all the time or the where the sauce comes from.
Speaker 1: You just have it in your life. So she started
Speaker 1: sourcing teas on her trips to Taiwan and across Asia,
Speaker 1: which was just the starting point. I remember only getting
Speaker 1: teas from Taiwan when my mom would mail them or
Speaker 1: when I go home and I would get that, And
Speaker 1: any time I've run out, I literally have nowhere to
Speaker 1: go in, you know, sort of the only thing that's
Speaker 1: available to me is a grocery store. It really is
Speaker 1: sort of like a living historical artifact of like what
Speaker 1: culture and civilization had developed this beverage from plants, the
Speaker 1: different styles of it sort of went to different parts
Speaker 1: of the world, so that became interesting for me, and
Speaker 1: then ultimately I start sourcing them, start of visiting, you know,
Speaker 1: when I go to Taiwan, I would visit families, friends
Speaker 1: and people who understand really good quality food, really good
Speaker 1: quality wine, really good quality coffee can really absolutely relate
Speaker 1: to really good quality tea, and sort of over time
Speaker 1: figure it out that I need a little tea room
Speaker 1: to really showcase them and have a place for people
Speaker 1: to come in. You can't sell this stuff on the internet.
Speaker 1: You can't sell smell, you can't convince someone you know
Speaker 1: the craft that went behind these products. So let's take
Speaker 1: a step back to understand more out what te actually is.
Speaker 1: It comes from the leaves of a plant called Camilla senesis.
Speaker 1: It's a fairly nondescript looking shrub that originates in East Asia,
Speaker 1: and a simple way to think about tea is really
Speaker 1: the same way that you would think about wine. So
Speaker 1: wine comes from grapes and teas come from leaves. The
Speaker 1: grape variety that's used in wine production is called Vitas
Speaker 1: vinifera and the name of the plant used in tea
Speaker 1: production is the aforementioned Camilla sinensis. So while there are
Speaker 1: many different types of teas, most of the variances that
Speaker 1: you'll experience and flavor, aroma, and taste are based on
Speaker 1: the variety of Camilla sinensis, plus how it's grown, harvested, processed,
Speaker 1: and stored. So how we process the tea plant after
Speaker 1: it's harvested is what define them to be green teas,
Speaker 1: ulan's white and black. What is long tea and what
Speaker 1: makes it so special? The main difference between them is
Speaker 1: oxidation levels. Um, So you imagine when you pick the
Speaker 1: tea plant off the stem. You know, if you leave
Speaker 1: it on the table after a few hours, it will brown,
Speaker 1: the same way as if you cut open apple, it'll brown.
Speaker 1: Cut up an avocado, it brown's it's the plant's natural
Speaker 1: way of decaying by interacting with the oxygen in the
Speaker 1: air um and that simple process. I'm sure if physicists
Speaker 1: will explain this better than I can, but it's called oxidation.
Speaker 1: Green tea by definition is non oxidized, and black teat
Speaker 1: by definition, it's fully oxidized. So what that means is
Speaker 1: when you harvest the tea plant, if your intention is
Speaker 1: to make green tea, you will heat the tea leaves
Speaker 1: up right away when you harvest them. It's the endomatic
Speaker 1: reaction to kill the enzyme, so then it doesn't exodized
Speaker 1: with the oxygen in the air and therefore keep it
Speaker 1: bright green. For black tea, you would let it oxidize,
Speaker 1: so let it naturally decay fully brown naturally. Therefore, black
Speaker 1: teeze is much darker or much more coppery brown, the
Speaker 1: same way as your apple browns, if you will. Along.
