Wars changed the world, even the world of tea. During World War I a conundrum brewed over delivering British lads on military fronts a comforting cuppa’ — tea that is, a national staple.
“Part of the rationing process was how to put tea in the hands of servicemen,” explains Michele Drake, a tea specialist. She and husband Loren Drake of Hummingbird Tea are merchants relatively new to Walla Walla.
In 1908, an American tea dealer marketed samples of tea in silk bags, only to be dismayed that clientele thought they should put the whole pouch in hot water to steep. The resulting infusion was limp but thus was born the “tea bomb” for British soldiers’ camp cups.
The gauze satchels holding a teaspoon of chopped tea leaves were only fannings — harvest leftovers — but the invention met soldiers’ cravings. Still, the Royal British Legion reports that even by 1960 only 3% of all tea was sold in tea bags: Today cup-size bags make up 96% of sales.
The Drakes, who buy imports and blend, package, label and market more than 50 kinds of tea, tune into the epicurean tradition of the loose-leaf tea dance. Tea leaves or herbs and complementary botanicals bloom and wiggle in hot water, the many surfaces releasing a cornucopia of flavors.
The Drakes do recognize that some people don’t want to deal with wet tea leaves, so their website offers teapot-size filters, which makes clean-up just one handful before shaking out the biodegradable leaves into the compost bin — sans filter. Tea strainers or metal tea infusers are convenient, too, but do constrain the ingredients’ surface areas. Still, loose or even strained tea leaves avoid commercial tea bags, which are under the magnifying glass these days.
New studies published by the American Chemical Society report “billions of microparticles and nanoparticles” found in cups brewed with individual tea bags. Plastic fragments in bag fibers, even supposedly silk bags, show up in the tea. Such presents human ingestion concerns and furthermore taint one of tea’s great boons, which is that its leaves make great compost. Microplastic shedding concerns continue to unfold across society’s many material goods and the ecosystem. It is a hot topic for investigation.
Traditionally brewed teas or infusions, such as black, green, oolong, yellow or white teas, all begin with the Camellia sinensis plant. Typically, plucked tea leaves undergo various curing, treatments and sometimes, decaffeinating at the farms. Tea farms grow in countries such as Nepal, India, Vietnam, Japan, Indonesia, Kenya and other African countries. Terroir influences teas’ qualities as well.
Camellia sinensis teas, served hot or cold, no matter what color, offer good health hallelujahs. The credit for tea’s significant health benefits goes to its polyphenols — the antioxidants that offer protection from many a human disease. According to scholars at the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health, “observational research has found that tea consumption of two to three cups daily is associated with a reduced risk of premature death, heart disease, stroke and Type 2 diabetes.”
Tea also has L-theanine, an amino acid researchers say has calming effects that counter black tea’s 20-to-50 milligrams of caffeine. Those sensitive to caffeine should experiment with shorter tea-leaf steep times and avoid late afternoon or evening cups until one ascertains a happy comfort level. Non-caffeinated teas or teas blended with sweeteners and milk do not fully deliver tea’s health benefits.
As advocates, the Drakes are steeped in tea business and culture. They have taken classes from the World Tea Association and other experts. Michele is working toward certifications via online study, and they’ve both attended the national tea conference in Las Vegas with its rich offerings of education and business contacts.
The Drakes are Oregonians by birth. They chose to move to Walla Walla with their son from Colorado three years ago because they found that Walla Walla was “a tea desert,” says Michele. No local teas had met their inquiring eyes.
Loren, 65, with a background in quality control, recently retired from the TSA at Denver’s airport, and Michele, 62, packed up and moved her remote day job as a healthcare insurance data analyst.
The Drakes deal closely with small family farms abroad in Nepal, India, Africa, Taiwan, China and elsewhere. Whereas most tea merchants and retailers may get tea that’s traveled through more than a dozen middlemen, Michele explains, the couple lucked out just as they plunged into tea.
Through introductions, the couple became close to a Nepalese family starting to grow tea bushes. Five years ago, that family’s neighbors had told them that “no one grows tea in Nepal. Tea is an Indian crop,” Michele recalls. The grower’s family success on five acres has turned into 100 Nepalese families’ success who then decided to grow tea on small parcels, too. Now a cooperative exists that supplies living wages and housing for workers.
“If you buy that $5 tea at the store, it’s gone through like 16 people, and they each have to make a profit while the farmer gets only pennies,” she says. “We’re the first ones who get it.” Added Loren, “It’s like being there when they just finished the tea.”
Premium tea consumption is rising as the world’s growing middle-class consumers seek out first-class whole leaf teas and medicinal tea blends. Though tea drinking was first recorded in China some 5,000 years ago, tea’s status as a social and liquid comfort was only recently enshrined by the United Nations when it declared an annual International Tea Day in May 2000. The U.N.’s tea elevation underscores the commodity’s sustainable and organic aspects alongside rural development, poverty reduction and food security for small tea farmers.
The Drakes’ treasury of connoisseur premium teas offers tantalizing names such as Peachy Green and Summer Thyme, and includes many herbal non-caffeinated teas, too. Among local ingredients are spearmint and peppermint from Benton City and lavender from Crockett Road Lavender Farm in Milton Freewater. Loren, with his background in quality control, leans on precise ratios when blending their formulas. “I’m a bit of a MacGyver,” he says.
Hummingbird teas will be featured at The Finch hotel as part of its hospitality initiatives. The couple is looking for local retailers to showcase their product, but in the meantime, they spend lively weekends pitching at farmers markets and holiday shows, offering flights of sample teas and selling their 85-gram, heat-sealed packets of tea or five samples for $13.
Each of Hummingbird’s bright-green bags of loose tea has detailed instructions written on it. The Drakes encourage customers to try multiple steeps — same leaves, fresh water, plus longer waiting times. Flavors change in interesting ways, they say, and multiple steeps, whether cold or hot, make premium loose tea leaves cost effective. The Drakes website offers details on each of their approximately 50 flavors, copy written by Michele with photos by Loren. www.HummTea.com.
Nevertheless, why tea? And why hummingbirds as their business identity? Why choose such a delicate product with many ins and outs for supposedly relaxing retirement careers?
They’re “foodies,” say the Drakes, and they are enchanted by seeking out the variations tea offers. “So, we thought about hummingbirds,” Michele explains. “That’s kind of what they do, fly around your garden looking for the very best.”
