08.22.07
are we doomed to a life of sisyphus, or is hope just around the corner?
posted by Sandy M. Bushberg | 18 comments
I had an interesting experience the other day that really made me think more about the extent of the effort ahead of all of us committed to promoting the life benefits of tea practice. It also made me appreciate more the frustration that Alex Miller expressed a week or more ago in a comment on the Tea is Prized Above Food in China post, about the difficulty he has been having in getting people to appreciate tea.
I belong to a local Rotary Club (a charitable organization) as one of the ways I fulfill my commitment to be of service to others. Although we live in a small community (6,000 city; 22,000 county), it is very unique. The county is predominantly an agricultural county, producing much of the apples, pears and cherries in the country, but also has a growing presence of quality wine vineyards. In addition, we also happen to be smack in the middle of one of the most spectacularly beautiful areas in the country (a federally mandated National Scenic Area - picture above is view from my house) and have an abundance of top notch outdoor recreational opportunities that attract people from all over the world. This influx of people has also created a demand for very high end dining experiences which we seem to have more than our fair share for such a small community. As a result we have an interesting mixture of conservative individuals from the agricultural community (some families dating back to the 1800’s) as well as more liberal, progressive individuals, all considerably sophisticated in their tastes. Our Rotary Club is close to 150 people strong and representative of this interesting mix within the community.
As part of our fund raising methods, we each have the responsibility of coming up with some items to auction off at our lunch meetings each week, the proceeds of which go into our funds for the different charitable projects we sponsor. Most of the time people auction off local wines, golf or sports items. Last week was my turn, and I decided I was going to offer a beautiful Tetsubin pot and 2 wonderful teas, all of which were worth approximately $200. When it came time for the auction, I went up to the podium and gave some background about the history and quality of Japanese Tetsubin pots, as well as the 2 teas I provided. Well, all I can say is that everyone just stared at me like I had 2 heads. It was a real eye opener in terms of peoples’ awareness of tea and the value they put on it in their lives. Fortunately, one member bid $150 and was pleased with his purchase even feeling he got a deal in the process. Epitomizing what I now consider to be the general attitude, another member approached the winner and me while we were speaking and half jokingly commented that he was planning on bidding himself, but when the other person bid $150 there was no point on his continuing since it went way past the $10 he was going to bid.
So here is my point in writing this post. I would like to generate a discussion with everyone sharing suggestions on specific ways we can all help to further educate and promote tea and tea practice within our communities and beyond. I would love to hear what other people are doing in their own lives currently, but I would also like to make this a creative brain storming session where we really put our thinking caps on and come up with new, innovative ways to get the word out. Don’t censor your ideas, just let them flow. We can all sort through them and pick our top favorites afterwards. As an added incentive, T Ching will even throw in some wonderful tea to the person whose idea is voted the best. I look forward to the creative juices flowing.
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:40 am
Hi T Chingy People,
I really like T Ching (actually teaching) children. I’ve been involved with the education system for the past 6 years and I strongly feel that if one is to change the attitudes, educate, and/or promote anything (including tea) they should do so by targeting the youth.
Children are very open to new experiences and ideas, if we could instill in children at a young age that tea is a healthy and delicious, and that there is a fun, colorful history and culture behind tea. Then as the students mature into adults tea will not seem as foreign and old fashion as, I believe, it is often perceived in the west.
I am currently teaching in South Korea. Here they have a wonderful tea community and culture. Something that I find amazing is that they have tea culture groups in some elementary, middle, and high schools. The men and women that run the tea houses, sell the ceramic art, make the tea, and teach the traditional tea ceremony come into the school and perform tea ceremonies, drink tea, and pretty much just promote all aspects of Korean Tea. They also set up a tea culture group with interested and enthusiastic children. This group meets after school, before school, or at lunch, a few times a month and learns about all aspects of tea culture. The group’s purpose and mission is to promote all aspects of tea at school, home, and in the community.
I think there is no reason groups of tea loving people (like the people at T Ching) couldn’t do these things in North American Schools. Tea could certainly be tied into the subjects of Heath, Social Studies, and History.
I heard that you are currently in the process of publishing a children’s book, good on you!
Peace,
A 26 year old tea lover,
Matt
August 22nd, 2007 at 1:53 pm
We need to add the pizzazz!
If we truly want to have a big impact on the larger culture to embrace tea, perhaps that means approaching the problem using means that may seem distasteful to many who would envision this as a pure movement borne of information and knowledge about health and wellness.
