Later, pouring some of last year’s temple tea, he says, “Tea has so much information to give. If you pay attention, you know not only the place, but how the tree grew, even the mood of the person who processed it.” – The Life of Tea by Michael Freeman and Timothy d’Offay (page 101)
Kyle Whittington reviews The Life of Tea, Journey to the World’s Finest TeasThe Life of Tea by Michael Freeman and Timothy d’Offay
This book, in a word, is stunning, just stunning. By far the most beautiful tea book visually to land on my tea shelf. The coffee table book format and fabulous photography by Michael Freeman make this a treasured addition to any collection of tea books. Add to that the knowledge that pours forth in the words written by Timothy d’Offay and we have a truly special book in our hands.
One of the lovely things about this book is that you don’t feel that you’re rereading information on tea that you’ve read 1,000 times before. Rather, you go on a journey to each tea type, each country, region, artisan or tea house, and along the way, dotted throughout the text like so many villages amongst the tea mountains are these wonderful gems and nuggets of information. There’s so much to learn and absorb both from the pictures and the text in this book. It sits such at an unusual sweet spot where a visually enticing book meets a well-researched and written reference book.
This is not a book that requires cover to cover reading. Rather, you can pick an area and go on a journey, then move on to another. In any order. An approach that Tea Book Club members really enjoyed. The text is so well written, with great flow, great knowledge and great humanity. From historical and cultural context to processing details of a specific tea and the atmospheric approach up a tea mountain road. You really feel that Tim has been there, knows the farmers, the people, and the tea.
The large format and visual splendour of this book is, however, perhaps its biggest sticking point, as well as what sets it so beautifully apart. It’s simply not easy to read and requires effort to open and get on with. One solution is to grab the Kindle copy for easy train or bed reading, allowing you to fly through the content laden and beautifully written text without the heft and size the physical book requires.
That being said, I simply love this book… but I’d also love to see a paperback size version falling into the hands of every tea lover out there. Because really, we all ought to read this book at least once.
And here is what some of the Tea Book Club members had to say:
“A great coffee table book, the text wrapped around photography bringing it to life.” – Alison, UK
“I adore it. It’s definitely going to be a long term treasure for me.” – B, USA
“The artistic quality of the depiction is so beautiful and has such integrity. It’s connected things in my head.” – Terri, USA
“One of the strengths of this book is to show different views of what we see in every tea book” – Aimée, Canada
“This book gives you all the information like other tea books but in a very elegant way… plenty of little details, but very important ones.” – Pilar, UK
“The writing was really insightful and the photography was really beautiful.” – Karri, USA
“I really liked his focus on the people in all the different places he traveled to. His perspectives of the farmers was really really nice.” – Nicole, USA
“I’ve been drooling over the pictures. My husband is not a big tea drinker but he even picked it up and learned a lot just from the pictures.” – Terri, USA
“I love the text and I also love the pictures but I found ti difficult to read at night. But I found there was a lot of pieces of information that added a pieceto the puzzle in my mind about tea… ‘Oh, that’s the link between those two ideas!’” – Aimée, Canada
“I loved the section on tea ware, his knowledge and love for the tea ware really shines through.” – Nadine, UK
“I really really like that it didn’t have the ad nauseam facts that are repeated in every other book on tea. There’s so much in there but it’s not done in a stereotypical way.” – Nicole, USA
“I really appreciated seeing pictures of some of the behind the scenes stuff that you don’t usually see in such good quality.” – Sean, USA
“The tea ware section is amazing, you feel like you are reading about art!” – Pilar UK
Although based in the UK, The Tea Book Club is an international group of tea lovers and readers who meet up virtually each month to discuss tea books. If you’d like to join us for next read, visit teabookclub.org or @joinTeaBookClub on Instagram.
Freeman’s photography depicts every aspect of tea.
The Life of Tea: A Journey to the World’s Finest Teas
Goodreads: Documentary photographer Michael Freeman and tea expert Timothy d’Offay explore the terroir, taste, and culture of the world’s favorite drink.
