WASHINGTON 鈥� There was a time in American tea culture regarded聽tea as “just 聽tea,鈥� a catch-all phrase used for the brown-colored beverage that could warm the soul in a single sip.
鈥淕rowing up, my family drank one kind of beer, one kind of wine,鈥� said聽Christian Eck, tea specialist at Park Hyatt Washington.聽鈥淏ut they drank 鈥榗offee’ or they drank 鈥榯ea.鈥� They didn’t drink a certain type of coffee. They didn’t drink a certain kind of tea. They drank 鈥榠t.鈥欌��
Now, you鈥檝e got well-appointed tea salons willing to sell you boutique brew by the bag full — or loose leaf, if you prefer. Today, high-end restaurants are curating tea lists in the same manner as wine. Some even have certified tea sommeliers to guide you through pairings.
To what do we owe this recent elevation of tea? A broader willingness to try something new.
鈥淧eople are going out and they’re bypassing coffee in the morning and now they’re drinking tea,鈥� Eck says. 鈥淭hey’re searching for those a little more obscure varieties of tea or trying to source something that’s organic or unique.鈥�
The聽Tea Cellar at Park Hyatt has nearly 40 rare teas and has a glass humidor to store and age vintage varieties. 聽Eck says he’s noticed that more guests are聽requesting聽oolong, a tea with characteristics of green and black teas.聽
Matcha is another tea that鈥檚 gained notoriety as of late. It鈥檚 a Japanese green tea that鈥檚 pulverized into a powder. Eck describes its flavor as slightly sweet with some herbal notes, but聽not grassy or聽harsh.
鈥淵ou can blend it into lattes 鈥� I know a lot of people do that,” Eck says. “You can put it into sauces, stocks. Ice cream is a popular one, cream-puff filling, desserts. It’s a very versatile tea because of that powder, essentially that pure concentrate.鈥�
Figure out what you like
A good starting point for finding the right tea is figuring out what you like. 聽“You don’t necessarily need to make a huge jump into a new category when you can explore a lot of that stuff within the realm of what you already like,” he聽says.
Steeping has a few rules for an ideal brew聽— like聽not using boiling water for white, green and oolong teas, though you can steep these for as long as you like. Near-boiling is OK for black teas, but steeping them longer than five minutes could result in unfixable bitterness.
In general, American tastes are branching out. A National Restaurant Association survey from last year found that 64 percent of consumers considered themselves to be 鈥渕ore adventurous in their food choices鈥� than they were two years ago.
But there聽are places in the world where people consume more tea than they do water– we’re nowhere near getting to that point, Eck says.聽The Tea Association of the USA estimates that Americans consumed more than 80 billion gallons of tea in 2014. But 85 percent of that was in the form of iced tea.
Also, Eck notes that coffee experienced a similar resurgence 10 years ago and has yet to earn its top billing.
鈥淚 think as people start to try more, they’ll have those varieties in their homes, but I don’t think it will reach that point where it’s more important than water,鈥� Eck says.