Speaker 1: By definition, is partially oxidized, so that means it's anywhere
Speaker 1: between green and black, so you can have oxydized. So
Speaker 1: this feels like a good time to once again say
Speaker 1: that other than the so called herbal teas which are
Speaker 1: made with hot water being poured directly over herbs, spices
Speaker 1: or other plant materials, all of the teas that you
Speaker 1: see in the wild, from grocery store shelves to a
Speaker 1: trendy maucha cafe, they all come from the same plant
Speaker 1: and the thing that makes them different primarily is the
Speaker 1: way in which their exposure to oxygen is either encouraged
Speaker 1: or disrupted. And this is what we mean when we
Speaker 1: talk about the processing of the team is extremely wide. Therefore,
Speaker 1: you know, so many flavor profiles can all be called
Speaker 1: ulan team. So that's really the main sort of categorically
Speaker 1: how we define what mulan te is. But what are
Speaker 1: some of the variations that you see in an ulan
Speaker 1: te from Taiwan that makes it particularly prized. So Ulans
Speaker 1: are sort of a later stage development in the Chinese
Speaker 1: tea cultivation. Like the Chinese didn't wake up one day
Speaker 1: and created like fifteen different kinds of g and like
Speaker 1: call it a day, like it was you know, through
Speaker 1: a long thousands of years in fact of development and change,
Speaker 1: trial and error that they gave you different styles of teammaking,
Speaker 1: and ulan being sort of the later style. By the
Speaker 1: time of the Shang dynasty from seventeen sixty six to
Speaker 1: ten fifty BC, tea was being consumed in the yu
Speaker 1: Non province for its medicinal properties. UM. I think the
Speaker 1: earliest records of tea production is like two thousand years
Speaker 1: BC versus I think long To you came around I
Speaker 1: don't know, year seven hundred eight, so like it's it's
Speaker 1: a few thousand years if when I think the monks
Speaker 1: sort of figured it out how to make it in
Speaker 1: between process two and so through thousands of years. China
Speaker 1: obviously has you know, a beautiful list um of ulan
Speaker 1: to that's available. There was specifically made mainly you know
Speaker 1: in Fujin area and we mountain and over time because
Speaker 1: of the close proximity of Fujin to Taiwan, literally like
Speaker 1: it's a tiny ocean way away. Um, there's not a
Speaker 1: lot of natural migration that went to Taiwan, and that
Speaker 1: includes some of these long to may have been there
Speaker 1: for generations. From eight to the end of World War Two,
Speaker 1: Taiwan was seated by China to Japan as a result
Speaker 1: of the First Sino Japanese War. Because of its geography,
Speaker 1: Japanese occupation was deemed a strategic necessity for military ambitions.
Speaker 1: During this period, most of the social, economic and cultural
Speaker 1: changes and occupy Taiwan were driven by technocrats living in
Speaker 1: the colonial government. It was during this period that Japan
Speaker 1: became invested in Taiwanese tea and in nineteen o three
Speaker 1: developed a governmental agency specifically for t R and D
Speaker 1: for research and development. Taiwan has really quite a unique
Speaker 1: historical reference that influence I would say heavily as to
Speaker 1: what the product begets, you know, what becomes in the
Speaker 1: sense that it went through Japanese occupation for about fifty years.
Speaker 1: It bypassed the cultural revolution that happened in China. It
Speaker 1: sort of was its own independent, ruling democratic society, which
Speaker 1: you know, people having to be able to pay for
Speaker 1: things that they like sort of you know, encourage economic
Speaker 1: consumption as well. So you have those influences in Taiwan
Speaker 1: that really makes the t quite different from where I
Speaker 1: came from. Very early on NTO through the Japanese some
Speaker 1: looked at the taiwan These teason was like these are
Speaker 1: wonderful product that we should really invest in. And so
Speaker 1: they had started a research center called t Research Extension Stations.
Speaker 1: It's run by a bunch of chemists and engineers and
Speaker 1: all they do is study the tea plants and create
Speaker 1: new tea plants and facilitate the education of farmers that
Speaker 1: they've run local competitions and they'll go out and teach
Speaker 1: you what they're looking for so then you can win.
Speaker 1: And if you win the competition, then you have your
Speaker 1: your teas are auctioned off and um, it's heavily financially rewardous.
Speaker 1: So it created a very healthy circular loop for the
Speaker 1: farmers to elevate their skill sets for a lot of
Speaker 1: the technologies from you know that Japanese was known for
Speaker 1: that was sort of influenced into the production of the tea.
