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Indian Tea Culture

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Buddhist Monk in India by Flickr user nevil zaveri, CC BY-2.0

Buddhist Monk

Tea is a way of life across most of India, cutting across income, education, and social classes. This country with a land area 1/3 the size of the United States and a population 4 times greater consumes triple the amount of tea per person as America. In fact, widespread tea consumption in India is a relatively recent trend that is forecast to increase significantly in coming years.

Indian tea consumption likely has a very long history dating back thousands of years.  Although commercial production of Indian tea only dates back a few hundred years, its consumption has been documented as far back as 750 BCE. Stories in the region suggest that a number of tribes in the region consumed tea well before the documented evidence, perhaps even referring to it as “soma”. More recent research suggests that the Camellia sinensis plant actually developed in the Mongolia region of China and then migrated along along river and trade routes to Assam and elsewhere.  Given the stories and the emerging evidence from genetic profiling of tea, it is very likely that tea has been cultivated and consumed in the region for thousands of years.

Buddhist Monks

The history of tea, from India to China and Japan, is inseparable from Buddhism, which got its start in India before migrating to China, Japan, and elsewhere. It is Buddhist monks who are credited with bringing tea to Japan from China. It is said that Buddhist monks have used tea for centuries as a means to maintain alertness and focus while meditating for long periods of time. The flow of monks, and with them technology and ideas, throughout Asia likely helped tea get its start in India, just as it had done in Japan.

Arrival of the British and the East India Company

Although tea may well have been consumed in India for thousands of years, it is the arrival of the British and other westerners which began written record and significant increases in tea production and consumption in India. While India is the second largest tea producer in the world today it was the western addiction to tea and a desire for cheaper sources which brought tea production to India. Initially tea plants were brought from China, but the discovery of tea growing in Assam, triggered the explosion of the Indian tea industry. The assamica variety of tea, it turned out, was much better suited to the region than the Chinese sinensis variety growing at higher elevations and colder climates.

Indian tea production grew significantly under the British who employed native people to work in the fields, as servants and as cooks. It was only natural that, over time, customs and cultural ideas would be exchanged, leading to a growing thirst for tea among all classes, not simply the wealthy British. It is also worth noting that tea wasn’t an overnight success in India. The various religions and casts in India each had their own timeline for adopting tea with some quickly adopting tea and others showing aversion to western ideas that took a long time to dwindle. (Roshan)

Classic Indian Tea Experience: Chai Tea

Small tea vendor in India

Chai Wallah serving the famous Indian tea.

If the Indian tea vendor or chai wallah was unknown in Western cultures, the election of Narendra Modi, supposedly a  former chai wallah, to Prime Minister of India has certainly elevated awareness of both chai wallahs and chai. The chai wallah are tea vendors operating small businesses throughout India, keeping their chai boiling to be served in small clay or plastic cups.  In particular, they serve a mixture of boiled tea with milk and spices. Origins of chai are somewhat debated, though it has become deeply ingrained in Indian culture since the British began large scale commercial production of tea.  Chai wallah are found all over India and serve not only as a place to buy tea but a gathering place for socialization, discussion, and debate.

Indian Tea Culture Today

Indian Tea bushes on a hillside in India

Indian Tea Plantation in Nilgiri

Today tea is consumed in all corners of India and is often considered a way of life. It is served by small road-side vendors, on trains, and in mills and factories. It has been popularized in literary works, movies, and even politics. Indian tea consumption has been rapidly growing over recent years and India may actually have to start importing tea to meet the demand from its people. India consumed about 718 grams per person as of 2011. This is the equivalent of about 240 cups of tea per person annually at 3 grams per cup. Compare this to America where the consumption for the same period was about 228 grams or 76 cups per person (World Tea News). The amount of tea consumed in India is even more impressive when you consider that there are over 300 million people living below poverty. The number of people living in poverty in India is, incidentally, roughly equivalent to the entire population of the United States. As the population continues to expand and reductions in poverty continue, the consumption of tea is likely to substantially increase over the coming years.