I think there has been lots of positive movement on that front, as more and more scientific/nutritional reports bring tea to the public consciousness. But perhaps we need more extreme marketing. We need to engage celebrities and style makers. We need to make tea drinking something they will see in movies and television. We need Martha Stewart to devote a show (if she hasn’t already) to classic green tea preparation / trendy teaware / rosemary Chai scones / Oolong-rubbed pork loins / Darjeeling-infused spa treatments and more. Then she can sell her own line of loose leaf tea in K-Mart along with her linens and gardening tools.
If not Martha Stuart, there must be lots of other pop culture venues which can help take Tea to the next level. If Jennifer Lopez or Brad Pitt started franchising tea rooms whose openings were shown on Entertainment tonight, can you imagine the impact on tea consumption in younger age groups? Let’s admit that large changes happen when the right movers and shakers help stimulate those who act on motives other than wise information and science. We can continue to provide that info while appealing to other motivations simultaneously.
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Here’s another suggestion: Getting the uninitiated to try something new is critical to making converts to tea and tea culture. And there’s nothing like offering something for FREE…….Let’s figure out how to work with potentially sympathetic vendors of tea products like Whole Foods and Trader Joes to offer lots of free tastings of the tea products they carry. Lets admit that this can be BOTH unadulterated tea along with tea lightly sweetened with healthy sweetners like honey, since this will yield the most converts (who might ultimately be coaxed into purer tea drinking habits).
Perhaps TChing could partner with companies whose tea would be sampled and sold in these markets to provide more info and web-links in their packaging.
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Yes Matt. I whole hardily agree with you. We are strong proponents of introducing tea to kids. We believe that is the key. If we can start to introduce the next generations to tea, consumption will grow significantly over the years. With young children, however, it necessarily requires the involvement and support of parents. Teenagers are a whole different ball game. If you can make tea drinking cool (as Eric has suggested) or “different” in a “hey I’m cool because I’m different and interesting” kind of way, you can probably get the teenagers. Either way, this is an important direction that the tea community needs to go in.
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Eric, I think your suggestions have a lot of merit. These are clearly good marketing strategies that the tea industry needs to pursue as well. This will clearly help with hitting the “masses” who are strongly effected by media and “star power”.
There is also an approach to target the Boomer and LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) consumers and interest them in the health and connoisseurship of tea. These groups (with large amounts of disposable income) like to immerse themselves in the knowledge and minutiae of what they perceive as somewhat esoteric or specialty things (think wine and specialty coffee). It is one of the ways that they define themselves to others. Targeting this group of consumers as the early adopters will garner support and create a built in promotional network (they like to share their knowledge and interests).
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:07 pm
Eric
Love your idea about Martha. What a coincidence that I have a post coming out tomorrow about Martha. Check back and enjoy.
As you are a very creative thinker, any ideas how to get a hold of Martha? I appeared this past spring on AM Northwest - a Portland morning talk show on KATU - a Porltand TV station - talking about tea of course. Getting on Martha’s show however seems a lot more challenging I’m afraid. It is said that one should be able to reach anyone with 3 connections. Any suggestions?
August 22nd, 2007 at 9:31 pm
Raising awareness of tea and all of the associated benefits, in a non-tea culture, requires a grass roots movement. In practice, I serve tea at home, to family and friends, at work I share with collogues. Generating a form for interpersonal interaction, to me is the first essential benefit that people will discover. The discovery of tea will follow.
Having a form for meaningful, in person, discussion has been eroded by our progressive society.
As my friends, my kid’s friends come to our home, its about relaxing having fun and conversations. With a large selection of teas we can find one that will please the neophyte.
Keep influencing those we come in contact with.
I work in southern China, here after a few thousand years its still the art of the soft sell.
It’s imposable to just buy something in a tea shop, its drinking tea small talk more tea ..you get the idea .. Even in the DVD store (yes I’m a bad person and will go o hell) they serve tea. It might be something Blockbusters can try
August 23rd, 2007 at 1:14 am
I agree with John on this matter, the best way to reach people is a grassroots, 1 to 1 kind of introduction to tea, but I believe you’d have to limit your conversion efforts to close friends and relatives to start. I’m a college student and on occasion I’m able to say a word or two about tea to my fellow students, usually in response to “what’s in that thermos?”. Usually the responses are disinterested, sometimes they’re negative, I get nasty remarks on rare occasions, but a positive response is the rarest of all. The problem is that the majority of people have a negative connotation when they hear the word ‘tea’, either because of their own tasting experience, or because of tea’s image in popular culture. Even my own family and closest friends refuse to try it, and still think it’s odd that I drink tea on a regular basis…it’s a good thing the purpose of drinking tea isn’t to win popularity contests.