Speaker 1: This agency is still very active and alive today and
Speaker 1: it's sort of facilitated a lot of the development of
Speaker 1: either varieties or types of teas or method of making.
Speaker 1: So that is something that is extremely unique to Taiwan
Speaker 1: the island alone, that differentiate the products that came from
Speaker 1: out of a Chinese heritage in Lugian. How are these
Speaker 1: teas actually grown, you know, go into the mountains to
Speaker 1: side indigenous tea plants. Of course, um that's by how
Speaker 1: it started from the very beginning, but over times nowadays
Speaker 1: for commercial cultivation, you really see them sort of you know,
Speaker 1: trimmed about waist tie. They're usually about three feet tall.
Speaker 1: And for ease of harvesting, because when we harvest the
Speaker 1: tea plan, we really harvest just the young shoot of
Speaker 1: the tea plant, so to make it easier and you
Speaker 1: don't have to climb trees because you know, if you
Speaker 1: let it tea plant grow, they can for some of
Speaker 1: them can grow to like two or three story hie um,
Speaker 1: and we only use the baby button maybe like the
Speaker 1: young shoots sit for tea production. And this is true
Speaker 1: for very fancy tea and looked at right, so consistent
Speaker 1: and to make that easier commercially. Nowadays, pretty much everywhere
Speaker 1: that you go in the world that produces tea, you'll
Speaker 1: see most to the tea plant sort of like around
Speaker 1: three feet tall. When the tea blood comes out, you
Speaker 1: just grazed the top of the plant and this is
Speaker 1: done by hand, depending on where you are, I think
Speaker 1: sort of for Taiwan, and the one thing actually I
Speaker 1: forgot to mention about you know what makes out too unique?
Speaker 1: It is an island has a ton of moisture from
Speaker 1: the ocean. It also has it's on the traffic of cancer,
Speaker 1: which is literally like, we're probably the very ideal if
Speaker 1: you will, for tea cultivations that has a very good
Speaker 1: you know what, we're familiar as the term tail are
Speaker 1: for the tea plant to be to time one in
Speaker 1: addition to having all these culture heritage actually has a
Speaker 1: very good and it provides a very good environment for
Speaker 1: t cultivation. As for ceylon and Oolong tea, much of
Speaker 1: the tea around the world is still picked and processed
Speaker 1: by hand. That's because during harvesting, workers are solely picking
Speaker 1: the bud or the tip of the plant where the
Speaker 1: newest growth lies. The flush is the mostly newly sprouted leaves,
Speaker 1: and the flesh harvest can contain up to five leaves,
Speaker 1: but the most valuable is what's called the golden flush,
Speaker 1: which is only the first two and three leaves that
Speaker 1: are harvested and made into tea. Because farmers don't harvest
Speaker 1: all the leaves on the plant and are just picking
Speaker 1: the newest, youngest growth, there are specific seasons for harvesting
Speaker 1: the tea plant. And the warmest regions where tea grows,
Speaker 1: like Sri Lanka where Ceylon tea is cultivated, harvesting seasons
Speaker 1: are long, while in most of the northern regions tea
Speaker 1: is harvested only a few times during April and September.
Speaker 1: In Taiwan, Alanis farmers have developed a balance between hand
Speaker 1: harvesting ooh long in technology, so another way of like
Speaker 1: human interaction. As far as hand harvesting or machine harvesting,
Speaker 1: you know, you could have it both ways. Obviously, hand
Speaker 1: harvesting much more precise. Um you can get exactly the
Speaker 1: part of the plant that you want, and certain keys
Speaker 1: calls were just a bud. Or if you have bad
Speaker 1: weather and sometimes or you have you know, fifty acres
Speaker 1: of land that you need to harvest in a few hours,
Speaker 1: you need the machine. So really depends on scale, depends
Speaker 1: on the terrain of the land. Um parts of Taiwan
Speaker 1: hasts really really high elevation tea gardens which are two
Speaker 1: thousand meters above sea elevation, and these are a mountainous terrain.