A rigid definition of what makes tea special has eluded the industry. Professionals understand excellence in specific styles. For example, after 45 years of competitions there is consensus on the qualities that make an outstanding dong ding oolong as judged by the Lugu Tea Farmers’ Association in Taiwan. In France, the AVPA has demonstrated skill in determining the gastronomic qualities in tea that please the local palate. The International Specialty Tea Association posts a set of universal standards such as pluck and leaf quality. Consumers mainly differentiate by price. This week the European Speciality Tea Association announced a definition that is more aspirational than dogmatic. ESTA Executive Director David Veal explains how the association adopted this approach and why it will prove helpful.
David Veal, Executive Director of the European Speciality Tea Association on what makes specialty tea special. A field of tea in Japan
A New Definition of Specialty Tea
Aspiring to attain excellence in all aspects of tea processing and brewing from the bush to the cup
Dan Bolton – David, the European Tea Society that evolved into the European Speciality Tea Association did so initially without delineating specialty tea from the great sea of commodity offerings. That task is now complete. Will you share with listeners your process in defining the specialty tea segment?
David Veal – Three years ago, we didn’t really have a definition. [Association President] Nigel Melican had this definition in his head, but he’d never really put it down on paper. I’d been through the whole journey with the specialty coffee association of Europe. So, between us, we just lay down a fairly short definition that was open to people with different views in the industry to disagree.
We decided early on this year to set up a working group of very experienced tea professionals to really look at it and we covered a lot of ground.
Our starting point was to ask: Are we ever, ever, going to get a universally agreed definition of specialty which everybody will agree with? The answer, of course, is no, we weren’t going to do that. So, knowing that we weren’t going to achieve perfection, we looked at it from a different angle.
We still call it a definition because that has impact, but really it’s more of a description, an attempt to broaden understanding a bit and bring in words and descriptions and ideas and concepts that most people in the industry would buy into – knowing that not everybody would be happy with every part of it.
Dan – Will you summarize for listeners the fundamental concepts captured in the definition’s key phrase: “Aspiring to excellence in all aspects of tea processing and brewing from the bush the cup.”
David – We came up with a general statement that we feel is a fairly holistic view, about speciality in terms of it being a product, in terms of it being, you know the passion for excellence, the taking care at every step. Also, not forgetting the most important part is the actual sensory experience in the cup. It speaks to the education that we’ve indulged in to try and help the consumer understand more about what they’re drinking.
That indefinable subjectivity, the conceptual side of it, the community side of it, the aspirational side with the point that it is a movement as well. Speciality tea is something that some people get, and some people don’t get.
Merging all of this together we came up with a description that we feel will never be perfect for everybody, but it’s fairly close.
Dan –How will this definition make a difference?
David – Is it enforceable? No, but we’ve very firmly nailed our colors to the mast here. This isn’t just the work of the working group, it’s been endorsed by the whole of the board of European specialists, the association, and other peers as well. If you look at those parameters that we’ve actually put into the definition. A speciality tea would have to fit into all of those, for most people, I believe, speciality would have to fit into those parameters. But a tea that fits into those parameters isn’t necessarily a speciality.
Dan – Will you expand on the definition’s reference to “delicate and unique hand-crafted teas which can be categorized as speciality tea”? How does “hand-crafted” differ from “handmade” tea? Please also clarify the role of machines in processing specialty teas.
Nigel Melican [Association President] – “Hand-made” is an oft used descriptor more aspirational than actual, If it is applied in a strictly literal sense it potentially allows the inclusion of an appallingly bad tea made solely by hand while excluding a superb machine-made tea.
Personally, I have worked with a few CTC (cut, tear, curl) teas that I include as “Specialty” – due to their stunning make, bloom, grade, consistency, density – stunning to the senses even before cupping them: Rare occasional examples from a few factories in Rwanda and Mt. Kenya. Stunning enough to run shivers down my back in anticipation: but definitely not hand-made – no hand alone could produce that degree of excellence in a CTC tea. Tell me that an expensive “hand-made” Swiss watch is made without machinery – lathes, diamond drills and saws, precision jigs, CNC cutting equipment – and then I will agree to exclude machinery from the “hand-making” of tea.
Similarly, the use of novel selective plucking machinery that exceeds the leaf quality of hand plucking, such as now operating in the US to produce some supreme specialty teas would, if we use the term “hand made” too literally, exclude this excellent mechanically plucked teas from the specialty tea market.
