Tea kick still going strong

Three posts ago, in July, I mentioned my love of good tea and the process of making it conveniently. Since then, the following aspects have changed:

• I use a better method for brewing tea at work;
• I much prefer plain tea over flavoured tea;
• I like to drink tea out of a nice cup.

At work I now use a Teeli infuser, which sits in a mug and gives the leaves plenty of room to expand, thus developing the flavour better than the spring-clip infuser I used to use. I heat the cup with hot water before using it, so the tea can brew in sufficient heat.

As regards tea varieties, my favourite ones at the moment are, in no particular order:

• Assam Joonktollee, a strong Indian black tea with slightly sweet aroma;
  
• Sen cha (fine Japanese green tea), a terrific mental recuperative;
• Darjeeling Goomtee, with an incredible grassy flavour, very relaxing;
  
• Sikkim Temi, similar to above but more subtle in flavour and effect;
• Pai Mu Tan, a Chinese white tea with very mild flavour;
• Keemun Mao Feng, a bold Chinese black tea with nutty overtones.

All of these have in common the property of being pure tea. They are single-source, meaning that all the leaves in my cup were grown in the same region, even the same estate (e.g. the Joonktollee, Goomtee and Temi estates, in the Assam, Darjeeling and Sikkim regions, respectively). The flavours of tea represent the soil and climate in which it's grown, just like wine. And just as a wine lover outgrows cheaper bottles that have been blended from several regions (thus sacrificing the distinctive flavour of one region for a predictable and mass-producable product), so does a tea lover outgrow blended teas, and this includes flavoured teas. Without intending to, I've outgrown flavoured teas, and rarely drink Earl Grey, Stockholm Blend, etc. It's not that I object to the flavour that is used; it's agreeable and of high quality. It's just that the tea used in Earl Grey tea (for instance) is indistinct. It's not sensible to use good quality single-source tea when the subtle flavours of that tea will be overpowered by, and may even clash with, the flavourings that are applied.

As an aside: four of the six teas mentioned above should be brewed with less-than-boiling water. It makes a huge difference. You have to be careful not to let them brew too long, too. A little knowledge (and a $7 thermometer) goes a long way.

Finally, tea cups. Not a big deal, but I've always believed that a list of bullet points should have at least three items in it. Until recently, the cup that delivered my tea to my mouth was given little consideration. A month ago, however, my better half purchased us a pair of Spode blue and white painted teacups (here's hers). At home at least, it's become a nice part of the overall experience.

At a recent "bring a plate" lunch I attended, my contribution was to make tea for everybody. I made Pai Mu Tan in a huge pot, its light flavour and healthy qualities being a good match for the rich food we were eating. Not only was it much appreciated, there was a sense of disbelief among some people that tea could be so nice. It's nice to be reminded that it's worth putting some effort into that daily cuppa.

The upper-middle class dichotomy: culturalist or materialist (WTF?)

A great quote from David Burchell's review of Andrew West's new book Inside the Lifestyles of the Rich and Tasteful:

Perhaps the most striking aspect of the culture wars has been the extent to which they have turned upon tendentious readings of the character of the Australian people. Australia’s radical intellectuals have always displayed a special penchant for imagining their countryfolk after the manner of their own dreams and nightmares, either as noble harbingers of social transformation or as dark repositories of prejudice and reaction, according to preference and circumstance.

I would really love to read a good book on the upper-middle class in Australia, in terms of economy, society, family, and lifestyle. However, it only took a few seconds of hearing Andrew West on the radio to know that this wasn't going to be that book. He presents a dichotomy of people in the upper-middle class: "culturalists" and "materialists". It doesn't even matter what those terms mean, because there's only one thing you really need to know in this world: as far as human beings, human societies and human issues are concerned, (nearly) all dichotomies are bullshit.

It's unfortunate but not surprising that West is, as usual, presenting an over-simplified point of view. When he ran a blog on The Sydney Morning Herald website, most of his articles put everything into ideologically neat boxes, with more "left-wing" and "right-wing" descriptors than I can stomach before noon. It's funny, though; when I read (ages ago) that he was doing research for this book, research involving interviewing actual families, I figured that this would force some reality into the end result.

Incredibly, having framed the book around his "culturalists" and "materialists" dichotomy, West consciously ignores the latter category. From Burchell's review: "In fact, West’s materialists aren’t real people so much as stage props. They’re standing in for real people ...". This, he says in the introduction, is because they do not make interesting objects of study. What the...?! There is absolutely no point advancing a theory if you aren't going to expend some effort justifying it with evidence and demonstrating that the theory is useful.

West isn't one of those "radical intellectuals" from the Burchell quote above. His imaginings don't proceed from dreams and nightmares; he's just over-zealous in categorisation where it's unnecessary. Anyway, I don't want to be a nark and whinge about one person's writing. After all, he writes a lot of good stuff and gets published widely. I'll still read the book, because reviews have said that it's amusing and interesting. It's just a shame I can't expect it to be too enlightening.