Speaker 1: They're not easy to run a machine through. So most
Speaker 1: of those lands you have to hand harvest um, and
Speaker 1: obviously that drives up the price. It drives up the
Speaker 1: cost of the actual harvest. But certainly it's worth that,
Speaker 1: you know, extend, probably because they're so precise um well
Speaker 1: made to bees that are picked one by one by
Speaker 1: are humans. If we want to be better drinkers of
Speaker 1: these fine oolongs, how do we prepare the tea so
Speaker 1: that we can drink it at its peak? If you
Speaker 1: want to start drinking better tea, the first thing to
Speaker 1: do is when you get to either whatever what's available
Speaker 1: to whether it's a tea store locally or in a
Speaker 1: grocery store, look for tea that doesn't have flavorings. So meaning,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes when you smell some teas and it
Speaker 1: smells like peach, or it smells like raspberries, who sounds like,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Sometimes chocolate chip, I don't think everything
Speaker 1: is you know, I don't know. Strawberry sounds unfortunate. Chocolate
Speaker 1: chip tea. I've seen banana bread cheese, and so I
Speaker 1: would say stay away from Notice that is step one
Speaker 1: because what happens in those cheese, and we know nature
Speaker 1: doesn't give you a chocolate chip, it's from cook cow beans,
Speaker 1: it's not from commits sensis, So it's usually any the
Speaker 1: smells extrawberries, peaches and what have you that's not a
Speaker 1: tea plant. And so I usually highly encourage people to
Speaker 1: smell the dry leaves if this smells like these additives,
Speaker 1: and don't get those, because what happens is if you
Speaker 1: use fragrancy, you don't really need the tea to be
Speaker 1: very well made. You will cover it anyway with peach fragrance. Generally,
Speaker 1: look for pure teas, and that's either of pure green
Speaker 1: of your like at your lum or your block. So
Speaker 1: try different categories and you're narrowed down to a category
Speaker 1: that you like. So either um, it's something that's grassy
Speaker 1: or or something that's not malti or something that toasty. Um.
Speaker 1: And don't feel like there is a right or wrong
Speaker 1: way to assumed tea if it's too strong at some
Speaker 1: hot water, if it's too weak, could have back in
Speaker 1: the tea pot grow a little longer. So that's where
Speaker 1: I just want to set this stage because some people
Speaker 1: feel like it's something really precious and it's not. It's
Speaker 1: it's like I tell people that kool aid, you just
Speaker 1: add water if it's too strong to you know, casual.
Speaker 1: Every t is different, everyone palid is a little different,
Speaker 1: so it never feel like you're going to ruin something.
Speaker 1: You're never gonna nothing bad happens. And then the other
Speaker 1: one is not restraining the tea leaves so nice. Their
Speaker 1: tea leaves generally are rolled in a certain way that
Speaker 1: they really need room to expand and full. These teeth, particularly,
Speaker 1: their rolled really tightly, so any room to expand, So
Speaker 1: don't put them in a you know, a really small
Speaker 1: tea ball that were physically they are unable to open um.
Speaker 1: We generally recommend putting the tea leaves in an open vessel,
Speaker 1: like in a whether it's your tea pot or in
Speaker 1: a picture where it's not considering biophysical space, or a
Speaker 1: tea bag or a sachet, and that way you sort
Speaker 1: of let the teas have the most room to expand,
Speaker 1: and therefore you get the most flavor. And it's the
Speaker 1: most productive way I would say, of extracting tea as
Speaker 1: far as brewing. So you really want those leaves to
Speaker 1: unfurl freely, that's right, that's right. And then the brewing
Speaker 1: temperature the generally generically the group Neery style, the teeth.
Speaker 1: The lower the temperature pretty much regardless of what type
Speaker 1: of teeth is, because otherwise, if the temperature is not
Speaker 1: hot enough, it won't open and you can't actually extract
Speaker 1: all the flavors. Tea leaves can be possessed by drying
Speaker 1: the leaves out in the sun. These withering techniques reduce
Speaker 1: the water content and make the leaves pliable enough to
Speaker 1: move on to the next step, which is called rolling.