I believe handmade is well understood by consumers to mean hand-crafted, using relevant tools of the trade: to the watchmaker his lathe and drill – to a tea maker his rolling machine and dryer. If the result is supreme excellence then it counts as a specialty, however, achieved.
For all these reasons the ESTA definition uses the term hand-crafted, not hand-made – and, to further distinguish specialty tea from commodity tea we place emphasis on attaining tea excellence from bush to cup.
Dan –The coffee industry successfully arrived at a definition of specialty leading to consumer enthusiasm that ultimately benefitted growers, but it took more than 20 years to establish the protocols that differentiate the highest quality coffees from commodity coffee.
David – I think we’re quite a long way behind the curve compared with the coffee industry. We haven’t achieved the penetration of education and level of understanding to consumers that the coffee industry does. People don’t have the correct understanding to be able to value atea as well as they do coffee nowadays. But it will follow without a doubt.
We don’t mention pricing. It’s inherent in what we believe that if we can help improve the quality that’s coming into consuming countries of specialty, then prices will go up. And hopefully, a lot of that extra margin will go back down the line to give people a better living and a better reward for putting in their love, care, passion, hard work, sweat, perspiration to make better tea.
We know that we’re up against the big, big guys, the multi-nationals, the centuries-old economic model, that drives the price down, and therefore quality with it. You have to believe that if you improve the quality and give the consumer a better experience that will give the producer a better price. We’re also aware speciality will be 5% to 10% to the market, maximum, maximum. But as it improves we’ll pull along other parts of the industry.
I had a really good conversation with a well-respected, experienced person who worked for so many of the big companies over here. He told me the other day that he believes that specialty will be the savior of the tea industry. As you can imagine, I quite like hearing that.
Editor’s note:Updated to clarify the use of mechanical devices in producing specialty tea.
The Definition
European Speciality Tea Association (ESTA) values the science and art of tea making at every level. We value the skill, dedication and care which has been applied to create delicate and unique hand-crafted teas which can be categorized as speciality tea.
We support the speciality tea industry in all aspects of tea production from bush to cup and recognise the farmers who are aspiring to attain excellence.
We also value the following factors which we believe help contribute to being able to distinguish speciality teas from commodity teas. These can include but are not limited to:
The known supplier, the known farm, the known location, the known production dates, the known processing method.
Speciality tea can also be defined by the quality of the five criteria below:
The dry leaf
The aroma of the dry leaf
The colour and clarity of the liquor
The flavour and mouthfeel of the liquor
The appearance and aroma of the wet leaf
At ESTA we also support the use of biodegradable and environmentally friendly packaging because this is an integral part of the tea industry’s future.
We believe that the consumer needs to be inspired from the moment they enjoy the aroma, liquor and taste of the tea and can celebrate in the plant’s personality, the origin of the tea, the care that has been taken in the processing and brewing of it; this being a speciality moment.
European Speciality Tea Association joins in growing an inspirational community, supporting the movement which promotes speciality tea and improving the quality of tea consumed. Speciality tea exists through the dedication of people at all levels of the tea value chain. We respect and support the person plucking the leaves, the person producing the tea to the consumer brewing the tea. Each person who touches the tea until it is finally sipped can affect the final cup and our aim is to support this and share knowledge that will improve the tea industry.
European Specialty Tea Association strives to value, support and promote the people who have this dedication and who are involved and passionate in providing perfection in every cup.
We value all of the above when considering what is speciality tea and we welcome like-minded people and or affiliates to join us in our quest for tea excellence at every level.
In summary ESTA supports and promotes speciality tea (Camellia sinensis), the community and the movement. We also support the botanical sector as an inclusive part of our organization due to its extensive synergy within the tea industry and with tea lovers and professionals.
We are a dynamic organization, we are aspirational for speciality tea, and we aim to have a positive impact on the wellbeing of all sectors of the tea industry.
The European Speciality Tea Association
European Speciality Tea Association is an inclusive organisation whose mission is to create and inspire excellence in the speciality tea community through innovation, research, education and communication.
