I was introduced to the pleasures of white tea as a beverage many years ago
by a British college friend with an almost comically
stereotypical tea
fetish. In addition to being an
absolute fiend on the footie field, and a handy way to
meet attractive women, he was insistent on making and serving a proper British Tea a few times a week, when we lived in the college
dorms.
This being Southern California in the mid 1960's, tea wasn't
the most currently trendy stimulant on offer, but Richard found a
ready acolyte for his tea companion in me. I've always appreciated those who
take what they do seriously, no matter what it is and Richard treated the
creation and serving of tea as an art form, comparable in rigidity and
understated elegance to the Japanese tea
ceremony. After establishing that
I was worthy of instruction, he took me on a grand tour of tea, encompassing the entire oeuvre from Oolong to Lapsang Souchong, Lung Ching to
Jasmine, Herbal tea to Chai. All prepared meticulously and served with an
obsessive reverence.
This interesting and tasty journey culminated with the ceremonial presentation one sunny morning of what Richard called the finest and rarest of
all the teas: White Tea. He explained that most White Tea was Chinese and that
it comes from the Camellia sinensis plant just like black and green teas.
Unlike other teas, it is harvested before it reaches full maturity and the
leaves have fully opened. The tea buds are covered with thin silver hairs
and are steamed and dried immediately after harvest to reduce oxidation.
Once harvested, the leaves are scrupulously kept away from sunlight to prevent
the further production of chlorophyll. The brand we had that day was Star of
China White Tea, a blend of Bai Hao Yinzhen and Bai Mu Dan teas from
the Fujian province.
I was surprised to learn that you never used boiling water to make White Tea
because it "bruised" the flavor. Richard delivered my first
sample in a Japanese ceramic teacup and watched expectantly as I took my first
sip. I have to admit to being underwhelmed at first because the flavor was
so light. I thought for a moment that he'd pulled an elaborate joke on me,
but I held the second sip a bit longer in my mouth, as you might do when
drinking a good wine, and enjoyed a more subtle sensation that was as much aroma
as taste. An envelope of experience.
After graduation, I lost touch with both Richard, and tea. Many years
of messing around in boats steered my taste towards coffee. Later, with the demands of kids and careers, I became less and less
fussy about the provenance of my caffine: hot and black and close at hand.
The rise of the Starbucks era and a modicum of fiscal viability started me back
on the path to caffeine cred, but I never again wholly realized the
subtle joys of a proper English Tea, much less the gustatory pleasures of White Tea.
It's interesting how smells, much more than tastes or sounds, can become
associated with emotions and persistent memories. I was recently reminded
vividly of my British friend, and our morning teas when I opened a copy of
The New Yorker magazine. In fact, I found it inexplicable that I should be
thinking of Richard that afternoon, because nothing in the article I was reading
was remotely related to either tea or England or Richard. An anomaly, duly
noted and politely ignored.
When it happened again, a week or so later I was jerked to attention.
What was going on? I was once again sitting in a window seat,
sipping a glass of Australian Merlot and reading, Wired magazine.
Richard, and tea drinking were suddenly front and center in my consciousness, annoyingly
so, and I didn't have a clue as to why. It was only when I turned the page
in front of me that I understood. I saw a glossy advertisement with a
scratch-n-sniff strip and the words "White Tea," proclaimed at the
top. Suddenly I became aware of that unmistakable thin and clean fragrance. When I
pulled open the scent strip, I was engulfed in a perfect cloud
of White Tea gas that simultaneously bellowed off the page and summoned up an
almost hallucinatory memory of Richard, and the ceramic cup and that first sip.
Enveloped in experience once again, only more so because the scent of real White
Tea is faint and subtle and this was almost overpowering.
It turns out that the Westin Hotel chain is mounting a major advertising
campaign hoping to associate their hotels with the scent of White Tea.
According to Diedre Wollard on the Luxist.com website, Westin will be hosting
ads for the campaign in Vanity Fair, Simple and Gourmet as well as The New
Yorker and Wired magazine, where I had stumbled onto them. Given the powerful memory
association that I experienced with the fragrance, I think they may be on to
something.
It's also fortuitous that the general character of the White Tea scent is
fresh and a little soapy, evoking a clean batch of laundry dried in the
breeze. Whether or not it will catch on with the general populace is
anyone's guess, but I noticed dozens of website sources for very high quality,
and pricey White Tea in researching this piece. I also got a chuckle out
of the following breathless consumer's first impressions:
I can't believe they were moronic enough to introduce this new scent and
not have it part of the Westin store they're already running to sell other
stuff ranging from beds to dog gear. Why not get me used to this smell at home
so that being in their hotel feels like being at home? Good lord. They
saturated the market with this odor (which I happen to love and would
seriously overspend to get), but haven't made it available for consumers.
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb.
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More info?
1 http://www.luxist.com/2006/03/25/will-a-scent-make-you-choose-a-hotel/
2 http://coffeetea.about.com/od/typesoftea/a/whitetea.htm
3 The E2 nodes Tea and The Schools of Tea are excellent background reading, and be sure to read Making a decent cup of tea for an example of E2 at its
most delightfully idiosyncratic.