Tea: Some Thoughts Occasioned by Coleridge and a Tea Merchant
Created | Updated Sep 1, 2003
True, there is much to be said for a good strong cup of coffee. On this point Fu-Manchu is entirely in agreement with O’Brian’s Aubrey & Maturin1. Since the squabble in Boston, Americans have been a nation of coffee drinkers, most of which drink is sad washy stuff available in bottomless mugs when all that one really needs is a single cup of good strong coffee unadulterated by milk, cream, or sugar. Coffee has its place.
Coffee’s place is big, occupied by trendy people: the young with-it crowd and the ageing ponytailed set. Whereas tea just doesn’t have the cachet of coffee, but Fu-Manchu will take tea over coffee at any time. Coffee is often drunk on the go from go-cups. Everything stops for tea. Like Sydney Smith2, Fu-Manchu is glad he wasn't born before tea, especially black tea of the type blended for the British palate.
When one wakes to crawl from bed, torpid and with a squalid tongue, what better than an infusion of Nine Tana Leaves to lurch the bod back to life. When one is wilted and fractious in
the middle of the afternoon there is nothing so uplifting than a reviving cup of tea. It is not just the tea itself, though it is the prime ingredient, but the ceremony and ritual too. Quotidian
ritual of brewing tea, sitting and reading a book for an hour after arriving home from work is an efficacious way to unwind from the hurly-burly of our world.
Tea can be brewed anywhere there is water and a source of heat be it electricity, gas, the barbecue, a campfire, or camp stove: Chinese scholars have even gone to the extent of collecting morning dew with which to brew that perfect cup of tea4. Taking tea is a social event that brings people together, puts a pause to the business of life and makes time to reflect.
Tea benefits bodily health. Boiling water and infusing leaves rich in tannin purifies the water. Drinking tea settles the stomach, eases tension and uplifts the spirit, which promotes good health.
Now there is strong scientific evidence to suggest that the flavonoids in tea are a powerful antioxidant that neutralises free radicals in the body.
Fu-Manchu brews his tea from loose leaves blended by DJ Miles & Company who have been in business for more than a century. Today Derek Miles blends tea at the Vale Yard in Porlock, Somerset. To me the Person from Porlock5 is always a welcome interruption in several ways, often the harbinger of a new idea and assistant to the Muse.
