#doublecuptea

FEBRUARY 01, 2017

Tea makes my world go round because it comes from all around the world. Every cup is different depending on where it's grown. Plants soak up the stories around them - roots in the ground respond to minerals in the earth, changes in the weather, and the impact of other lifeforms. Because of this sensitivity, a plant like the Camillia Sinensis (tea) can be grown on two mountain tops, treated the exact same way from pluck to packaging, and still end up tasting distinctly different from each other in the cup. That's the Terroir, the taste of a place. This month I have for you the taste of two Greek mountain tops, courtesy of Katie O'Keefe.

Greek "Grandfather" Mountain Tea

Greek "Grandmother" Mountain Tea

Katie and I have shared a lot with each other over the past six years; classes, apartments, stories, and uncountable cups of tea. Naturally, when she came back from her trip to Greece last October - she was eager to share her travels. When she told me the story behind the two Sideritis samples she brought back for me, I asked if she'd be willing to share it here as well. Happily she obliged:

Anna: Thanks for sharing your tea and travels with us, Katie! Before I let you get into the details, I have one question: why do you drink tea?

Katie: I love tea. Drinking tea is a healing experience. It warms you up when you are cold, it can aid your body in expelling unwanted guests, and it can serve as an offering of care. Searching for new teas and flavors is exciting and I love being able to share a pot of what I have found. I drink tea because I like the taste, but I love tea because I enjoy participating in its ceremony. My fondest memories of tea are those where I was enjoying a cup with another.

Anna: Another thing we share. On to this tea you brought back. I understand you picked up two Sideritis plants on your trip. One from your maternal grandmothers mountain, and one from your grandfathers. You mentioned already your grandmothers maiden name is Sideris (very close to the scientific name of greek mountain tea!) and your grandfather was Vasili Athmopoulou. What else can you tell us about them?

Katie: My Yiayia (Grandmother in Greek), who’s name was Popi Sideris, lived through 2 wars. First World War II as a child and followed by years of civil war in Greece. During World War II Karpenisi, the large town near her village, had become Greece’s Capital. It was high in the mountains and difficult to get to. As a result, she saw much war. The love of her life had been hung to death in front of her. She snuck into soldiers tents to steal bread for the starving children of her village. When she was fifteen she went to school to become a seamstress. She used the money she made from her skill to take care of her two sisters. After her sisters were married, a marriage was arranged for her in the United States to my Grandfather, Vasili Athamopoulou, who was twice her age. She was 30 and her family was worried no one would want to marry her. My Grandfather had emigrated to the U.S when he was a teenager. He worked on the railroad, laying down train tracks.  My Grandparents first met in Bermuda, where they got married.  

Yiayia's Mountain

Grandfathers mountain and cottage (Kalivi)

Anna: I know you've traveled abroad before (I'm remembering the Ataturk photo series you made on your trip to Turkey while we were studying together at MICA). How long have you been traveling to Greece? What was your last trip like?

Katie: The first time I went to Greece I was around 1 1/2 years old, too young to remember anything. We went so that my Yiayia could meet me. She had moved back to Greece, but to Athens this time. Our whole family would make the trip to visit her every 2-3 years. It had been 13 years since the last time my family and I had traveled back to Greece. I was very excited to be meeting members of my family I had never meet before. after traveling up some VERY winding roads we made it to Karpenisi. We stayed with my mother’s cousin, Mary, who lives there. As we walked around town she pointed out a very tall sharp mountain, which she called Pedistedi Vonia or Dove mountain. She told me that a certain time in the year the village would walk up the mountain and pick mountain tea.

Mom (Helen) and her cousin Mary in front of the mountains of Karpenisi

Anna: Did you get to pick tea from the mountain tops?