Speaker 1: Traditionally done by hand. Rolling tea leaves into compact balls
Speaker 1: helps to break down the leaf cell structure. This releases
Speaker 1: the juices and the oils from the leaves and encourages
Speaker 1: a more uniform oxidation. Just like the take companies oolong tea.
Speaker 1: There is a reason for historical advancement to roll cheese
Speaker 1: into the tightly rolled pearls. One of the reasons for
Speaker 1: transit um. We're able to transport a lot more tea
Speaker 1: with the smaller physical space, so they're densely rolled um
Speaker 1: a safe space the seconds. It protects the integrity of
Speaker 1: the shape of the leaves, so when you brew them
Speaker 1: you don't have to break them there for it you
Speaker 1: keep the shape of the leaves which has less broken
Speaker 1: surface area. Which will give you a less tannin extraction
Speaker 1: will give you a better mouth feel. And now I
Speaker 1: really sound like a nerve right there. And one of
Speaker 1: my favorite things about tease in this style is that
Speaker 1: I find the drinking of them to be so pleasurable
Speaker 1: in the ways in which the flavor profile changes with
Speaker 1: each steep. Yeah, I would say really good quality tees.
Speaker 1: They're made with the idea in mind that you will
Speaker 1: repeatedly steep the leaves like we tell people generally as
Speaker 1: three steepings and us to feel free at home to
Speaker 1: do up to five and tent. But basically what's happening
Speaker 1: is different molecules are moving in fragrance, oils, mall it doos,
Speaker 1: it's in the tea. Leaves are moving at a different
Speaker 1: speed when you brew them. So, for instance, caffeine as
Speaker 1: an as a particle, it's the first thing it extracts,
Speaker 1: is caffeine. Um. If you're brewing with really hot water,
Speaker 1: and usually the first two infusion and the most caffeineated,
Speaker 1: and then the third and the fourth are less so.
Speaker 1: So if you imagine that the same principle applies to
Speaker 1: I don't know, the chemical that makes the tea smells
Speaker 1: like flowers. It has a different traveling speed than some
Speaker 1: of the other ones. So as you're brewing different infusions um,
Speaker 1: you're extracting sort of different particles um every time, and
Speaker 1: that sort it gives you the slight variation in you know,
Speaker 1: in the multiple infusion, different steepings, if you will. So
Speaker 1: that's something that is really fun for someone like kind
Speaker 1: of what you're saying that you're sitting with the tea
Speaker 1: and you sort of enjoy it's like a little journey
Speaker 1: or a little tea vacation that youk and it take
Speaker 1: and it's really just like between you and the tea
Speaker 1: and your friend, you're shot. So this is a poem
Speaker 1: called a te song. Dan't You was an immortal who
Speaker 1: cared nothing for rich foods, But after picking some tea
Speaker 1: and drinking it, he sprouted wings and flew to the
Speaker 1: abode of the immortals to escape life's emptiness. Now he
Speaker 1: lives among the clouds in a palace unknown to humans.
Speaker 1: His tea is brewed in a golden teapot by a
Speaker 1: young immortal who lives upon a peak amidst the clouds.
Speaker 1: How worthless is lou U's classic of tea when compared
Speaker 1: to this that is Cheeo Jin of the Ting Dynasty's
Speaker 1: Tea song. I grew up, you know, seeing tea in
Speaker 1: my in my family and in my culture as the
Speaker 1: thing that I was brought people together. Warrist Alla Walia
Speaker 1: is our next guest. Born in Amristo, Northern India and
Speaker 1: raised in Brooklyn, New York, Alla Walia is a designer
Speaker 1: best known for his House of Wars fashion and jewelry line,
Speaker 1: but he's also an avid tea connoisseur. For Wars, tea
Speaker 1: is a social connector, one that he learned about from
Speaker 1: his mother's traditional hospitality. It was the first thing you
Speaker 1: offered when someone someone came over. You would invite people
Speaker 1: over for tea. And you know when I wouldn't when
Speaker 1: I would go to India with the family, you know,
Speaker 1: it was it was there. It was the first thing.
