A Perfect Cup of
Tea
Noa Jones FALL 2012
tricycle
How to Avoid the Many Pitfalls of Tea
Brewing
I am real, and the tea is real. I am in the
present. I don’t think of the past. I don’t think of the future.
There is a real encounter between me and the tea, and peace,
happiness, and joy are possible during the time I drink.
—Thich Nhat Hanh
It could be a poem or a novel or lyrics to a
blues ballad, I’m not sure, but I’ve been keeping a list of all the
terrible, no good, very bad cups of tea I make. There are just so
many ways it can go wrong.
Like the time I was trying to be considerate
by preheating a special guest’s tea cup with hot water and then
forgot and poured the tea into the full cup (the light was dim).
Like all the times I’ve tried to be thrifty and reuse old leaves or
old bags well past their point of releasing any worthy
flavor.
Then there was the time the lama casually
mentioned that when he was growing up in Sikkim they used to toast
the Darjeeling tea leaves before brewing. How many times I burned
the leaves that summer. Such bitter cups I served, with shaking
hands and rattling spoons.
And the oolong, oh, the oolong with its testy
time limits and tiny cups. The bitter chai with ginger stewed too
long or overly biting cloves. The tasteless maté in that
complicated calabash gourd with the metal straw. Lady Grey served
in a chipped cup. Curdled black currant, coffee poured in tea, tea
poured in coffee. Tea made in anger, tea made in haste, tea made
with tears. Tea on the counter. Tea on the floor. Tea on my knees.
Tea on the doorstep as I try to turn the knob while holding a
carafe in one hand and the saucer set in the other.
Burning the milk is one of the gravest tea
misdeeds in the eyes of some Tibetans. But it’s so hard to keep an
eye on hot milk. So innocent as it trembles in the saucepan, but
blink and it’s racing to the lip of the pot. The foam mushrooms out
and over the edge onto the stovetop, where it blackens the burner.
Once, after I produced such a mess in the presence of a lama, the
monks were quickly summoned to do protector pujas. It turns out
there are a few female deities who are offended by the smell of
burned milk, and they are not to be messed with.
All these terrible cups of tea were the result
of mindlessness, not paying attention, losing track, multitasking.
But there have been other times when it’s gone all pear-shaped even
when I’m really, really trying. There’s that one pretty pot I love
to use but whose spout is angled in such a way that the tea insists
on alternately shooting out over the cup and dribbling down the
side. No one can predict the sweet spot, and there’s always a
spill.
In a way, a perfect cup of tea is a miracle of
causes and conditions, and when one meets our lips, we should give
praise.
When you hold your cup, you may like to
breathe in, to bring your mind back to your body, and you become
fully present. And when you are truly there, something else is also
there—life, represented by the cup of tea. In that moment you are
real, and the cup of tea is real. You are not lost in the past, in
the future, in your projects, in your worries. You are free from
all of these afflictions. And in that state of being free, you
enjoy your tea. That is the moment of happiness, and of
peace.
—Thich Nhat Hanh
Good Old-Fashioned Sun Tea
My friend Wyatt lives in a house with
solar-heated water and swears that he can feel the sunshine on his
skin when he bathes. If you believe that, you might also taste the
sun in sun tea, and you’ll definitely save a few shekels on fuel
costs. Find a big empty jar like the kind restaurants buy for
industrial-sized quantities of maraschino cherries or pickles. Make
sure it doesn’t smell like pickles or maraschino cherries (apple
vinegar cleans well). Fill it with water, praise Mamaki the water
dakini. Put some tea into the jar, about 3 bags or a sachet of
loose tea (strawberry, peach, rose hip, spearmint, lemon, or black
tea all work well, but not together, obviously) and stick it in a
sunny spot. Revisit after about six hours and you will meet your
tea. You can add honey or juice to sweeten (a cup of cherry, apple,
or grape will work well). Then you can get creative with garnishes
and flavors. Fresh mint and strawberry go well together. Boil up
some ginger and add to the lemon tea. Women might try 4 bags of
Yogi Woman’s Moon Cycle Tea, then adding half a cup of unsweetened
cranberry juice and a bit of chasteberry tincture for a soothing
tonic. Don’t brew the black tea too long, or the tannins will
become bitter. Serve in jars on a checkered tablecloth.
Perfect Cold Brew Coffee
This is the best way to make iced coffee.
Place one cup of ground coffee in the jug (my favorite brand right
now is Boxcar Coffee from Boulder) with 4 cups of cold water. Let
it soak overnight. Sleep well. Strain out the coffee grains using a
drip coffee filter, then pour the thick black liquid back into your
jug. This part can be messy unless you find proper implements. It
will last for weeks if you keep it refrigerated. This jug of
condensed coffee is your base for either cold or hot drinks. It’s
less acidic, smooth, and strong. For hot coffee, pour an ounce of
the jug coffee in an un-cracked mug and dilute with hot water to
taste. For iced coffee, find a tall glass and fill it with ice
cubes, pour the jug coffee over it, and imagine the cracking sound
is the ice laughing. Dedicate the merit. If you take sweetener,
simple syrup (a mixture of 1 part water to 1 part sugar, boiled
together) dissolves better. Wish sweetness in a sour person’s life.
Add a shot of cream, condensed milk, or full-fat milk on top and
watch the paisley patterns curl into the blackness. Remember to
enjoy it.