 

Sources

World Tea News, India’s Domestic Consumption, February 3, 2014, http://www.worldteanews.com/news/indias-domestic-consumption

World Tea News, Per Capita Tea, January 24, 2014, http://www.worldteanews.com/news/per-capita-tea

Formation and Expansion of Tea Culture in India, by Gurung Roshan, Kansai University, http://kuir.jm.kansai-u.ac.jp/dspace/bitstream/10112/6140/1/3-10-31-Gurung%20Roshan.pdf

Matcha: Drink Your Tea and Eat it Too (Part II)

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Photo of a single matcha green tea cookie.

Matcha Green Tea Cookie

I left off the last matcha blog with green tea ice cream.  However, there are many other ways to use matcha in cooking.

The first recipe is salad dressing.  Matcha adds a surprising kick to salad dressing, that even my five year old likes. Since you are making the salad dressing you can adjust the number of servings below to what suits your needs.  If you store this overnight in the fridge, it will separate, so store in a container where you can shake it back into its intended form before pouring over your next salad.

Matcha Salad Dressing

Serving Size 2

2 tsp. matcha

¼ cup olive or avocado oil (if you keep around other oils, walnut oil is surprising good as well)

2 tbsp. rice vinegar

½ tbsp. soy sauce

½ tbsp. lemon juice (lime juice also works here)

Start by whisking all the ingredients together except the matcha.  Then whisk in the matcha about a ½ tsp. at a time.  It may clump on you so whisk hard (or if you have one of those nifty salad dressing containers with a tight lid, shake hard).  Allow the dressing to sit for about 5-10 minutes before pouring, it allows the matcha to really incorporate its flavor.

This next recipe is for cookies.  This one took a while to get right.  I learned that matcha does not play well with most flours.  Its grassy flavor has a tendency to amplify the wheat like flavor of most pastry flours so you end up with very bland cookies that are also not that sweet.  So here I thought I would make a shortbread cookie and ended up with more of a snickerdoodle type cookie to get the tea flavor I wanted.  The recipe below includes an option for chocolate chips as my son, as one of taste testers, firmly believes it isn’t a real cookie without chocolate chips.

Matcha Cookies -With or Without Chocolate Chips

Photo of matcha green tea cookie dough in the blender.

Batter for Matcha Green Tea Cookies

2 tbsp. matcha

1 ½ cups sugar

1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)

2 tsps. cream of tartar

2 eggs

1 tsp. baking soda

¼ tsp. baking powder

¼ tsp. salt

2 ½ – 2 ¾ cup Brown Rice Flour

Turbinado sugar for topping (large granules, raw cane sugar)

Oven temperature:  375 degrees Fahrenheit

Bake time: 7-8 minutes per tray, makes around 3-4 dozen cookies

Photo of twelve freshly baked matcha green tea cookies.

Tray of Matcha Green Tea Cookies

Start by putting the matcha and sugar into your mixer or whisk together by hand.  This needs to be mixed until all the sugar is uniformly the same color green.  This will kick up a lot of dust, so put this on the lowest setting your mixer will go.  This step is critical to getting a uniform green cookie, otherwise you will end up cookies with green streaks in them, which is not very attractive. Next drop in the butter in half stick increments and beat until the butter is uniformly green.  You will need to stop mixing and scrap down the sides and the beater to make sure the sugar uniformly gets into all the butter.  Next put in the cream of tartar and the eggs.  Follow with the baking soda, baking powder, salt and then flour.  Incorporate the flour in ¼ – ½ cup increments.  Once you get to 2 cups in the mixer watch closely as you go to incorporate your last ½ – ¾ cup as you do not want the batter to get too dry.  The batter should remain shiny and sticky to both the beater and sides of the bowl.  Scrap down the sides one last time to ensure all flour is in and then pour out onto wax paper.  As this point, you can cover the mound of dough in wax paper and put in the fridge for 30 minutes to an hour to harden (less stickiness to work with).  If the sticky dough doesn’t bother you, pinch out about two tablespoons size amount and roll around in a ball and then lightly roll in a bowl with turbinado sugar.  Press the ball flat into about a ¼ – ½ inch thick cookie.  Leave a good inch to two inches in between cookies as these spread as they cook.  No more than 12 cookies per tray.  Place in the oven for about 7-8 minutes, you should see light brown around the bottom edges of most of the cookies on the tray.  When you pull the cookies out of the oven allow them to cool on the tray – about 10-15 minutes.  The dough stores well in the refrigerator or freezer, so you do not need to make all the cookies at once. Just keep wrapped in the wax paper and in a container so it doesn’t pick up odors from other items in the refrigerator.

