Tea, the universal drink

February 25, 2019 / edebock / 3 Comments

After water, do you know what the world’s most widely consumed beverage is? Would you say coffee? Beer? Wine? Coke? Wrong every time! It’s actually tea!

There was always tea available in our house when I was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, but only plain black tea. We drank green tea on the rare occasions when we went to a Chinese restaurant. Now I drink two mugs of green tea every morning and the basket of other teas in my kitchen cabinet is overflowing.

In Canada, our increasingly multicultural society plays a large part in the growing popularity and availability of so many different teas. Over the years, the world has come to us and it has brought its teas with it.

Screen Shot 2019-02-25 at 9.03.21 PM Drinking tea is a tradition that is said to date back to 2737 BCE. According to legend, Chinese emperor Shen Nung was sitting under a tree while his servant boiled drinking water. When some dried leaves from the tree blew into the water, Shen Nung decided to try the infusion that was created and found it to his liking. Since then, tea drinking has spread around the world.

While black tea is more popular in Western countries, green tea is preferred in China and Japan where it is a common part of daily life. Green tea is unoxidized, giving it a lighter taste and aroma than black tea. The tea that is used in the traditional Japanese tea ceremony is matcha which is powdered and not infused. This means that the leaves themselves are consumed resulting in a much higher concentration of the antioxidants, minerals, and vitamins that make green tea healthy. For this reason, matcha has become quite trendy.

Taiwanese bubble tea is a modern innovation. This high calorie tea has as its base an iced tea (typically black, green, jasmine or oolong) with milk and a sugary syrup. The “bubbles” are actually tapioca pearls. As much as I like tea, this one has never appealed to me!

From Thailand comes the very popular Thai tea. Made from strong black tea, often spiced with ingredients such as star anise, crushed tamarind, and cardamom, it’s usually sweetened with sugar and condensed milk and served over ice.

India produces and consumes more tea that any other country in the world. It is best known for it’s chai blends that mix black tea leaves with spices like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, and black pepper. Assam is another popular variety of black tea which is grown in the Assam region of India. It is used in many breakfast blends including English Breakfast and Irish Breakfast, but is also consumed on its own. It has a strong, malty flavour, a reddish colour, and is high in caffeine. Darjeeling is yet another tea that is grown in India, specifically the mountainous Darjeeling region in the northern part of the country.

In Morocco, drinking tea is more than simply a social custom, it’s also part of doing business. If you find yourself in a Moroccan market, you’ll likely be sat down and offered a glass of mint tea by a vendor wanting to sell you a beautiful carpet. This is touareg tea, a green tea prepared with spearmint leaves and sugar.

It was Portuguese and Dutch traders who first brought tea to Europe in the early 1600s. By the mid 18th century it had become Britain’s most popular beverage with the East India Company using fast ships called tea clippers to bring the leaves from India and China.

Then there are the herbal teas which aren’t considered “real” tea at all because, unlike black, white, and green teas, they aren’t made from the leaves of the tea bush (Camellia sinensis). Popular among the herbal teas is rooibos or bush tea from South Africa which is made from the leaves of the red bush, a broom-like member of the Fabaceae family.

One of my favourite teas is Earl Grey, a black tea flavoured with oil from the rind of the bergamot orange, a fruit grown mostly in Italy. It is thought to have been named for Charles Grey, 2nd Earl Grey, who was British Prime Minister from November 1830 to July 1834. In addition to regular Earl Grey, I have Vanilla Earl Grey, Lavender Earl Grey, and even Double Bergamot Earl Grey in my collection!

There are apparently all kinds of health benefits to drinking tea, especially green tea. The comparative lack of processing means that it has a higher level of antioxidants and polyphenols. Studies have shown that it may:

lower cholesterol
lower blood pressure
reduce the risk of heart attack and stroke
reduce the risk of neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases
lower blood sugar
encourage weight loss
aid digestion
inhibit intestinal inflammation
strengthen the immune system
help fight infection
help fight various cancers
prevent bone loss
reduce plaque buildup and tooth decay
help cells regenerate and repair
help slow down aging
increase mental alertness
lower stress hormone levels
prevent arthritis

If nothing else, it’s a flavourful way to stay hydrated, it contains no calories, and it has less caffeine than coffee.

Tea, the healing beverage that knows no borders!

That’s 3 of my grandchildren on the cup!

Cultural appropriation… what do you think?

May 4, 2018May 3, 2018 / edebock / 8 Comments

Utah teen, Keziah Daum, has been harshly criticized online and in the media for her recent choice of a dress for prom. Hoping to find something unique, Keziah decided to browse a vintage store in downtown Salt Lake City. There she found a beautiful red cheongsam; a high-collared, form-fitting traditional Chinese dress.

photo – Twitter

The problem is that Keziah Daum is not Chinese. The dress “gave me a sense of appreciation and admiration for other cultures and their beauty,” she said, but she has been accused of cultural appropriation.