Speaker 1: It was, it was the last thing. It was just
Speaker 1: a part of living right. It was integrated, It was
Speaker 1: woven into existence. And so it was something I was
Speaker 1: very familiar with as as an idea and what kind
Speaker 1: of tea were as being served in your home. It
Speaker 1: was traditional tea. My mom would take regular black tea
Speaker 1: and then and then add cardamom and clothes and spices
Speaker 1: to it. You know what, she what she grew up with.
Speaker 1: Indian tea leaves are not prepared separately by being steeped. Instead,
Speaker 1: tea leaves are boiled along with additions like spices, and
Speaker 1: then boiled again after the addition of milk and sugar.
Speaker 1: And many parts of the country the most special cup
Speaker 1: of tea is one in which the tea leaves are
Speaker 1: boiled separately in milk. If you had people over, you
Speaker 1: have tea with them. Or it wasn't a big thing,
Speaker 1: it was just always present. Tea has draught people together.
Speaker 1: He has been about community. He has been about layers
Speaker 1: and layers of stories of gathering. You know. And she
Speaker 1: used to be its original purpose with a medicinal That
Speaker 1: was how it started and grew from there. Um and
Speaker 1: even you know, used for social gathering for warriors. He
Speaker 1: played an omnipresent role in his childhood home. It's importance
Speaker 1: in Indian homes is tied to the fact that it
Speaker 1: is the second largest producer of tea, just after China.
Speaker 1: It's most famous ritals are a psalm, which is a
Speaker 1: bright tea with a multicolor, and are jailing, which is
Speaker 1: a delicate and fruity tea. A psalm, Darjiling, and other
Speaker 1: varieties like the doers, Terai, Massala, and sick Hum are
Speaker 1: all named after the regions that they're produced in, so
Speaker 1: each of the teas is influenced by their environment. A psalm,
Speaker 1: for instance, needs low altitudes and rich loamy soil and
Speaker 1: ample rainfall in order to thrive, while Darjeeling, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, grows in the Himalayan Mountains, which is the
Speaker 1: highest altitude tea growing region in the entire world. The
Speaker 1: high altitudes forced a jailing to grow a little more slowly,
Speaker 1: increasing its chlorophyll content, which results in rich and slightly
Speaker 1: apricot and peach like flavors that you taste in the tea.
Speaker 1: Beyond commensality and terroir, Indian tea has had another significant function.
Speaker 1: It's used as medicine. The Indian system of Ayurveda has
Speaker 1: a long standing tradition of herbal teas. Traditionally, these teas
Speaker 1: have been used for centuries to treat conditions like digestion, stress, inflammation,
Speaker 1: and improving memory. The use of milk and sugar and
Speaker 1: chai is an intentional addition to disguise the stronger, more
Speaker 1: bitter flavors and medicinal properties of cardamom, clove, and ginger,
Speaker 1: Drawing on his culture's understanding of health and medicine. Wars
Speaker 1: relied on Tea's wisdom when dealing with his own physical
Speaker 1: stress and anxiety. Right, there were days I felt like
Speaker 1: I couldn't even breathe. I was suffering physically, I was.
Speaker 1: It was just it's terrible. And then when I went
Speaker 1: through that experience, I realized that I wasn't alone in
Speaker 1: my suffering. Everyone goes through this stress, right, Everyone goes
Speaker 1: through it every day, right, like not being able to
Speaker 1: pay bills, or or relationship stress or or loss of
Speaker 1: life or bad health, whatever it is. We constantly, we
Speaker 1: constantly are faced with it. And and not everyone has
Speaker 1: access to that kind of what's called alternative treatment or
Speaker 1: know how to get to those people. Right. And so
Speaker 1: then I went back to my herbalists, and I put
Speaker 1: a team of herbalists together and we started making blends
Speaker 1: that that we helped deal with every day building blocks.
