Enjoy your tea, like a fine book

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. I started the year with the good intention of reading more and reading more attentively. I reached for Mortimer Adler’s How to Read a Book for advice.

First written in the 1940s and updated in the 1970s, the book was intended to nudge people to read more systematically, analytically and consistently. Weirdly enough, many of Adler’s recommendations can easily apply to promoting a culture of tea. Adler himself writes in the book, “The beauty of any work of art is related to the pleasure it gives us when we know it well." It sounds snobbish but if you think about it, it’s not unlike genre against literary fiction or fast food vs slow food.

I may or may not follow Adler’s advice on reading, but here’s my very loose adaptation of it as we embark on another year of tea discovery. • We are programmed to respond to the call of caffeine at specified times of day that is satiated by a familiar cup. But if we are to actively pursue the exploration of tea, there is only one way to do so, and that’s to taste several teas.

• On your explorations, you will encounter two kinds of tea, one that you can enjoy effortlessly and another which may challenge you to understand it. This tea may well remain beyond your grasp but as a tea explorer, you are tasked with making the effort to understand it. • To understand a tea calls for more than a passing acquaintance with it.

Taste it several times (for books, Adler suggests three readings) and get to know the tea. Start with obvious details: what tea is it, where and when was it made, who made it. Expand to other specifics: how do you brew it right, in how many ways can you brew it and how many times.