I think that part of the problem we face in trying to spread this drink is the culture in the US in general. The majority of our bread is sold pre-sliced, cheese comes in spray cans, and fast-food businesses thrive despite health concerns; convenience is a greater virtue than quality. I currently work at a small cafe to help pay for school, and it makes me cringe when people complain about the presence of foam on a cappuccino, add copious amounts of sugar to a latte, and when ‘coffee’ actually means ‘1/2 Cream + 1/2 Coffee’ to some people. The majority of people don’t want a fine and nuanced drink to enjoy, they want sweet water with a caffeine high, and they don’t want to have to think about it at all. We sell some teas as well, but 90% of it is pre-mixed chai which is so sweet that you can barely detect any tea. Of the other 10%, most people insist on flavored and/or herbal teas, as opposed to actual camellia sinensis.
Please pardon the rant, but waste and wanton ignorance are things which deeply bother me, I hope you understand.
As far as the ideas presented in this thread, I’d not be in favor of getting celebrities involved in promoting tea. It would be better to have people drink tea for pleasure and health than because they want to follow the crowd. Part of the pleasure is making tea to your own taste and enjoying the process, so I think if we were to see the rise of starbucks style teahouses or see it served regularly in public, we might cheapen that experience for beginners. I’d settle for having tea move up from ‘bad and strange’ in our culture to ‘normal’, no need to jump straight to making it a national drink.
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:32 pm
Hey, people from my neck of the woods, my balcony view at home looks towards the washington Bluff.. Came across this blog by total accident while I was looking for some info about lapsang Souchong (great writing, Rafe).. How about getting together with the Soul Cafe, and have Tea Nights on First Friday, or maybe along with their Sunday Suppers? You could brew different kinds of tea and ask people to review them, that way you get them drinking more new interesting teas, as well as getting them started along the road to developing their Tea palate
August 23rd, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Welcome Alex
I’ve already been to the Soul Cafe with some suggestions. I’m awaiting their next step. Perhaps a word from another person might spur them on!
August 23rd, 2007 at 3:04 pm
In a comment made a few weeks ago, I pledged to have a “Tuesday Tea” session at lunch in the high school where I work. Each week, four to six students will be invited to bring their lunches to my classroom and to share a pot of tea together. The rationale is that as long as kids think tea is that bitter black stuff that tastes of paper and alum OR that syrupy sweet stuff coming in bottles, who can blame them for not liking tea? The purpose is to introduce students to delicious, hot, unsweetened leaf tea.
I am thrilled beyond words to share with the T Ching community the generosity and enthusiasm with which this proposal has been met, from my principal to the six or seven students I have run into at the market and skate park as we count down to the first day of school. But, the best is yet to come:
T Ching Store has generously donated a suitably sized teapot and quality tea for these Tuesday Tea Times! There are now no obstacles to success! Many thanks to T Ching. As time passes, I imagine there will be repeat tea drinkers, and I hope to adopt Matt’s format of sharing tea culture and history.
I will keep you posted!
August 23rd, 2007 at 4:10 pm
Great post! As a winegrower and producer in your neck of the woods, I understand what happened; believe it or not, years ago wine faced a similar response in this area. People do not value what they do not know or understand. David E. is very right to mention the American ignorance about tasting and food in general; things are getting better as people become more aware of what they eat, but I see it all the time in my tasting room.
Which brings me to my suggestion: a tea tasting room (Regena and the Soul Cafe are already breaking ground here, apparently). In a tasting room, so much learning can go on if the person behind the counter is knowledgeable. People love to try things. They learn in that setting with their senses as well as their mind, and only as much as they can absorb. And they usually want to take some home with them for later. Maybe we will see Tea Tasting Rooms out there soon! I don’t know if tea would grow in our area, but a Tea Farm & Tasting Room would really be a hit around here!
August 23rd, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Thank you for your insights Anne and welcome to the community. What is the name of your winery?
We have already done some tea ceremonies in town and are looking for venues to do some tastings. As Michelle indicated, we are awaiting a response from Soul Cafe. If you are a tea lover, maybe we can all get together for tea some time.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:34 am
“LOOK IT’S YODA’S BLOOD!!!” is a phrase that I commonly hear coming from the mouths of some of my more outgoing students.
They are referring to my clear water bottle filled with what appears to be “Swampy, algae infested water”. I always assure them that I’m not an alien, nor a swamp monster, I’m just a tea lover. What is contained in my clear water bottle is iced, shade grown, powered Japanese green tea.
I also take an opportunity like this to explain to my Korean students that this type of tea (what Koreans call Malc’ha, and we call powered tea) was popularized in the Song Dynasty of China where it was probably passed on by Buddhist Monks traveling throughout the mountains of China. I also explain that it remained a somewhat common way of consuming tea in Korea at this time.
