By Natascha Mirosch
COFFEE may be cool, but it’s tea that we turn to in time of trouble.
Social lubricant, tonic, transcender of class and gender, tea arrived with the first settlers and quickly became part of our country’s cultural history.
Today, we’re inordinately fond of it, sipping 22 million cups every day. How humans came to use the leaves of the camellia sinensis bush for a drink is unsubstantiated, but according Kerry Torstensson of The Tea Centre in the Brisbane Arcade, it began with Chinese Emperor Shen Nung in 2737BC. “Apparently, the story goes that Shen Nung was boiling water outside when the leaves from a nearby bush fell into the water and began to brew. He liked the smell so had a taste and loved it.”
And in so doing, Shen gave birth to a trend whose popularity is unabated today, with tea being the number one beverage globally, after water.
Our tastes may be becoming more sophisticated, but whether through convenience or simple habit, the tea bag still rules, with 80 per cent of our cuppas emanating from it.
The humble tea bag has existed since the early 1900s when Boston tea merchant Thomas Sullivan began sending tea samples to customers in small silk bags. Some mistakenly thought the whole bag was supposed to go inside the teapot and the tea bag was born, changing to more practical gauze before going on sale commercially in the 1920s.
In Australia, the first tea plantation was in Bingal Bay, south of Cairns in 1884, but it was unsuccessful, partly due to the expense of the labour required to handpick the tea. In 1959, 130ha were planted at Nerada at the foothill of the Atherton Tableland with more success and in 1970 the first tea processing plant was built. Today, there are about 400ha in the area as well as another 120ha or so in northern New South Wales but the quantities produced are small.
“We’re not really known for our tea. Besides which, apart from Daintree tea all ‘Australian’ branded tea is blended with tea from overseas,” Torstensson says.
The camellia sinensis from which our tea comes, is a member of the evergreen camellia family native to South and South-East Asia, but hardy enough to grow in about 30 very diverse countries worldwide. The tea leaf comes from just the top two leaves (tips) and the tender unopened leaf bud, which provide the best flavour. There are three principal categories of teas – black, green and oolong which all come from the same plant but are processed differently. Black tea, the world’s favourite, is fermented, whereas green tea is not and oolong tea is semi-fermented. White tea, increasingly popular, has less caffeine than other teas and is not fermented but simply steamed and dried.
Variations in flavour within the three depend on climatic and geographical conditions as well as additives such as oil of bergamot to black tea to create Earl Grey.
At the Tea Centre they sell about 165 varieties of tea, from simple black tea to the prized silver needle which costs a staggering $100 for 50g. Produced in the Fujian province of China, silver needle is harvested only in the few days of early spring, between March 15 and April 10, when it is not raining, and only using undamaged and unopened buds.
For some, the arrival of silver needle in their local tea shop is an occasion for celebration, akin to the ceremony of the first of the season’s beaujolais arriving from France. Currently in the UK, where tea drinking is again highly fashionable, diners are happily paying up to £10 a pot for the revered silver needle tea. Not only is it one of the rarest but it’s believed that it has even higher anti-viral and anti-bacterial qualities than green tea.
Tea drinkers it seems are an adventurous lot, not only willing to pay for their gourmet addiction but to experiment. “When we first opened the shop, we really had to educate the market. Today people are so much more savvy,” Torstensson says. Even the most dubious are soon hooked, he says. “At first they don’t realise the world of tea that is out there. But as they begin to taste teas and realise how much better it is than the commercial-grade stuff we buy at the supermarket, and their palates develop, we see them coming back again and again, always for bigger and bigger bags.”
At T-Licious in South Bank, green tea and chai masala, an infusion made by boiling black tea, milk and various spices, are the most popular choices, but there are more than 120 blends including others such as genmaicha, which contains small grains of toasted rice. “It was traditionally used to pad out the tea in poorer families,” says T-Licious owner Mary McMahon. “It gives it a lovely, nutty sort of flavour.”
Herbal teas, or tisanes are also popular, she says, although coming purely from dried or fresh herbs, they are strictly speaking not tea. Rooibos, from the red bush in South Africa, is another popular choice believed to have many and varied health benefits. A sweet and slightly nutty-tasting tea, in South Africa, it’s drunk with milk and sugar, but elsewhere it’s usually served plain.
The latest novelty tea is the flower ball, handmade from jasmine tea leaves, tied into a small acorn shape and encasing lavender, jasmine or chrysanthemum. When dropped into boiling water, it opens like a flower, releasing its inner flavourings. While is sounds like something from an Amsterdam “brown” cafe menu, Buddha balls, also known as Buddha tears or pearls are popular too; small balls of hand-rolled white tea which unfurl in boiling water.
The vessel of choice is always a point of contention, with different opinions on what type of tea should be served in which pot. “I’ll always drink green tea or oolong from a glass pot, but it’s really just the aesthetics,” Torstensson says.
