Home School Observations

22nd March, 1994

At the Longjing (Dragon Well) Tea Plantation our guide tells us the best tasting green tea in the world is produced here. Eyebrows raise at those familiar words, as we have all been told the green tea where we currently reside in Shizuoka, Japan, is the finest in the world. We watch a demonstration of the tea leaves being rolled in a heated metal bowl. We dutifully sample the tea, praise the tea, and buy small containers of the tea. Then we innocently venture outside to walk around in one of the tea fields.

Suddenly a group of middle-aged, straw-hatted women circle around us, grab our arms and thrust packets of tea in our faces as they shout, “Ten yuan, ten yuan!” They are determined that we will buy more of the tea, and buy it from them. Each tea seller attaches herself to one of us, and stuffs a dozen packets of tea into our arms. Our frantic cries of “No, no!” have no effect.

Paul attempts to escape from his tea seller, but she chases after him, out the field and down the dirt road, all the while shouting, “Ten Yuan, ten Yuan!”. We just cannot shake them. We each reluctantly buy ten more packets of tea. I snap a photo of my tea seller.

Kevin has difficulty persuading his tea seller to also sell him the hat she is wearing, but finally succeeds, and he proudly wears the hat for the rest of the day’s adventures.

We learn that there are sixteen grades of tea in China. Our guide tells us that in southern China, jasmine tea is considered low grade because it is merely broken tea leaves with flowers added to improve the taste. So it is an insult to serve a guest jasmine tea in southern China. Mmmm…..can the jasmine tea in all our hotel rooms be implying a secret message?

Tags: China, Green Tea, Hangzhou, Dragon Well tea, Longjin tea

The Wednesday Tea Ladies

When I was a young child I always looked forward to arriving home from school on Wednesdays. I knew my mom and her friends would be sitting at the dining room table sipping tea, eating toast and jam, and laughing. I called them the tea ladies. I did not always understand the topic of conversation, but I was happy to be invited to join the table.

“How long have they been sitting here drinking tea?” I would wonder to myself. I imagined the tea parties lasted the entire length of my school day. I was so jealous of their freedom, so longingly looked forward to being an adult so I could sit around all day with my friends and drink tea.

My favorite tea lady was Mrs. Powell. She would always make everyone laugh, and then she would add her boisterous guffaws over top of my mother’s dainty giggles. She was from London, and knew just how to prepare a “cuppa” any nine-yr-old child would love. I grew to love milk in my tea, and have been drinking it the British way ever since! Of course there was an ample amount of sugar in that child’s tea, and only a modicum of black tea, but that weekly sweet milky treat was something I treasured.

Mrs. Muse was from Boston and she and my mother drank their tea black, but with some sugar. I always appreciated the fact that I was invited to join the tea party and that Mrs. Powell and I were drinking tea the British way. It made me feel so important.

I miss the Wednesday Tea Ladies. I think of them often as I pour myself a “cuppa.”

Tags: tea

My First and Last Japanese Tea Ceremony

I had no idea I was going to gag on the ceremonial tea. In retrospect, it is a good thing that I did not know, else I would have missed one of the most beautiful things I experienced in my three and half years in Japan.

Murasaki-san lived in a smaller town north of my small town in Shizuoka Prefecture in Japan. My friend Dennis and I took a local train to her town, then walked the few blocks to her home. The tatami mats were new and fresh in the tea ceremony room in her home. It is hard to describe the smell to someone; it is almost a sweet smell. Walking across a tatami mat in your stocking feet is like getting a foot massage.

Dennis and I sat across the room from Murasaki san.ÂHer every movement was deliberately graceful, from the moment she entered the room, knelt down near the tea ceremony utensils, bowed to us, and began the ceremony. She pulled a chakin (handkercheif) from her obi (kimono sash), unfolded it, andceremoniously wiped out the inside of the matcha (green tea for tea ceremony) bowl. She refolded the cloth and placed it back in her obi. Tea went into bowl and water covered tea…I began to daydream and got lost looking at the room itself. The wood trim on the walls, the screens, the delicate scroll hanging in its place of honor, the vase with two flowers, all drew me in and away from the slow movements of the ceremony. Swish, swish, the chasen (whisk) worked the tea into a foamy green sea. The bowl was placed in front of me.

I followed Dennis’ lead and turned the bowl three times, then sipped some tea. I took the smallest sip known to humankind and found the match to be so strong, it triggered my gag reflex. I tensed my muscles in an effort to stop choking and managed to only cough instead. I had been forewarned that the tea for tea ceremony was more concentrated than the green tea I had become accustomed to drinking in the homes and schools I frequented. But no words could have prepared me for just how concentrated the drink was.

I lowered the bowl down carefully, then rotated it three times in the opposite direction. Surely everyone noticed how my tea bowl was still full. Silence was politely kept. Delicate sweet delicacies were served after the tea. I was grateful for the experience but knew it would not be repeated. It would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Tags: Green Tea, Japan, tea ceremony