I always offer some of this ‘green wonder’ to any and all curious students. Almost all students I’ve encountered have never tried this type of tea. Unfortunately, the last dynasty of Korea, the Confucianist Joson dynasty, suppressed everything Buddhist- including tea drinking. So (surprisingly) most Koreans only know the bagged variety of tea that fills at least one aisle at their local supermarket, the most consumed form of tea in the west nowadays. Some students are interested in the taste, but some simply want to find out first hand that what I carry around in my reused water bottle isn’t, in fact, Yoda’s Blood!
If we want tea to be accepted by main stream society we should not only set up tea groups at schools but also always freely offer tea to all those interested, especially children. One must also be accepting of others tea tastes especially the underdeveloped (or maybe just inexperienced) pallets of children. My tea master puts a touch of honey into his iced Malc’ha so his children will enjoy it.
If we are to reach children we must make tea either fun (i.e. Yoda’s Blood) or cool (nothings more cooler than my iced Malc’ha on a 100 degree Korean summer afternoon… hahaha). Most importantly, one has to remember that we are always teachers, even if we aren’t teachers by trade. If we live with the attitude of learning then we will always teach others and they, in turn, will always teach us.
Peace,
Matt
August 28th, 2007 at 6:05 pm
While it is true that we can only change the world one step, person, country, and cup of tea at a time, it is crucial to find a catalyst that will have the most influential effect. That is, after all, why this is a contest for the “best idea” to promote tea awareness. While I love the spirit of grassroots efforts, their influence pales in comparison to that of the “big dogs” of corporate America. The desire to make money is what ultimately creates change–change is rarely seen for the sake of change itself. But luckily, tea is a very marketable product, and its marketability is increasing as more people have become aware of its health benefits, both inherent and as an alternative to other, unhealthy beverages. Health consciousness in general is also increasing. Given this context, tea could soon be a player in the everyday lives of… well, everyone. I think the catalyst would be for us to propose, suggest, and demand that fast food chains carry a refreshing, unsweetened green tea made from a quality source. Recently, companies such as McDonald’s have tried their best to offer healthy fare to improve their “SuperSize Me” reputation. Maybe a case could be made that selling a green tea product would actually make them good money? Or perhaps an unsweetened iced tea that glaringly boasted its health benefits?
Plausible?
-perpleXd
September 3rd, 2007 at 6:12 pm
One of my clients is a coffee consultant; he works with restaurants to train them on improving their coffee service which, in turn, provides better quality coffee to the customers and higher profits to the restaurants. He is a coffee proselytizer in the same way some of us proselytize about tea.
For example, he recommends coffee being treated as a prepared food, ground fresh, with proper water temperature, brewed one press-pot at a time, to order. He also recommends making coffee part of the dining experience and compares it to wine (for example, there are no free refills on wine - why then on coffee?). One of my favorite recommendations of his: “Don’t buy coffee where you buy your janitorial supplies.”
For those in the tea industry who are paid consultants and experts, how about offering your services to your local restaurants, hotels and B&Bs to train them on proper tea service? Introduce them to teas that will have wide appeal with their customers and won’t suffer if they sit in the pot a little too long at the table, but are still quality loose teas. Suggest adding tea pairings to their menus, as many already have wine pairings.
Those of us who have less influence in the food industry can still make these requests of our favorite food venues. I stopped ordering tea in restaurants years ago, but I haven’t made a concerted effort to ask for better tea or hot enough water. Maybe I should.
Retail tea shops can create (or work with a vendor to create) customized named blends for their local restaurants, hotels and B&Bs and again, offer to train them in proper tea preparation and service. Retail shops can also support local nonprofits by donating high quality tea and tea service at fundraising events.
Health qualities are a nice benefit to drinking tea, but we know that when people do something JUST for health benefits (like exercise), it’s a lot harder to maintain the habit. Especially if they really don’t like what they’re doing (like drinking a kind of tea that they don’t enjoy, but they’ve heard it’s healthy).
To me, it’s less important to make a fuss about whether people put sugar in their tea and to make people feel bad about the way they drink their tea than it is to bring awareness about the variety of delicious and high-quality teas out there, the myriad uses in cooking, the ease of preparation (you don’t have to have fancy equipment), and the enjoyment of a well-steeped cup of tea at any time of day, whether it’s black, green, pu-erh, white or even (horrors!) flavored.
September 20th, 2007 at 1:16 pm
This thread lost its momentum! Do we still get to vote for our favorite idea??
September 20th, 2007 at 1:30 pm
Vote away pp. I have been re-reading the comments and having a hard time making a decision. They all have merit.