Optional:  Chocolate chips – if you are going to put these in the full batter, use about ¾ to 1 cup of chips, and 1 tsp. of vanilla extract.  I split the batter and mix in the chips to half of the batter, so I use about ½ cup and ½ tsp. of vanilla extract.

I hope these recipes inspire you to also explore eating your tea too.

Honeybush – The Other South African Tisane

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Honeybush is closely related to rooibos which also grows in South Africa

Honeybush, also known as Cyclopia, of South Africa

Rooibos is not the only tisane which calls South Africa home. While rooibos has captured the most attention, and been subject to at least two attempts to trademark the name, honeybush is a very close cousin. Honeybush is used as a base for a wide variety of products and can be used in cooking. It is also caffeine free making it popular in the afternoon. Although similar to rooibos in many ways, it is has a bit sweeter taste providing an equally delicious infusion.

Honeybush Production

There are many similarities between honeybush and rooibos. Not only are they both from South Africa but they both come from the Fynbos region. Specifically they come from the Western Cape, South Africa, around the Cederburg Mountains. The product is chopped into fine pieces and normally fermented before packaging and shipment. As a variation, green honeybush is produced without the fermentation step. Like rooibos it also comes from the legume family, though this family is quite large and includes 16,000 others.

Though there are many similarities, there is a large difference in cultivation.  Most honeybush is harvested from 20+ species of wild cyclopia bushes. About 70% is harvested by hand in remote regions of South Africa with about 30% coming from commercially planted bushes.  Global demand from the Germany, the US, and other locations is increasing however, so this plant is increasingly planted and harvested from commercial plantations.

History of Honeybush

South African castle built by the Dutch East India Company

Dutch East India Company – Castle of Good Hope

Like rooibos this tisane has its roots dating back hundreds of years to consumption by native bushman or Khoisan people. According to the Institute for Traditional Medicine, honeybush infusions have likely been around for hundreds of years. The Dutch “discovered” it while exploring the plants and animals around a fort near what is now Cape Town when it was a stopover for trade between Asia and the Netherlands. The purchase of the Cape Colony by the British and subsequent adoption of English helped further spread knowledge of honeybush and probably rooibos as well.

Honeybush Future

Production of honeybush has been rapidly increasing to meet growing international demand for this tisane. Not only does it make a great base for caffeine free tisane infusions but there is also potential for health benefits as well.  According to the South African Honeybush Tea Association (SAHTA) which formed in 1999, there is a substantial amount of research occurring around potential health benefits from anti-oxidants and other compounds. Its consumption may help prevent cancer or offer alternatives to hormone replacement therapy.  Much still needs to be done to validate these ideas as well as meet existing commercial demand. To satisfy these needs SAHTA also actively works to improve cultivation, biodiversity, and sustainability practices to increase production and ensure continued availability.

Honeybush tea infusions are often consumed straight, although they may also be consumed with milk and sugar. Honeybush blends well with a wide variety of ingredients including ginger, lemon myrtle, lemon grass, fennel, and even caramel pieces. Be sure to have a look at the recipes provided by SAHTA on its website for honeybush tea punch, tarts, and muffins.

Matcha: Drink Your Tea and Eat it Too

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Matcha is considered to be the first powdered tea. Created in China sometime between 960-1139 CE, it traveled to Japan with the Zen Buddists. It is actually de-stemmed gyokuro. Matcha starts like gyokuro in Japan, by spending a few weeks in the shade before plucking, withering in the sun, and then steaming. At this point in the manufacturing process, the leaf is typically folded or rolled for gyokuro. With matcha, the leaf is dried flat and the stem is removed from the leaf and the remaining parts are sent through a granite grinding stone to make the finished matcha powder.