The exception is the Yixing pot, made from a porous red clay, which becomes “cured” or seasoned by the tea, eventually imbibing its own flavour. Enthusiasts only ever use the one variety of tea in the pot for this reason. In Australia they tend to be collector’s items, with each pot individually crafted by an artisan potter and often selling for large sums.
While most tea drinkers are generally older, there is a whole other generation getting into tea for the first time, albeit in a form that would make most traditional tea drinkers shudder.
The bubble tea craze swept across Asia and arrived on our shores about five years ago. Originating in Taiwan, each country has a slightly different version to cater for local tastes. “Here it’s probably more Western with less tea than in Asia where the taste can be more bitter or tannic,” says Michael Yoon, owner of Queensland’s first bubble tea shop, It’s Made in Heaven.
Bubble tea is made with black or green tea and milk or fruit with pearls of tapioca in it, and drunk cold. “It’s quite filling and like having a meal really,” Yoon says. The “pearls” are apparently very high in fibre and quite chewy. “People want new tastes but they are also concerned about their health and the younger generation in particular were looking for an alternative to soft drink,” Yoon says.
Health is a subject much connected with tea drinking these days. While we’ve always known taking a break for a cuppa gives us time to relax, studies have shown it can relieve stress, deliver rich anti-oxidants to the body, fight viruses, and can slow ageing, fight cancer, heart disease, strengthen bones and prevent tooth decay. However, we may be undoing all that good work by adding milk. German researchers have discovered that milk can negate the positive effects on heart health and may cancel out the cancer-fighting properties.
In Australia, most of us take milk in our tea but, according to Torstensson, it’s because we are used to inferior-grade commercial tea. “Because it’s lesser quality, we often brew it longer to get the flavour out, and then have to add milk to tone it down to make it drinkable. Often when people change over to better quality tea they give up milk altogether.”
The health benefits of tea drinking may be one of the factors for the recent boom in tearooms in Brisbane. Alternatively, it could simply be a nostalgic yearning for a more innocent, refined age. Tearooms are reminiscent of special days out, of getting dressed up and using fine china.
The notion of afternoon tea was first put forward by the Duchess of Bedford in the 1700s. In those days, dinner was served very late but the Duchess found that sustenance was needed in the long period between lunch and dinner, so she began to order tea and sandwiches to be brought to her room at 5pm. She started to invite her friends and eventually the repast became more elaborate with scones and other local pastries and cakes, toast, or crustless sandwiches. Soon the tradition spread throughout Britain and the colonies.
There’s no denying that afternoon tea continues to have certain feminine connotations. From the tea-gown wearing Victorians gossiping over a cup in the parlour to the heavily symbolic Japanese tea ceremony, women have always been involved in the serving and drinking of tea.
At High Societea in Clayfield, the atmosphere is heavily feminine, from the full-blown roses offering up their scent, to tables set with starched white linen and tea served in floral antique china. Sweets such as tartlets, pikelets and petit fours come on triple-layered tea stands. “I think it’s the daintiness of the small smoked salmon pinwheels, the tiny scones, the general petiteness of the food, that appeals to women,” owner Kathy Heath says.
“They all dress up and come in pretty frocks and love eating and drinking with fine china and being served by waiters with long white aprons. Tea has become very fashionable and in the last six months we are getting more young girls than ever before, from 18 to early 20s.”
“There’s an entire generation who’ve missed out on the elegance of the experience of afternoon tea.”
High Societea offers a choice of five different teas, but Heath says they don’t change the food items. “People love the traditional things, the little sandwiches, the scones with jam and cream and the pikelets,” she says.
At Brisbane’s newest tearoom at Siggi’s at the Stamford Plaza, tea can be taken at the elegant indoor tearoom or leafy al fresco area. There’s a menu of girly treats such as Pink Lucy cakes, petite French pastries, a pretty white jasmine and rose petal house tea and even pink champagne.
It’s a different story at Tisane in New Farm, where owner Lorraine Samson is out to pull the boys as well as the girls. “We have lots of hen’s parties and baby showers but we also have groups of men who come in for business breakfasts or morning teas,” Samson says. She deliberately sought to attract both sexes through an “elegant but unfussy decor, that wouldn’t frighten off men”.
Samson opened Tisane with talented pastry chef Renee Page who makes everything from scratch – from scones, sandwiches and petit sweets to the flavoured butters and chutneys as well as half a dozen cakes each morning, according to her whim. These may include ginger, date and apple, French tarts or chocolate torte, all accompanied by a choice of 20 or so different teas.
While taking tea is very English, not all tearooms follow the traditional formula. Thierry Clerc, owner of Le Relais Bressan in Flaxton, is creating his own Gallic flavoured version – with the cute moniker of Allo Allo.
“It will be a French provincial style tearoom with lots of art and we will serve little pastries, French-style tarts, brioche and croissants as well as different types of tea and coffee,” Clerc says.
Whether drawn towards drinking tea for its health benefits, the social aspects or simply the chance to accompany it with a biscuit or full-blown fancy range of treats, the world’s second most popular beverage is undergoing an image transformation from something slightly fusty to freshly fashionable.
