Back in June, my friend Aaron asked me, “Why haven’t you ever thrown a tea party?”
To which I responded with, “Huh . . . why haven’t I thrown a tea party?!”
Then the ol’ mental gears started a-turnin’. In a few short months, my 40th birthday was coming up. I didn’t drink alcohol anymore, and other forms of mid-life debauchery bored me. The decision hit me like an Assam-fueled caffeine jolt.
Mad Hatter Tea Party!
In 2003, husband and wife team—Victor Vesely and Margit Nelleman—purchased an old cattle and horse farm near the small town of Westholme. It was located in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Their first inspiration was to create an “Artfarm”, where they could grow herbs and produce, as well as sell some of Margit’s handmade pottery wares. In 2010, after hosting various events and attending others, they decided on a new focus. They would turn their tiny corner of Vancouver Island into Canada’s first tea farm.
Image owned by Westholme Tea Farm
And I’ve been stalking monitoring their progress ever since.
The Kanchan View tea estate in Darjeeling has a rough history.
Photo by Rajiv Lochan
The garden was first established in the 1880s, where it first went by the name “Rungneet”. At the peak of its hundred-plus-year production, the 250-acre garden accounted for at least 100,000 kilos of tea a year. Now? It only does about ten percent of that. The reasons for this are long, complicated, and varied.
In the spring of 2013, I tried a tisane made from the dried leaves of a Hawaiian coffee plant.
Arabica coffee plant. Image owned by Wize Monkey.
And I wasn’t a fan.
The flavor was not overly offensive, just . . . herbal. And nutty. Nutty-herbal. Okay, on “Internet” paper that doesn’t sound too terrible or unappetizing, but it wasn’t very palatable, either. It reminded me of nettle leaf that had gone slightly off. It would take another two years before I’d revisit the prospect of trying it again.
At World Tea Expo 2015, such an opportunity arose. The culprit? Wize Monkey.
The definition of the word “totem” is thus: “A natural object or animal believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and adopted by it as an emblem.” It is derived from the Native American language, Ojibwe; the word, dodaem.
The concept, however, is not limited to just Native American cultures and religious practices. Many cultures worldwide also place such significances on totems as well. Totem poles, on the other hand—at least to the tribes of the Pacific Northwest—use these objects and animals as family crests and as a way to recount stories of that family group’s past.
So why did a tea company use “Totem” in their name?
I’ll get to that.
It may be a surprise to a lot of people, but Brazil used to produce a lot of tea. As early as 1812, even. The ugly truth of it was, though, most of those old plantations were dependent on slave labor. When slavery was abolished in 1888 . . . tea production collapsed.
Enter the Japanese.
Over the years, I’ve had some fun at the expense of Guan Yin—the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
Whether portraying her as having an illicit affair with Scottish botanists, or depicting her as a scorned goddess seeking vengeance against the writer of the illicit affair (me), I can’t say I’ve dealt with her fairly. Hilariously, yes . . . but not fairly. However, there is one area where her namesake is applied where I have held back my more idiot tendencies. That, of course, is in regard to the tea bearing her name—Tie Guan Yin, or “Iron Goddess of Mercy”.
It’s officially the first day of September. The outside temperature has dropped twenty degrees. Skies are gray, and big-ass raindrops are falling. Yep, summer time is just about over.
And I couldn’t be happier.
Not that I bear summer any ill will in general, and not that this summer was bad, but—y’see?—I’m a fall kid at heart. However, to usher summer’s drunk arse out the door, I thought I’d reflect on the good moments of the last three heat-searing months. And, of course, all those great moments involved tea. And, sometimes, even people.
In order to wrap up the summer in a quickie fashion, Rachel “I Heart Teas” Carter gave me permission to mooch her “Photo Micro-Blogging” format. Just this once. Brace yourself, it’s time for a breakneck Summer Time Tea . . .
Growing tea in Germany . . . of all places . . .
Image mooched from Wikipedia. Creative Commons, foo!
Blame Wikipedia for putting that fantasy in my head. I remember reading up on tea customs in European countries, and there was a sub-section on East Frisia. It was one of the few regions in Germany that even had a tea culture to speak of.
In mid-June, I made a trip to Las Vegas for World Tea Expo, 2016. (As you, fair reader, already know.) It fueled at least six blogs that took me all summer to write about. (They can all be found on my tea blog.) But there was one tale I forgot to tell. It only . . . “kinda” has to do with tea.
I had one more day in Vegas after that whirlwind convention week. For some reason, I scheduled a flight for two days after the Expo. I figured I needed a day to decompress, and—as luck had it—I had friends in the area. Team Bootleg Botanicals—Ryan and Melanie Belshee—agreed to put me up for the night.
Who are Bootleg Botanicals?
Image owned by Bootleg Botanicals.
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