With members from over 28 countries representing all parts of the tea supply chain from producers to tea baristas, European Speciality Tea Association is helping to generate a vibrant speciality tea community across the world and is dedicated to promoting great quality tea in all of its forms to create a new sensory excitement amongst tea drinkers. You can join by emailing us at [email protected]
La Gravitea is a remarkable tea café with hundreds of selections of fine teas inspired by the travels of founder Avinash Dugar but aside from specialty teas, what makes La Gravitea special is that the young staff are all hard-working graduates of the local school for the hearing-impaired. Aravinda Anantharaman visits this tea café with heart.
A virtual visit to La Gravitea cafe in Jameshedpur in the north Indian state of Jharkand Staff at the La Gravitea café L to R, in the front, Suraj Thakur, Chandra Prabha, Nandita. In the middle, Monika Mahato, Amit Kumar Singh, Amit Lahari. Back row, Shakuntala Hansda, Nikit Sharma and Navin Kumar
For the Love of Tea
By Aravinda Anantharaman
Jamshedpur in the north Indian state of Jharkand is an industrial town famous for its steel industry. It’s closest link to the tea regions would be Kolkata, nearly 300 kilometers away. But one man here has succeeded in putting the town on the tea map with his café, La Gravitea. He serves a dizzying range of teas from special Darjeelings and Japanese matcha to iced teas and flavored blends alongside a menu packed with popular café dishes. But what makes La Gravitea newsworthy is that its staff is entirely hearing-impaired youth.
Avinash Dugar who started and runs La Gravitea, talks about how it began. In 2015, he decided to step away from corporate life. He thought his calling lay in adventure sports but while travelling through southeast Asia he happened to visit a tea bar in Hong Kong. More used to India chai stops, this was a revelation in what a tea bar could be. Avinash returned to India, keen to start selling tea inspired by what he had seen. He set up a kiosk with 70 teas on offer, teas he had learnt to source from all over the world, brew and serve. He thought he would do for tea what the chain, Café Coffee Day has done to popularize coffee in India.
Until one day, among his customers, he saw a hearing impaired young woman. He struck with a conversation with her brother who mentioned that there were no jobs available for the hearing impaired. This struck a chord with Ashish and he decided to expand his kiosk into a full-fledged café, and employ hearing impaired youth.
The local school for the hearing impaired gave him names of their alumni who had not found employment. Avinash visited them and spoke to their families. Many were reluctant to send their daughters to work. But he went on to hire six girls, and trained them in running La Gravitea, from cooking dishes and brewing tea to operations and service. Six years have passed and the first set of girls have since moved on and he’s hired others, also hearing impaired. And tea? La Gravitea’s menu has since doubled and offers a range that includes several types of chai, tisanes, Darjeelings, and Assams to teas like Japanese matcha, sencha and Yerba mate. Along with tea, La Gravitea is is also fast becoming a museum for teaware.
La Gravitea displays a large selection of teapots from around the world. Photos courtesy Avinash Dugar.
On a Saturday afternoon, I get a WhatsApp tour of La Gravitea. I spot a teapot shaped clock, several teapots from across the world, a prized Victorian moustache tea cup procured from Kolkata, samovars, some vintage teaspoons and several collectibles. Avinash talks about a consignment that’s made its way slowly through Customs, one that holds a 4.5 foot tall teapot from China which will make him the owner of the largest teapot in the country. He confesses to a great love for teapots, adding that he has a teapot tattooed on his arm. La Gravitea is an unusual tea café, which showcases all the things its owner seems to love – teas from all over the world, vintage teapots, the French language, a desire to do good for the community.
What seems to tie it all together is that it’s all heart!
Carmel Junior College students on campus
Carmel Bal Vihar
Sister Flavian, a former principal at Carmel Junior College in Jamshedpur, established the vocational program at Carmel Bal Vihar in June 2010. The school for the hearing impaired in Sonari, offers practical skills for its 130 students because “a Class X pass certificate is not enough these days as a lot of challenges lie ahead for differently abled students as they go out in the world,” sister Flavian told the Telegraph of India.
“I decided to provide vocational training for students after some parents highlighted the employment problems faced by students after they left school,” she said. Graduates from Jharkand and many other states who attend the school have since found work as beauticians, tailors and, thanks to Avinash Dugar, in foodservice.