Speaker 1: We need to sleep better, so we made a sleep
Speaker 1: when we need to improve our digestion. So we need
Speaker 1: a digestion when there are moments where you might overdo it,
Speaker 1: you know, you know in life. And so we made
Speaker 1: you know, like a detox len and but just spent
Speaker 1: years on making these blends and making these finding the
Speaker 1: right ingredients and trying to Warris found that t relieved
Speaker 1: the symptoms, which ultimately became his inspiration for his own
Speaker 1: line of teas called Wars Botanical. And now we're you know,
Speaker 1: we're launching Council Wars Botanicals. And it is it's like
Speaker 1: a multi multi, multi faceted enterprise that uses tea as
Speaker 1: its starting point in the conversation, that uses tea as
Speaker 1: a gateway as at first and of course step towards
Speaker 1: talking about much larger issues to have much needed conversation.
Speaker 1: And when you look at it, historically, in all these
Speaker 1: ancient cultures, he has brought people together. It had an
Speaker 1: anchor in people's lives every day. To end our podcast today,
Speaker 1: we traveled to Tianjian, China, where a family friend Goofu
Speaker 1: or uncle, explains how he brews his favorite cup of
Speaker 1: white tea. Hold, there's just some poors, huh. Today the
Speaker 1: tea we're drinking is a puerity. This song poor is
Speaker 1: a type of black tea that is a variety of
Speaker 1: fermented tea from the yu Non province in southern China,
Speaker 1: Subani in the leisure. This type of tea has over
Speaker 1: four hundred years of history. It's one of the most
Speaker 1: well known teas. Have you done? As it was bestowed
Speaker 1: as a gift to the emperor of the shan Long dynasty.
Speaker 1: To start, we will put our leaves into a large teacup.
Speaker 1: Will begin our first steep, which is called a un cha,
Speaker 1: where we pour our water at a hundred degrees celsius
Speaker 1: into our cup. Cha serves the purpose of both allowing
Speaker 1: the leaves to unravel and also serves to wash away impurities.
Speaker 1: Change change oil, one body. Pour these into your small
Speaker 1: individual drinking glasses. These are small ceramic glasses that are
Speaker 1: about the size of a double shot glass. Give the
Speaker 1: liquid a quick swirl to warm your glass, and pour
Speaker 1: away into the tea stand reservoir. Once we've poured our
Speaker 1: glasses out, we will pour our one degrees celsius water
Speaker 1: into our large tea cup with leaves. We'll leave it
Speaker 1: to steep for sixty seconds. Once we finished our steep,
Speaker 1: we will serve the tea in each of our individual
Speaker 1: ceramic glasses. This is an anonymous poem inscribed on an
Speaker 1: old sing teapot. Willow branches graze the grass. As I
Speaker 1: sit in the shade drinking tea. A note from the
Speaker 1: flute blows, clearly mingling with the sound of rain. I
Speaker 1: could sit here alone forever, and still I'd never feel lonely.
Speaker 1: H h h h h h h h h h
Speaker 1: h h h h h h h h h h
Speaker 1: h h h h. That's all for this episode of
Speaker 1: Point of Origin. Thanks for listening and supporting the wet
Speaker 1: Stone podcast, where we travel the world to champion food
Speaker 1: as a means of expanding human empathy. Please, if you
Speaker 1: like what you've just heard, rate us, review us, give
Speaker 1: us five stars so that we can continue to make
Speaker 1: these podcasts just for you. To keep abreast with all
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Speaker 1: Stone Magazine or online at wet Stone magazine dot com.
Speaker 1: That's w h E T S T O in E
Speaker 1: magazine dot com, where you will find the latest on
Speaker 1: all things wet Stone, including the details from today's show
Speaker 1: and information about purchasing our print magazine special. Thanks to
Speaker 1: Selene Glacier, our lead producer, to Cat Hong our editor,
Speaker 1: Quentin lebou, our production intern, and to my business partner
Speaker 1: who makes all things that wet Stone possible, are co
Speaker 1: founder Melissa She Thanks mel and thanks to our friends
Speaker 1: at I Heart Radio for helping us bring you this podcast.
Speaker 1: To Gabrielle Collins, our supervising producer, and to Christopher Hasiota's
Speaker 1: our executive producer. I'm your host, the Origin Forager, Steven Saderfield,
Speaker 1: and we'll be back here next week with more from
Speaker 1: wet Stone Magazine's Point of Origin podcast. H