'Joy'
The word is heard frequently when Ming Hsia Ulrich talks about tea.
Ulrich, a resident of Wyomissing and owner of the Tea Shop and Gift House in West Reading, often waxes passionate about tea.
The Taiwan native can regale the visitor with countless details about the countless varieties, about its health benefits and about its cultivation, even a somewhat controversial tale about simian involvement in the harvest.
Now however, she is engrossed in demonstrating the olfactory and gustatory subtleties of a tea she has just brewed, an oolong in a small earthenware teapot. Arrayed before her on a silver tray are the teapot and two matching sets of minuscule cups, each consisting of a bowl-shaped and a cylindrical one.
With studied poise, she pours the tea over the upside-down cups, warming them and allowing the fragrance — herbaceous and delicate — to envelop the honored guest. She fills a cylindrical cup, drains it, refills it, and holds it up to the guest.
"Just smell," she says.
To the poetically inclined guest, the fragrance evokes a somewhat exotic hillside.
Repeating the ceremony with the bowl-shaped cups, she invites the guest to drink.
The taste, imbued with leafy undertones, follows through on the promise of the fragrance. Even to a palate accustomed to the dark richness of sweet, black coffee, the tea tastes smooth and satisfying.
"Tea is one of the joys of life," explains Ulrich as she invites her guest to sit at a table set as for traditional British tea, with elegant china, folded napkins and a carrier loaded with tea tasties, chocolate covered strawberries and finger sandwiches — cucumber, tomato and roast beef.
"The British learned this from the Chinese," she says, noting that in a Taiwanese restaurant, tasty morsels to accompany tea, traditionally served anywhere between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., are wheeled out to the customers in a cart.
The examples she provides — shrimp cooked in egg-roll or cornstarch wrapping, as well as pork croquettes wrapped in thin cabbage leaves — are only a few of the many choices that might be offered at a Taiwanese restaurant, she says.
Choices in tea fill Ulrich’s shop. She carries some 100 varieties, some in tea bags but most loose.
Most Americans are familiar with black teas, named for the dark color they assume after being processed, and green tea, which has recently surged in popularity because of its health benefits.
But to the connoisseur of tea, the distinctions include white tea, the least processed of all teas, and red tea, such as a package of decidedly reddish rooíbos, an African tea.
Which tea to try if one is new to all these choices?
"Everybody’s taste is different," Ulrich insists. "If you are just starting out, I recommend jasmine tea."
She adds that this tea, a green tea typically found in many Chinese restaurants, is flavored with jasmine blossoms. Another popular green tea is gunpowder tea, while oolong is a combination of green and black.
"White tea, yellow tea, black tea, the difference is in the processing and when it’s picked," she says.
Mohammad "Sid" Sadig, a native of the northern Indian state of Delhi, says the tea popularly consumed in India, a major producer of tea for the world, is black tea. Assam and Darjeeling are the most widely known varieties.
Sadig, who owns and operates Aashiyana, an Indian restaurant in Reading, says that, unlike the Chinese, Indians add other ingredients to tea, most notably green cardamom.
As well as the milk, which is added to the boiling tea, and the sweetener, which can be honey or sugar, "There is illaichi tea, which is made with a green spice, putting two or three in each," he says. "Indian spice tea has cinnamon and cloves, and a special leaf coming from India, teze."
"If you have flu, runny nose or colic," he says, "you drink ginger tea. It’s good for you, and it relieves sinus and congestion problems."
Although it is not an item he serves in the restaurant, Kashmiri tea, flavored with pistachios, almonds and other delicacies is excellent,
"It is very complex to make, and very good," he says. "If you have a cup you will forget all about everything else."
"Tea is very important for health," he says.
"You drink coffee every day; forget coffee and drink the tea," he suggests with a gentle smile.
While Ulrich concurs that drinking tea is healthful, she singles out not just the tea for its healthful properties, but the entire approach to taking a break.
"See the pictures in the newspaper," she asks, indicating a tea trade newspaper in Chinese. Photographs show people, invariably tranquil, enjoying tea in a number of settings.
"They are drinking tea, not eating junk," she says. "Here people are always having a little snack. If you have a good cup of tea, you will want a second cup. You won’t need a dessert. "You sit down, relax. You have some joy." There’s that word again.
Brewing
a good cup of tea begins with knowing what kind of tea you are working
with, said Ming Hsia Ulrich, owner of the Tea Shop and Gift House in West
Reading.
For all teas, warm the pot first by filling it with hot
or very warm water, which is drained before adding the water for brewing
the tea.