Carmel Bal Vihar is affiliated with Carmel Junior College establish in 1997 and administered by the congregation of the Apostolic Carmel Sisters of the Catholic Church.
Sparkling tea is on a trajectory akin to small-batch, craft-brewed beer where carefully selected ingredients are individually prepared to showcase their best characteristics. Recipes emphasize balance, with efficacy and taste foremost. Excellence in blending and brewing preserves high concentrations of polyphenols and other beneficial plant compounds with minimum calories, nothing artificial, the convenience of cans – and the fun of fizz.
Listen to the interview:
Rishi Tea & Botanicals VP Jeff Champeau on sparkling botanicals.Jeff Champeau, vice president of business development at Rishi Tea & Botanicals
Healthful Effervescence
Jeff Champeau, vice president of business development at Rishi Tea & Botanicals in Milwaukee, Wis., explains that marketing seasonality is a great way to introduce craft-brewed tea into our lives.
Dan Bolton:Jeff, is fizzy tea destined for mainstream consumption? Will authentic craft-brewed, plant-based, low-sugar, lightly carbonated genuine teas and herbal infusions overcome barriers to distribution to become a significant revenue source for the beverage industry?
Jeff Champeau: Absolutely. And that is something that all of us in the tea industry around the world should be proud of and should celebrate. This is like coming home. This is a very exciting time to seesugared soft drinks, sodas and beverages being something people are turning away from en masse. They’re looking for more healthful alternatives. It is an awesome trend. Tea has been around for 5,000 years, it’s resilient, and there’s a reason for it. Tea speaks to our soul. It’s healthful. It enlightens us. It’s one of the most ancient plants that people have ever been connected to. And it’s about time that it hasmuch of the consumer market paying attention. It’s so delicious you don’t need sweetener to appeal to the everyday palate, the everyday consumer out there.
Dan:Breaking the sugar habit appears to be a primary driver of sales.
Jeff: If you’re using high quality ingredients, if you’re using skillful blending techniques you can deliver a very interesting complex taste without added sweeteners. That’s something that people can really feel deeply refreshed by ? not just satiated. Something that tastes good that scratches that itch to refresh my palate after food.
Soda may satiate them in the moment, but you can’t have two or three or four of them without feeling it in your belly. Something that really has the kind of cleansing hydrating effect of sparkling tea — that’s something you can really feel refreshed by and drink several. That’s what we sought to achieve with the sparkling botanicals.
Dan: Tell me more about the characteristics of the new line.
Jeff: Our sparkling botanicals are brewed using real plants to deliver real virtue. They’re the same super premium direct trade botanicals and teas that we use in our loose leaf and sachet tea blends, many of which are certified organic.
We microbrew them using proprietary brewing techniques to yield a really balanced and craft brewed tea that is sparkled up with a carbonated water.
Using rare citrus and achieving a unique balance with teas with herbs, botanicals, spices, were able to develop, a two-year shelf life product with no added sugar, no added sweeteners of any kind, nothing artificial, only zero to two grams of sugar per can, using real infused fruits like berries or citrus.
Micro-brewed sparkling teas and botanicals
And these offer only 5 to 15 calories, which is really speaking to the fact that they have real plants.
It all comes down to that part of the balance. You’re getting the balance of the polyphenols, the tannins that are extracted, whether that’s from tea leaves or from of the super fruit botanicals and fruits that we’re using in some of the profiles.
We have six tasty profiles, with two more scheduled to be introduced online later this year for distribution next spring. Our MSRP is from $2.99 to $3.49 per 12-ounce can. Ordered online a 12-pack sells for $40. Subscribers pay $36.
Schisandra berries grow like a grapes on a vine. The taste is a balance of sweet, sour, salty, bitter and pungent.
Dan: Will you describe the functional plant-based ingredients in these blends.
Jeff: The Schisandra Berry from Northeast China is just amazing. It is an adaptogen that helps the body regulate physical and mental stress. It is used in traditional Chinese and Korean medicine. It’s also been used for centuries as a beauty tonic, to detox the liver, to maintain healthy skin and even an aphrodisiac.
