I have some friends who like tea, and when I have a modest victory in my efforts at tea production, I often have the impulse to share it with them. I often think, "Oh, I should send some to her," or, "I should have them over for a tasting." The problem is those friends, who are wonderful, kind people, who know something about tea, don't really know much about how tea is manufactured. A lot of people who consider themselves tea lovers think green, black, and oolong teas all come from different plants, and that all you have to do to make tea is pick leaves and let them dry. How I wish that were true!
My teas aren't great. I know that. I'm not bothered by it. In my opinion, the best ranking a domestic tea achieves is "decent," and I would count some of my batches "decent" as well. Also in my opinion, this deficit in domestic tea isn't due to inappropriate climate or poor soils, but rather inexpert processing. We just don't have the traditional knowledge of tea processing, and even machine processing requires skillful oversight. I have every confidence the United States will one day produce award-winning teas. Today is not that day.
But my friends don't know how hard it is to get great or even good tea from tea plants! They don't realize that the "decent" cup they have from my yard represents a massive triumph of learning and experimentation. Unlike me, they are not overcome by how much better this batch is than previous years'. So when I share with them, I usually get a lukewarm reaction, as they know enough to know it isn't great tea, but they don't want to hurt my feelings. Usually, when someone offers us something homemade, we expect it to be far superior to what we can buy mass-produced. Think about jam, or tomatoes, or a loaf of bread. How eager we are when someone offers us homemade delicacies! But tea, alas, isn't like that. Tea is far more difficult than jam. Homemade tea is more like homemade wine: what's notable isn't that the maker has offered you some, but rather all the batches that came before that you didn't even know existed because they failed so badly.
As I've said elsewhere, the worst cup of supermarket tea is still a miracle. If I offer you some of my homemade tea, it is because I have judged you *possibly* able to understand that.
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