"For jasmine or any green tea, you add the tea to the
warmed teapot," Ulrich said. "The water for the tea should be just
beginning to boil. Pour the water over the hot tea and let it steep a few
minutes, until the color comes out."
For black tea, the same instructions can be followed, but
boiling water is appropriate.
Mosammad "Sid" Sadig, owner of Aashiyana, an Indian
restaurant in Reading, explained that, in making black tea, "When the
water starts to boil, add the tea leaves and boil them for two or three
minutes, and cover the pot to keep in the flavor of the tea."
The Indian method of preparing black tea includes adding
milk or cream to the boiling water as well.
The use of spices and milk or cream to flavor the tea,
and sugar or honey to sweeten it, depends on personal preference. Among
the spices used at Aashiyana are green cardamom, illaichi, cinnamon,
cloves and teze leaves.
The following
recipes for Indian-style tea were culled from numerous recipes available
on the Internet:
Longer method
Heat half a cup
of water in a saucepan. Add 1 /2 cup milk. When mixture starts
to boil, add 2 whole cardamoms, bruised between your fingers so seeds are
exposed. Add 1 1 /2 teaspoons of black tea and bring to a
gentle boil. The tea is ready when the cardamom scent is released. Sweeten
to taste, strain and serve.
Simple method
Lightly bruise
two or three green cardamoms with your fingers and add to the warmed
teapot. Add water and tea, brew for 3-4 minutes and then pour. Drink with
or without milk and sugar.
On the Net
www.darjeelingtea.com /faq1.htm
www.tealand.com/Recipes.htm
www.seedsofknowledge.com/ teatime.htm, includes snacks and more.
www.recipegal.com/thai-tea
Tea definitions
Tea — Any
brewed beverage, usually from herbs. The drinks most commonly thought of
as tea and referred to these stories with one exception are made from
leaves of the Asian evergreens Camellia sinensis (China) or Camellia
assamica India). White tea — Leaves from the branch tips, particularly the
leaf bud. White tea is picked only in the spring, and leaves are minimally
processed — dried or light- steamed. Green tea — Tea from young leaves,
picked in spring. Leaves are steamed and/or pan fired, then rolled and
dried. Oolong tea — Leaves are partially oxidized, then dried. Black tea —
Leaves are full oxidized. Rooíbos — A red tea made from leaves of a South
African legume, Aspalathus linearis. Assam — A black tea grown in the
Assam region of northeast India. Darjeeling — A black tea grown the
Darjeeling region of northeast India. Sources: Webster’s New World College
Dictionary, Fourth Edition;
http://en.wikipedia.org; www.celestialseasonings.com;
www.tocklai.org
Contact reporter
Félix Alfonso Peña at 610-371-5078 or e-mail
apena@readingeagle.com
Monkey business
"You have only heard one side of the story," insists Ming Hsia Ulrich.
Her eyes are twinkling, but one cannot tell whether it is with mischief or from rising to the challenge.
At issue is a variety of tea called known as monkey or monkey-picked tea. Is it really picked by monkeys?
Skeptics, Ming Hsia’s husband, Roger, is one, chalk the tale up to a marketing ploy.
Doubters say Chinese tea merchants would hold back one variety of tea when selling to foreign buyers, stating emphatically, "No, this is not for sale."
Finally, of course, the buyers, adamant about sampling the tea, pried its story from the "unwilling" merchants:
It seems the best tea grows in hard-to-reach places. To gather it, the merchants would claim, the growers use trained monkeys, which instinctively detect and gather the finest tea buds.
This tea, far too subtle for Western tastes, is naturally exorbitantly expensive, beyond the reach of the Westerners.
Predictably, the Chinese merchants yielded to the entreaties and high prices offered by the Westerners.
Undoubtedly, the buyers had purchased a fine tea, but when they sampled it, were they washing down the hook, line and sinker?
Ming Hsia, a Taiwan native and owner of the Tea Shop and Gift Shop in West Reading, believes in monkeys, although she has not seen them.
"This tea grows high on a steep hillside," she said. "The farm doesn’t have enough people to pick it, so they train monkeys. And the plant grows very slowly; that’s why it’s so expensive."
Indeed, one can find tea labeled as "monkey-picked," always expensive, for sale on the Internet and elsewhere.
"It’s very good tea," Ming Hsia said. "With other teas, you get one pot from one ounce of tea. With monkey-picked tea, you get four pots because it is so good.
"Now you’ve heard both sides of the story. You decide for yourself."
Story by Félix Alfonso Peña, Reading Eagle, 3/6/05