It is called the five-flavor fruit. The outside of the fruit is a little bit salty, the flesh is sweet and tart in a nice balance. The pit is bitter and pungent and a little spicy. It is a mood booster said to deliver energy to the five meridians and to balance chi. It has an amazingly refreshing character with a color like a sparkling rosé.
Schisandra Berry – An adaptogenic elixir crafted from a single ingredient: forest grown schisandra berry.
Turmeric Saffron – This is a blend of tangy Golden Berries from the Amazon, lush California lemons and fragrant saffron, the most expesive spice in the world. The ingredients are steeped with forest-farmed turmeric from Burma and jungle-grown green cardamom from Guatemala. The saffron delivers an amazing hue to the infusion. You can really see that there are real plants used to make these drinks.
Black Lemon – Black lemon is a high caffeine blend of black tea from from Northern Thailand with a combination of California dried lemon and black lemon from Guatemala. The Guatemala lemon uses an ancient Persian technique to ripen and oxidize the the lemon – a kind of food preservative. It has a bright, citrusy flavor with a malty finish. There are about 50 milligrams of caffeine per can.
Dandelion Ginger – My personal favorite contains dandelion root for detox and ginger. It is an anti inflammatory blend that also features a really cool type of tea called Kuro Koji, which is a Japanese green tea that’s fermented with the Koji yeast that’s used in fermented foods. The dandelion root is roasted and the ginger we use is prized for its pungency, aroma, and spiciness. The combination is craft brewed and combined with red chili and detox tonic herbs. It’s like a ginger beer with zero added sugar that offers satisfying depth and heat.
Grapefruit Quince – This blend elevates everyday replenishment with juicy hibiscus, aromatic yuzu and succulent quince. We were inspired by traditional Korean herb teas that feature quince to soothe and support easy breathing. Hibiscus is enjoyed throughout the tropics for refreshing, cooling energy and is widely regarded to help lower blood pressure, promote arterial health and support metabolism.
Patagonia Maqui – Wild-foraged maqui berry stimulates the palate with accents from red wine grape skins and forest berries to create a sophisticated flavor with an almost wine-like profile. Maqui berries are a prized source of antioxidants like anthocyanins and have been traditionally used by the people of the Patagonia for vitality and cleansing. The Maqui berry is harvested from the Patagonia region of Chile. It brings to life different kinds of health functions that are derived from a variety of ingredients. This one is great on the way to work, at mid-morning break or as something to go with lunch that offers a little caffeine to support digestion. At the dinner table it can be served as an alternative to wine.
Dan:Will Camellia sinensis or herbal infusions win the race for market share?
Jeff: I think herbals will lead in North America, there’s a greater variety and different colors, different levels of tartness, ingredients that appeal to the younger drinkers that are maybe newer to the category, but I don’t think that means that we should refrain from using real tea and in developing the lines out further.
Dan:How will tea companies win over the hearts and minds of consumers with respect to the healthful benefits of tea?
Jeff: Tea is part of a broader natural products industry in North America, and I think sometimes what we get wrong in the natural products industry is the too much hype around a particular tea or a particular botanical or herbal ingredient. Being on trend can be exhausting for the consumer. It can treat tea and herb like fashion. Tea isn’t fashion, but that kind of misses the real charm of tea. Tea is not fashion. It’s ancient food and medicine.
Tea can connect us to the rhythms of nature and to the planet. It can access to people far and wide; the growers, the plucking teams, the artisans, and leaf processing teams, the worldwide traders and promoters of tea, the baristas, the grocery merchants, the consumers. But how can farmers and producers be sustained if their particular crops are hot in the market for two years, only to slow down as some other trends takes off?
So, I think the question is, how do we how we choose to market tea and botanicals in a way that really encourages a deep and steady and earnest interest into infusing tea into our lives.
Tea is an agricultural product. It has these different waves of the harvest that come throughout theseasons. Year to year those,harvests are going to fluctuate naturally as mother nature gives us what she can.
If you ask most tea professionals, what’s their favorite tea, most will likely tell you what their favorite tea is, at that moment, because they’re plugged in to the harvest calendar, they’re tracking with what’s fresh and in season.
