Tea Time

By DAVID CLOUSTON

Salina Journal

There's nothing like a sparkling, clear, ice-cold pitcher of tea to refresh you on a sweltering summer day.

Unless you prefer the chutzpah of a cloudy, rich-looking tea variety packed with amino acids and phenols, compounds responsible for tea's antioxidant activity.

Tea in America is no longer just a bag of Lipton floating in a cup, or in a pitcher of ice cubes spiked with lemon wedges.

U.S. tea sales are expected to grow to $10 billion by 2010 from $6 billion in 2005, the World Tea Expo reports.

"Tea activity has been steadily climbing recently," said Robert Heiss, co-author of "The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide."

"One of the factors is that tea is a fascinating beverage," he said. "There are so many choices people respond to enthusiastically. It's a lot like wine that way."

Served hot or chilled, and spurred by reports that tea has less caffeine than coffee, is packed with antioxidants, and may even ward off tooth decay and Alzheimer's disease, Americans are turning to bottled teas, specialty tea bags and premium loose-leaf brands. The latter sometimes come packaged in silken, oversized tea pouches, enabling the leaves to unfurl.

A year's supply worth

Salinans George and Phyllis Cramer often return from their trips to England with a spare suitcase packed full of a year's supply of the teas they prefer. Closer to home, they also shop for tea at Britt's, a Lawrence shop specializing in imported English merchandise, including teas.

The TeaGuide maintains a list of tea room cafes worldwide in conjunction with the Web site, teaguide.net. Britt's is one of 29 tea merchants and tea rooms listed for Kansas.

Nationally, the number of tea rooms and cafes has boomed to about 2,000 from 200 in the past decade, according to the Tea Association of the USA.

"It's something they're learning, rather than having already there," said George Cramer, of Kansans' growing appreciation for tea.

Cramer, 79, was born in Manchester, England, and spent most of his career in teacher education at York St. John University in York, located in northeast England, about 200 miles north of London.

He and Phyllis met, married, and returned to the United States in 1984 and to Salina in 1999, where Phyllis, a native of Winfield, took the role of professor and chair of the department of education at Kansas Wesleyan University.

Today the couple are retired and make their home part of the year in Salina and the rest of the time near Antonito, a small town near the Colorado-New Mexico border.

3 p.m. is tea time

In England, a cup of hot tea is a vehicle for conversation, and tea time, about 3 o'clock each day, is the time customarily reserved.

"We go through the same motions. Not for us is there tea in a mug, made at the kitchen counter," Cramer said, smiling. Tea the English way comes in a china cup, with a saucer. "It's on a tray, at a table ... and with it, we have something, usually. A cookie or a piece of cake."

Just as coffee connoisseurs fuss over the beans and the roast, and wine experts note the vintage and the region, water plays a crucial role in how tea tastes, the Cramers said.

"Whatever minerals are in the water, whatever the makeup of the water, will affect the taste of the tea," Phyllis Cramer said.

Thus, there will be different teas that suit different areas of the country. In Salina, for instance, the couple prefer Twinings Classics English Breakfast Tea, from R. Twining and Company Limited, imported from England.

"But then, it doesn't suit our water at the mountains, in Colorado," she said. There, they enjoy teas sold by the tea companies Bigelow and Stash.

"Of course there are as many varieties of tea as there are people," George Cramer said. "There are hundreds and thousands of them."

It starts with a plant

All tea comes from the Camellia sinensis plant, a warm-weather evergreen. How the fresh leaves of the tea plant are processed and their level of oxidation -- which produces chemical reactions resulting in distinctive color and taste -- determine the types of tea.

A few of the better-known types of tea include Black, Oolong, Green, White, Yellow, Scented, Pu-erh, Flavored and Herbal.

Tea's discovery and cultivation originated in China, spread to other Asian cultures and was rapidly adopted by the Western world.

Heiss and his wife, Mary Lou, the authors of "The Story of Tea," own the Cooks Shop, a culinary specialties store located in Northampton, Mass. The shop offers a Tea Trekker's collection for $35 plus tax and shipping. The collection includes sample-size containers of 13 teas picked to introduce novices to the world of teas.

Specialty teas can be easily used to serve as cold beverages as well as hot. But Heiss offers some tips for doing so.

Conventional wisdom suggests making a regular pot of tea double strength and diluting it with ice. But if you do that, you'll generally find the tea to still be too strong, he said.

Instead, he recommends using no more than half as much tea added to that used to make a regular pot.

And even making it regular strength, as long as there's time to cool the tea significantly before adding ice.

How should it look?

People have different attitudes about how the tea should look, Heiss said. Those who like a rich-looking, cloudier tea should try a classic tea such as Assam, from India. Nilgiri, tea from the mountains of southern India, is known for its clarity and sparkle.

"Not every tea goes well with lemon," Heiss said. "Assam goes better with lemon. It just does. Some flavors take better to certain flavors."

The Flower Nook, 208 E. Iron, offers some specialty teas, including white tea in a bulb that blooms when it's dropped into boiling water. The store also carries teas from the Prairie Lavender Farm at Bennington, including chamomile and Earl Grey varieties.

Most of his customers prefer iced tea in the summertime, therefore the store doesn't sell as much of the teas that are traditionally served hot, owner Wayne DeBay said.

"I would rather have a cup of fresh, hot tea than a cup of old coffee," he said. Still, in the summer he drinks ice tea throughout the day at the store.

When to add milk

For those who are brewing their own teas hot, the way to serve and enjoy the tea can be just as personal as the tea varieties one prefers.

The English, for example, are very keen to put milk in their tea, Cramer said.

"And that in itself is a ritual, because you get great discussions about putting the milk in (the cup) first, or putting the milk in second," he said. "And the English would say there's a good reason for putting it in first."

One reason has nothing to do with taste. It's simply because bone china cups are very thin and delicate, and there's a danger of pouring boiling hot tea into the cup and breaking it, he said.

"Putting a little drop of milk in the cup first cooled the liquid down. The other thing is they tell me is that the tea emulsifies more quickly if you pour the tea onto milk than when you put the milk into tea," Cramer said. "Doing the milk, and then the tea, gives you a very good blend."

n Reporter David Clouston can be reached at 822-1403 or by e-mail at dclouston@salina.com.

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DRINK COFFEE says....
Let's HAVE A TEA PARTY AMERCAN.YOU GOT TAX'S
7/5/2009

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