Katie: Unfortunately I was not there during tea picking season. But I found a small herb shop that sold some. Funny enough the owner of the shop had grown up on Long Island. She moved back to Greece to help her family through during these difficult financial times. My mother’s Cousin Nikos and his wife Eftehia(happiness) came to visit us during our stay with Mary. They took us around the country side - to all the sites and the best places to get food and Tsipouro(Greek moonshine). It began to rain, hard. So Nikos and Eftehia invited us over to their place for a nice warming cup of mountain tea.  

My greek family: round the table it's Nikos, my mom (Helen), Eftehia, and me (Katie)

She brought a pot up to boil with enough water to make 5 cups of tea. When the water was rolling with bubbles she took a bunch of the leaves, a comfortable loose handful, and placed it in the pot tapping down the leaves. She told me she would leave them to boil for 1 minute. She served the tea with local honey, that is about twice as thick as the thickest honey you could find in the U.S.. Then we made the trip over mountains to the tiny village of Agridi. We stayed in a larger village close by named Kalavryta, which was were I found the second batch of tea. It was in another herb shop. The tea I bought here looked as though it was freshly picked. It was not dried like the one from Karpenisi.

A better view of my grandfathers mountains

Katie and I got together to make both teas for a side by side tasting. The gallery below shows how we made each tea step by step. 

1. water is brought to a full boil

2. Katie devides the sprigs by eye. The entire plant is used - leaf, stem, and bud

3. gently push the dried plant into the water

4. strain the tea after 1 minute

5. 1 pot serves 6 people

6. to brew smaller batches break up the plant into a teapot and steep 5-7 minutes

Greek (Grandmother) Mountain Tea:

Appearance: small yellowish-green buds stacked closely together with little yellow flowers tucked inside. leaves are thin, fuzzy and silvered.

Wet Leaf: bright crisp herbal smell

Tea Liquor: honey colored, lightly green

Flavor: light smooth honeyed taste. Mild grassy tones - like sage without the bitterness. Slight minty quality. Katie compares it to a very light jasmine tea.

Greek (Grandfather) Mountain Tea

Appearance: large pointy spearhead shaped buds, a livelier green, and set further apart on a thick hairy stem. Leaves are much larger and still consistently green

Wet Leaf: pungent earthy spiced smell

Tea Liquor: vivid coloring like thick honey tinged with olive oil

Flavor: Richer, darker minty quality. Somewhat hard to place. It's similar to the grandmother tea but with a black pepper-ish bite at the end.

FEBRUARY 01, 2017

Barack Obama having tea with the 14th Dalai Lama (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

As I watched President Obama say goodbye to the White House last month, I reflected back on his accomplishments and the things that made him truly great. Mr. Obama made many admirable choices during his 8 years in office, not least among them being his choice of tea over coffee - which caused quite a scandal early on in his campaign (Team McCain Slams Obama for Drinking Organic Honest Tea) and later when he entered the White House, defying years of Presidential tradition by drinking out of a tiny porcelain cup:

"In the end, Viser comes up empty-handed on the coffee's source but does uncover something far more shocking - Obama isn't a coffee drinker. That's right, any time you see the President holding what looks like a cup of coffee, he's really drinking tea. As the nation mourns this startling discovery, one can't help but wonder what else the White House is keeping from the American people." (Obama Drinks Tea While White House Refuses To Reveal Coffee Source)

Our first African American President faced adversity on many fronts, drinking tea was the least of the obstacles he had to overcome in office. So I thought I would dedicate our sip of the month to him, our favorite tea drinking President: Barack Obama.

Sources say Mr. Obama's go-to tea is Black Forest Berry (from Honest Tea) but I thought I'd do him one last favor and offer some context to an off-hand remark he made when a Missouri barista recommended the lavender tea (according the the Boston Globe).

Wet leaf of French Blue Lavender I ordered at the Bun Shop in Baltimore.

"I'm not confident enough to order that"

At first glance you may be thinking, perhaps Mr. Obama is playing on the fear that drinking a flowery "feminine" tea could come off as a sign of weakness (especially to Americans subscribing to patriarchal ideals of masculinity). Or perhaps he had concerns on a grander scale, as such weakness might send the wrong signal to other world leaders, and put our country in peril. But having myself ordered Lavender tea at my local coffee shop - I believe the president was afraid of something entirely different.

