24 February 2023, San Diego, California, USA
I grew up in a home with a thatched roof. Did you read that right? Yes, indeed you did.
People who are raised in homes with thatched roofs whom also have creative seamstress mothers and a Ladies Lounge for reading the classics and romance novels cannot not enjoy tea. It is almost as if my adolescent environs petrified a love of tea in my soul, like a small tattoo no one knows is there save for me, myself and the Lord.
Over the years tea was a solitary as well as social part of my daily life. It might take place at home, in the car on the way to school, or at a hotel on the weekend, typically for a party of 3 Lynch ladies: My mother, Beetle (baby sis) and myself.
When I was very little, Beetle and I hosted tea parties, with tea sets filled with whipped cream rather than caffeine. We invited our local gals, our cat, perhaps our pup. We dressed for the occasion. This tradition of the tea party never wavered, and as I have grown over the years it has shape shifted: The business tea meeting (I do not drink coffee), morning tea walks in San Francisco during COVID1, tea meetup or entertaining with your friend when alcohol is socially frowned upon at said agreed upon meeting hour, tea before bed, tea when you’re not feeling your best, tea on a cozy Sunday afternoon when the weather is less than tantalizing, tea in a hot toddy etc.
After university, I moved to China for my first real job - I worked in the curation department at a history museum (you don’t know it, it was government run in Changzhou2 but if you’re keen to chat about obscure museums drop me a line) and volunteered at a public middle school. While living in China I was starved for human connection given the very dense language barrier my “conversational” Mandarin skills created - these skills really only served me in discussions relating to travel, food groups, countries in Europe and numbers, I crush it at numbers in Chinese. In my drought of human connection my co-workers felt bad for me, well the one co-worker who spoke English and was under 30 years old did, and she asked me what I liked to do for fun, for leisure. I replied to her with: art..dancing!3..and tea.
Post that chat, I ended up with bi-weekly calligraphy lessons with Master Wang, who spoke no English whatsoever and chain smoked cigarettes while instructing me in Chinese, a dance club with ~60, expectant 12 year old Chinese girls who were obsessed with K-pop, and a ‘Tea Club’ whose members consisted of myself, Master Wang, Mickey (my English speaking Chinese co-worker), and Rainbow (her self-chosen English name). Tea Club, while it might sound wonky, was the god damn best, we drank hundreds of different teas for 2 hours twice a week in the early mornings, Master Wang smoked up a storm, I bettered my Chinese, and we laughed, so many full belly laughs, despite not always understanding one another. During Tea Club I learned so much about tea, the different types, healing properties, how to properly brew and pour tea. Tea Club became so special to me and the other members that when I left China a year later the rag-tag-Tea-Club gifted me a beautiful tea set. I often still use it, throwing one back in honor of Mickey and Master Wang.
It is fascinating how tea has managed to become an emblem of comfort, luxury and culture, as well as a catalyst to get up and go in the morning. A complex dichotomy awaiting our investigation here at
.
Over the next two weeks, we will explore tea, its history, representation in art, host tea parties, and hobnob with experts in and adjacent to the world of tea.
As we do at , Two Weeks of Tea will feature four parts.
WIOW: Tea
What I’m Obsessed With
A complete history of tea, from its origins through to contemporary times
Vintage Finds: Tea
Tea service bits an bobs including an antique espresso cup I’ve acquired in order for my cat, Jasper, to join me in the ritual of tea at home (I know it is an espresso cup, but if we are thinking at scale then it is the size of a tea cup for Jasper)
An antique European telephone - I have a point, Your Honor, promise4
Antiquated Traditions We Must Resuscitate: The Tea Party
Join me as I host
events, beginning with an afternoon tea party. There will be three courses, a cohesive tablescape, and afternoon tea fashionsMeet the Expert: Tea
I’ll sit down with an Expert (or two) and chat tea, their tea life and how to best serve up a cuppa
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With that, Jasper and I are beginning our day with a pot of chrysanthemum tea by the fire.
Looking forward to the weeks ahead.
Until then, cheerio,
LLW
A ‘small’ city of about 5 million people, Changzhou is in Jiangsu province in China, it is positioned on the historic Silk Road and is the stop prior to Nanjing, about 115 mi from Shanghai
I have danced semi-professionally for a good chunk of my life, at one point I considered not attending university to invest further in dance - education and my obsession with Stanford University won out, spoiler alert I did not get into Stanford
Elle Woods has entered the Chat
See our Sunday Champagne article from 29 January 2023