Whisking matcha ice cream.

Whisking matcha powder into an ice cream base.

There are a few different grades of matcha. The two most commonly found in the U.S. are ceremonial matcha and cooking matcha. Ceremonial matcha is usually made of 1st pluck of gyokuro and has a much more subtle grass and seaweed flavor. As its name implies, it is drunk during the Japanese Tea Ceremony. This type of matcha really should be drunk in the traditional way and not used for cooking. Cooking grade matcha is made of older leaves and carries a much stronger grassy taste. It holds on to its flavor even when added to recipes. It can also be drunk and its name in Japanese actually translates into daily matcha. However, in the U.S. cooking matcha is rarely marketed as a daily drinking matcha.

While, matcha as a drink for me is still an acquired taste. Cooking with it is super easy and it adds some really interesting flavor and color to everyday items, like ice cream. We recently tried two different matcha green tea ice cream; one more traditional and one vegan friendly.

Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream (With or Without Mint and Chocolate Chips)

Running ice cream blender mixing in chocolate chips.

Blending Chocolate Chips into Matcha Mint Ice Cream

2 cups half-and half
1 cups heavy cream
2/3 cup brown rice syrup
2 tbsps. matcha powder

Heat the half-and-half and heavy cream to 175 degrees Fahrenheit. Remove from heat and stir in the brown rice syrup. Pour through strainer into a bowl and whisk in the matcha. Cooking matcha clumps a lot like corn starch, so send it through a sifter first to make your life easier in whisking in the matcha to the milk base. Cool in the refrigerator until 40 degrees Fahrenheit (about 6 hours). The matcha will float to the top, whisk again and pour into your ice cream machine based on the instructions for the machine. If you want, add in ½ tbsps. vanilla extract and 1-2 tbsps. mint extract based on your preference, just before pouring into the machine. About 10-15 minutes into churning you can add ½ cup of your favorite chocolate chips.  Finish churning the ice cream based on the instructions for your ice cream maker.

Matcha Green Tea Ice Cream (With or Without Mint and Chocolate Chips) – Vegan

Blended matcha ice cream base.

Matcha Ice Cream Base

¾ cup cream of coconut milk (see below on how to get this)
½ cup soymilk (plain or vanilla)
½ package of silken tofu – 6 to 7 ounces
½ cup agave nectar or brown rice syrup
2 tbsps. matcha powder
Put a can of coconut milk in the refrigerator for at least 10 hours, but it hardens better overnight. The cream rises to the top of the can, so do not shake the can when you take it out. Open the can with a standard can opener and spoon out the cream into a measuring cup. The remaining items freeze nicely and can be saved to use in other recipes. Add all ingredients into a blender and blend until everything is incorporate and smooth (usually about 3-5 minutes). Put back in the refrigerator until the temperature is 40 degrees Fahrenheit (assuming everything you use came out of the freezer this only takes about 3 hours). The matcha may separate if you leave this overnight in the refrigerator, just lightly whisk by hand before pouring into your ice cream maker. If you want, add by hand ½ tbsps. vanilla extract and 1-2 tbsps. mint extract based on your preference, just before pouring into the machine. About 10-15 minutes into churning you can add ½ cup of your favorite chocolate chips.

This is just one of several ways to add matcha into your routine, even if the drink is not your thing. What do you like to add matcha too?

Matcha Ice Cream is Served

Matcha Ice Cream (With and Without Mint and Chocolate Chips)

Scented Tea – Creating Exquisite Tea Aromas

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Pearl shaped tea is often found scented.

Jasmine Scented Tea (Jasmine Dragon Tears)

Scented teas are certainly very popular. They have been around for hundreds of years and continue to be favored by many today. This isn’t really too surprising. We scent everything from moisturizers to dryer sheets and even pine scented air fresheners for our cars. In the case of specialty, loose leaf, teas, the most popular scent is jasmine though others may be used. Scenting is used to enhance the aroma and taste of many different types of teas including silver needle, oolongs, white teas, and of course pearl shaped green teas.