Exhibit A:

Hands down my favorite tea review on Steepster

This tea is so potent even the POTUS can't drink it with confidence. My own experience with French Blue Lavender has not been any kinder. While the little purple buds are attractive, the tea has a nasty habit of reaching up into ones sinuses and never letting go. Enough said.

JANUARY 01, 2017

At least one good thing came out of 2016- I met Not Just Tea at the Sugarloaf Craft festival back in April. They had samples of their Fruit Sangria tea blend which is to die for. I had the foresight to pick up a couple other blends, enough to hold me over while I anxiously await their return to Maryland.

As I'm getting down to the last precious cup of Bella Coola, I thought I'd do a tasting for you. As you can see the blend is full of texture - lots of dry fruit here (oranges, apples, pineapple, peach) with South African Rooibos as the base. I strongly suspect that the flower petals here are hibiscus (though it's not listed on their label or website)

As it steeps the recommended 5-7 minutes (I do 5 because I can smell the potency of this a mile away - it's tangy but sweet) The tea liquor is a vibrant magenta color (hence the hibiscus). Rooibos tends to have a lot of sediment- you can see it sinking along with the concentrated color of the hibiscus. They sit on the bottom, so you have to be careful when you pour to go back and forth between the cups or else the first cup will be super weak, and the last incredibly pungent. When Not Just Teas prepares their samples, they actually boil a large batch of tea and let it simmer for 10 minutes. Then squeeze all the juices out and serve, to avoid any problems with cup consistency. 

As for the flavor, it’s rather punchy to start: tart, with a lot of sourness coming from the apple. The citrus flavors are more subdued and the whole thing fades to a delightful sugar coated fruit flavor. I’m not super into fruity or sweet teas, but this has a nice cooling effect. Sip it slowly, the tea gets more concentrated as you go, and the tartness builds on itself – drink it too fast and you’ll completely miss the subtle sweet notes at the end. This is one that changes a lot depending on what pieces you get in each cup- mine seems to have a lot more apple in it than anything else. I'd recommend this tea as a juice substitute, it's caffeine and sugar free, and is pretty close to a tropical punch, would be lovely iced, and fun for a kids tea party.

DECEMBER 04, 2016

I can't remember my first cup of tea, only that I hated it. Tea was my mother's drink, my grandmother's, my great aunt's, my nana's, but not mine. More appealing were the fizzy syrupy sodas, milk swirled with chocolate, juice out of a box. I had a young uncomplicated palate. Thankfully tastes change, it's the growing that sticks with us.

Now, the first cup of tea that changed my mind wasn't anything special- regular black tea in a stapled bag, to be sure. But it was made for me. I'd come home terribly upset over something not worth remembering now, and my mum put on the kettle. She sat with me and listened until it whistled her away, returning with offers of honey and lemon. She brought out two cups, pouring mine first before finally settling down herself. Together we warmed our hands watching the steam rise from mismatched mugs. I couldn't tell you what it tasted like, bitter or sweet, but I felt better.

I remember the gesture, and daily repeat that magic ritual, passed down from daughter to daughter: boil the water, add the leaves, steep, stir, sip, repeat. The love passed along in teacups is the same sort of love found in the stitches of quilts. It's the warm everyday kind, and it grows on you. This is what I mean when I say, I love tea.

Today, and many cups of tea later, I'm spreading the love - starting with this blog. Consider this a window into the project: Double Cup Teas, using needlework and tea leaves to transform "feminine" activities into feminist activism. There's a lot of care in a cup of tea- from the cultivating, to the brewing, to the sharing. Engaging in the ritual is one small way to take care of yourself, your community, and your environment every day. To that end, I'll be posting once a month with updates, news, reviews, teas, tips, stitches, and bitches <3 so you can make the most out of every cup.