Botanicals have their own harvest seasons and new areas of cultivation. If we cultivate a seasonal approach and recognize that, tea, herbal teas, botanical spices, a part of our broader choices in diet and in what we choose to consume.
It’s good that we introduce variety into our diet. And it’s good that we introduce variety into our tea habits, too, and embrace that seasonal rhythm of the harvest.
We have an opportunity to really cultivate a dynamic tea culture in North America that celebrates the seasonality of tea. Not every tea is going to be consistent. There’s a beauty in the variety and some of that unexpected that can come year to year and season to season. And we should have a reverence for the tea traditions, connecting us to the deeper philosophy of tea. But we should also feel a sense of creative freedom to draw inspiration from those traditions to offer the North American market new and exciting ways to infuse tea into their lives.
In doing so we’re going to open up their minds to thinking about tea as something that they choose to drink and enjoy on the daily basis, maybe at some different occasions than we might expect.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
Sparkling Botanicals
“We want to focus the passion and creativity of Rishi’s amazing team on something totally new and exciting — something that honors our enduring relationships with farmers and tea drinkers while transcending our core business of dried teas and botanicals. As a selector, importer and taste maker, our natural progression is to make beverages with teas and botanicals that are ready to drink. People love our teas but have less and less time to brew them. Tea drinkers are moving to bottled and canned teas to save their time but have few options that offer premium botanicals and high-end teas brewed without added sugar, sweeteners or acidic preservatives. Our new line of Sparkling Botanicals elevates RTD with craft brewing and meets this demand for real plants with real virtue.”
Our guest this week is Maria Uspenski, a cancer survivor, and author of Cancer Hates Tea. In 2004 Maria founded The Tea Spot, a tea wholesaler and teaware design company in Boulder, Colo. Join Herbal Collective Magazine publisher Marilyn Zink, as she discusses with Maria the importance to overall health of herbal adaptogens and their role in blends with tea, itself an adaptogen.
Maria Uspenski on the role of adaptogens and teaGoddess Women’s Teas blended for women in three stages of life.
The Tea Spot is a Public Benefit Corporation and Certified B Corp that donates 10% of all profits in-kind to cancer survivor and community wellness programs. To date the company has donated more than 10 million cups of tea through its 10% For Wellness pledge.
Marilyn: Maria, will you tell us how herbal adaptogens got started and why?
Maria Uspenski: Adaptogens were classified in 1950s by a Soviet scientist who was looking at ways to reduce stress for combat pilots that came from being in rapid fire combat, but also because of being at such high altitude and dealing with such intense sunlight.
And I thought, wow, that’s super useful and something that could be good for me, and I started reading very intensely about this and then, when the pandemic hit, “I’m like wow, this is it. We really need to nurture people with something that can be supportive.”
Our Adaptogenic Chai came out with literally 12 different strong adaptogens, and so these adaptogens have the ability to bring balance to your body, regardless of which direction the stressor is coming from.
So let’s go back to that combat pilot for a moment, so he may have an incoming threat for which he needs his energy level to go up for where his system is responding from a low point. He needs to be brought up. The adaptogen will give him that boost, or say he’s just been shot at and is a little frazzled and needs to back down. The Adaptogen can bring him down, so that’s referred to as a nonspecific response.
That’s the first requirement for being an adaptogen. The response needs to be nonspecific, and that means it can either bring you up when needed. It can give you the lift when needed, or as we say, it can give you a gentle kiss on the forehead.
The next requirement for an adaptogen is that it needs to be a natural substance, so a plant. So generally, we use herbs, flowers of herbs or roots or mushrooms in our adaptogenic blends.
And the third thing is that it needs to be otherwise non-harmful, not affecting other physiological biochemical processes in your body.
So those are the three requirements.
Camellia sinensis is a secondary adaptogen. Secondary adaptogens are adaptogens which will support the effect of other adaptogens in your body. It has a very magical amino acid called L theanine and that is very good at balancing mood.
So, it’s not a primary adaptogen in that it will give you that big boost or bring you down when needed, but it offers kind of a supportive aspect of that.
Things like ashwaganda, chaga mushroom, reishi mushrooms, dandelion root, and Rhodiola which is actually my favorite adaptogen, those are all very strong primary adaptogens.