Most of the time loose teas are scented as a way to add value to the finished product. In other words, take an already good tea and make it a bit better through additional floral aromas. At the same time there certainly are producers who seek to scent teas as a way to hide defects or salvage teas that might otherwise not be sold. Attempts to cover up bad tea or hide defects have been occurring for hundreds of years and likely as long as scenting has been occurring. More than 120 years ago, Joseph M. Walsh noted in Tea, Its History and Mystery, “though scenting in general is supposed to be confined to the choicer grades of tea it is as often applied to the inferior sorts, with the object of disguising or concealing their defective or damaged condition, and imparting a pleasant odor, a much larger quantity being used in the latter.”

Scenting of teas is possible since tea is hygroscopic, meaning it readily absorbs both moisture and flavor. It is the same property that causes tea stored at home to readily absorb flavors and aromas from the mint or garlic stored nearby that enables tea to be scented.

Scented Tea from Jasmine

Jasmine flower for producing scented tea.

Scented tea is often produced using jasmine petals.

The production of scented tea, or huāchá, originated in China as early as the Song Dynasty (960 CE to 1279 CE) and quickly gained popularity.  During the Ming and on into the Qing Dyanasties, scented tea production continued to gain in popularity to be a large commercial endeavor with scenting of tea practiced throughout much of China.

The actual production of loose leaf scented tea begins with the tea maker selecting the type of aroma for scenting and acquiring the flowers.  In much the same way that specialized tea cultivars have been developed, so too have various cultivars of flowers used in scenting. Most notably in creating jasmine scented teas, several key cultivars have been developed for their aroma and flower style.  Similarly cultivars have been developed even to fine tune the time of day when the flowers will open after plucking with some opening earlier in the evening and others opening later.

Workers pluck jasmine blossoms early in the day looking for just the right size such that they will open that evening.  If the blossoms have already opened then they do not impart as much aroma and oils.  Blossoms that aren’t quite ready at the time of pluck will never open and thus don’t help with the scenting process.

Tea to be scented is heated to further reduce its moisture and cooled in preparation for scenting.  Jasmine flowers are selected for optimum size.  Tea is spread out in a layer and jasmine flowers spread on top.  Another layer of tea is added and so on to create multiple layers of tea and jasmine.  The mixture is left for several hours before the jasmine leaves are separated out and the tea is dried again.  Depending on the tea being made this may be repeated multiple times to create the finished product.  Great care is taken to ensure jasmine isn’t left too long with the tea and the tea is adequately dried for final shipping.

The result, of course, is a great jasmine scented tea, be it a simple green tea, jasmine scented pearls, or other types of tea.

Photo of a rose bud which can be used to create scented teas.

Scented tea can use other flowers or ingredients besides jasmine.

Scented Tea Using Alternative Ingredients

Jasmine may be the most well known flower used in the scenting process but it is by no means alone.  Since tea readily absorbs aromas from flowers, any number of things can be used in the scenting process.  After jasmine, scented teas one of the next popular teas today are rose scented teas.  Typically, black teas are scented with rose although increasingly some producers are scenting green and puerh teas.  In the case of scenting with roses some petals are often added back for aesthetic purposes. Other popular flowers for use in scented teas over the past 100 years include osmanthus, chlorantus, gardenia, and iris. Throughout history other things including seeds, roots, and dried fruits have also been used in scenting teas.

Last but not least, smoke can also be used in scenting teas, notably with Lapsang Souchong, a smoked black tea from China. Production of Lapsang Souchong occurs through the drying of tea in smoke produced from pinewood fires. It is a very distinct tea that has strong flavor and aroma and is certainly an acquired taste for some.  This tea is rumored to be one of the oldest teas still available today.

Scented teas are loved by many, though certainly isn’t for everyone. There are a great many options in scented teas and serves to add yet more avenues for exploration.  For many, scented teas may even be the first exposure to a broader world of specialty, loose leaf, teas, just as white zinfandel can be a first step toward fine wines.  If you are new to specialty teas, you may find that jasmine scented teas serving as an excellent gateway to a broader world of green and oolong teas.