TEA CONNOISSEURS

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TEA CONNOISSEURS

This particular section of the General Index may amuse the reader but in sharp contrast to that amusement is the fact that these incidents have been taken from real life.

In 1929, T’sao Hsiieh-chin and Kao Ngoh published a book entitled The Dream of the Red Chamber, a curious novel (to say the least) about Chinese life and what it means to be a REAL CONNOISSEUR of tea. The book was written in English and, if you can find it, well worth reading. In the book a nun is offering tea to two guests; one is named Black Jade and the other Precious Virtue. I quote from the book published by Doubleday, Doran & Co., New York, 1929:

The matriarch asked her what water it was, and the nun answered that it was rainwater saved from the year before;...The nun then took Black Jade and Precious Virtue into another room to make some special tea for them. She poured the tea into two cups of different patterns, of the rare Sung period. Her own cup was of white jade. “Is this also last year’s rainwater?” Black Jade asked. “I did not think you were so ignorant,” the nun said, as if insulted. “Can't you tell the difference? This water is from the snow that I collected from the plum trees five years ago in the Yuan Mu Hsiang Temple. It filled that blue jar there...All this time it was buried under the earth and was opened only this last summer. How could you expect rainwater to possess such lightness and clarity?”

George Gissing, 1857-1903, declared in his book, The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, “Nowhere is the English genius of domesticity more notably evidenced than in the festival of afternoon tea.” He went on to say:

“One of the shining moments of my day is that when, having returned a little weary from an afternoon walk, I exchange boots for slippers, out-of-doors coat for easy, familiar, shabby jacket, and, in my deep, soft-elbowed chair, await the tea-tray...Now, how delicious is the soft yet penetrating odor which floats into my study, with the appearance of the teapot! What solace in the first cup, what deliberate sipping of that which follows! What a glow does it bring after a walk in chilly rain! The while I look around at my books and pictures, tasting the happiness of their tranquil possession. I cast an eye towards my pipe; perhaps I prepare it, with seeming thoughtfulness, for the reception of tobacco. And never, surely, is tobacco more soothing, more suggestive of humane thoughts, than when it comes just after tea--itself a bland inspirer...I care nothing for your five o'clock tea of modish drawing rooms, idle and wearisome like all else in which the world has part; I speak of tea where one is at home in quite another than the worldly sense. To admit mere strangers to your tea table is profanation; on the other hand, English hospitality has here its kindliest aspect; never is friend more welcome than when he drops in for a cup of tea.”

The above is probably a purely masculine view of the subject of tea. May Sinclair, an English novelist and poet in days long gone, writes this very visual painting of an afternoon tea service in her book A Cure of Souls. The location of this scene is an English country town where all social life is centered about the parish church, the rectory, and the bachelor rector, a Rev. Mr. Canon Chamberlain. The Rev. is making a house call on Mrs. Beauchamp, a wealthy and attractive widow, who has just recently moved into the parish. I quote:

At that moment the parlor-maid came in, bringing the tea things. There was a flutter of snow-white linen and the pleasant tinkle of china and of silver, and a smell of hot butter. He rose. “Oh! Don’t go just as tea’s coming in. Please stay and have some.” ...It was delicious, sitting there in the deep, soft-cushioned chair, eating hot-buttered scones, drinking China tea with the smoky flavor (Lapsang-Souchong) that he loved, and watching the plump, but dainty hands hovering about the teacups and the dishes. Mrs. Beauchamp enjoyed teatime and was determined that he should enjoy it too. The teacups---he noticed such things---were wide and shallow and had a pattern of light green and gold on white, with a broad green and gold band inside, under the brim. His nostrils drank in the fragrance. “I wonder why it is,” he said, “that a green lining to a cup makes tea so much more delicious. But it does.” “I know it does,” she said with feeling. “There’s a house where they give you strong Indian tea in dark-blue china. You can’t imagine anything more horrible.” “It would be.” “And all teacups should be wide and shallow.” “Yes, it’s like champagne in wide glasses, isn’t it?” “A larger surface for the scent, I suppose.” “Funny that there should be light green tastes and dark blue tastes, but there are. Only, I didn't think anybody noticed it but me.” Delightful community of sense. And, like himself, she felt that these things were serious.

All aspects of tea, from the purchase to the preparation, are serious if one is to experience serious appreciation of it. Tea will give back to you exactly what you give to it (no more, no less).

The Tea Man

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