We just launched the Goddess Collection, a line of three teas to support women in different stages of their lives.
Venus Rising is one for women when they’re going through their PMS, part of their menstruation cycle, and the adaptogens in that tea and interestingly licorice, which is a strong adaptogen, fennel and St. John’s Wort. There are other herbs to help with cramping and digestive relief, but those are the three primary adaptogens in that tea that help with mood and centering and balance.
The second tea is for new moms, for lactation, and it’s called Mamahood. The primary adaptogens in that tea are fenugreek seeds and oatstraw with blessed thistle, and alfalfa blended with non-caffeinated red rooibos.
The final tea, I am most excited about, is a lemongrass blend. Lemongrass is not an adaptogen, but the strong herbal adaptogens in that tea are black cohosh root, which Americans have used for women going through the menopause phase of life for many hundreds of years.
Dong Quai, which is also known as Angelica sinensis, is a traditional Chinese medicine for the symptoms of menopause. Most of these are for hot flashes and vaginal dryness. So literally, you know they have fetal-estrogenic qualities, so these are not teas that women should be drinking when they’re pregnant.
Polyphenols in tea. Illustration courtesy of The Tea Spot.
Marilyn:When you say that people who are looking for tea now, they’re not thinking tea is just something to drink?
Maria: There are people that just look to tea to get them warm and have a delicious beverage, but statistically speaking, in North America 76% of herbal tea purchases are for whatever function that herb can bring people.?
Marilyn: Is there a certain amount that someone needs to drink or certain frequency?
Maria: That’s a very valid question, too much of any good thing is not a good thing, right?
Adaptogens are classified as not having a negative effect on other functions. It’s using it daily for a certain amount of time.
We don’t instruct people to make decoctions, to cook these teas on the stove, but honestly, you’re better off cooking it because you are talking about roots, cloves. You want to hit herbs with boiling water or as hot as you can get it in whatever environment you’re living in. And if you have the time and you have the tea loose, cook it on the stove.
I like to take our adaptogenic Chai loose and cook it on the stove for 10 to 20 minutes. I like to cook it and then those roots and herbs just keep on giving.
In my mind it brings me back to center. In reality, it probably does that only because I drink it daily or every other day.
Marilyn:You talk about adaptogenic herbs for women, what about for men?
Maria: My species obviously needs to reproduce, but I don’t need to reproduce today, tomorrow, yesterday, in order to make it to next week. Those hormones that I need, you know, pituitary, thyroid, those hormonal functions that are most important are not for women only.
Digestion is one of the symptoms that comes out of hormonal digestive problems. A large part of what we help with is called belly pain and digestive issues as well, which of course concern men almost as often as they do women.
Digestive health is just as important for both genders. In our Adaptogenic Chai, organic maca root and Slippery Elm are two of our favorite ingredients. Slippery Elm is amazing for digestion.
Adaptogens that target reproductive hormonal function have also been shown to be effective for prostate health as men age.
The ingredients in The Tea Spot’s Adaptogenic Chai include organic roasted dandelion root, organic chaga mushrooms, organic ashwagandha, organic rhodiola, organic cardamom seeds, organic cinnamon, organic slippery elm, cascara shells, organic ginger, organic raw cacao nibs, organic cloves, and organic maca root.
Marilyn: Isn’t it wonderful when you think something as simple as tea can be so healing for people.
Maria: It’s fantastic. The biggest impact is when a customer will reach out and say, ” ‘you know, your teas and drinking them regularly has really changed my life.’ ”
The Tea Spot blends a full line of functional whole leaf teas
Empowering Wellness
Loose leaf tea became an integral part of my recovery from cancer and continues to be a key component of my daily health regimen. The simple act of preparing loose tea is likely just as therapeutic as the tea itself. It gives me great joy to be able to share this with others and I am continually inspired by the people who courageously and actively fight to survive.
The Tea Spot is committed to spreading health and wellness through whole leaf tea — every day. The company crafts teas of exceptional quality and designs innovative Steepware that empower people to lead healthier lives. Our customer community actively participates in this mission through our 10% For Wellness. As a “Best for the World” certified B Corp, our company is recognized for infusing the goodness of tea in communities near and far.