What is cultural appropriation and how is it different from cultural appreciation?

Cultural appropriation deals with the adoption of elements of a minority culture or a marginalized group by members of a dominant culture without permission and usually with little respect for or knowledge about the original culture. In true cases of cultural appropriation, elements that may have deep meaning to members of the original culture are sometimes reduced to exotic curiosities by those adopting them. For example, decorating your home with a Buddha statue when you are not, in fact, Buddhist would seem to me to be culturally inappropriate. If you are white North American and you include items that are representative of First Nations culture in your Halloween costume, that too is clearly cultural appropriation and may also help perpetuate harmful stereotypes. I question, however, whether using the same items or garments in the ways that they were originally intended is harmful to anyone at all.

The problem, in many cases, is that there is often no agreement amongst members of a supposedly offended cultural group about what is or is not acceptable to them. While Keziah Daum’s choice of prom dress elicited plenty of criticism from both Chinese and non Chinese, scores of other people also identifying as Asian Americans, defended her choice, saying that they did not consider it offensive. One of them tweeted, “I am a Chinese woman. I support you. You rocked that dress!!”

I have a Japanese yukata (summer kimono) that I purchased in Tokyo. The shopkeeper had no problem selling it to me and showing me how to wear it properly even though I was clearly a gaijin (foreigner). In fact, I believe that many of their customers are visitors to the country looking for a special piece of Japanese culture to take home with them. I also have a traditional Vietnamese ao dai, a two piece silk outfit comprised of a long tunic and pants that was made to measure in a tiny tailoring shop in Hoi An. When I traveled to Vietnam I had no intention of buying an ao dai, but when I visited a few of the 200+ tailoring shops in Hoi An and admired the beautiful garments, the seamstresses were all anxious to make one for me and I couldn’t resist. I also have a Chinese silk jacket from Hong Kong as well as a beautiful silk abaya from the Middle East, both gifts from friends. I have worn all of these on special occasions and meant absolutely no disrespect to the cultures they came from. In fact, like Keziah Daum, I consider it a special privilege to be able to wear such gorgeous and meaningful pieces.

yukata

ao dai

abaya

I also wear a beautiful ring made to order by Haisla artist, Hollie Bear Bartlett. A Christmas gift from my husband, it’s hummingbird motif in traditional Northwest Coast style is symbolic of love and beauty. I am originally a coastal girl of European descent. I do not think that my wearing a ring bearing the art of a different group of coastal people is inappropriate or disrespectful. I also have Northwest Coast and Inuit art in my home, as do many other Canadians.

On the other hand, I do think that our Canadian Prime Minister made an absolute ass of himself, roving around India recently on a highly publicized trip with his family, all of them wearing brightly coloured Indian garb. Their insensitive overuse of and excessive photo-ops wearing Indian clothing drew criticism from their host country with prominent Indian personalities referring to the outfit choices as “tacky” or “fake and annoying.”

Allegations of cultural appropriation have grown increasingly common in recent times with critics casting doubt on the legitimacy of everything from team logos to burrito shops. We in North America are privileged to live in multicultural countries where we can share in the rich heritage and traditions of our neighbours. It behooves us to be sensitive in how we do so, but I think that condemning a young girl for her choice of prom dress goes way overboard.

I realize that this is a controversial topic and that there are people with strong feelings on both sides of the issue. I welcome all opinions as long as they are offered respectfully. I am particularly interested in knowing how my readers from other parts of the world feel about this topic.

Welcome to Canada!

November 24, 2015 / edebock / 8 Comments

I spent one afternoon last week working as a volunteer in our local second hand store. As I looked around the tiny shop, I couldn’t help noticing how the face of our small community has changed. Like almost every other rural community across the Canadian prairie, the town we raised our children in, just a few short years ago, had one Chinese family running a restaurant. There was also a doctor of East Indian descent who originally hailed from Ghana. That was about it for multiculturalism. The rest of us could trace our ancestry to various parts of Europe, but that’s no longer the case. In the shop that afternoon, there was my friend, Karen, a temporary foreign worker from the Philippines and over there, a young Asian couple. I’m pretty sure they were Korean. Another Korean family lives kitty-corner from me. In the shop, there was also a young Mexican Mennonite man, one of many who have made this area home over the past few years, and two women from one of the nearby Hutterite colonies. I live around the corner from a family from South Africa and another family of newcomers bought the house at the end of our street. The wife is from Honduras and her husband, El Salvador. Yes, our community has changed. It has opened its arms and welcomed the world and I love it!

Now we’re faced with the current refugee crisis and our government’s decision to open our country’s doors to 25 000 Syrians. Sadly, many are responding in ignorance and fear.

There are fears, perhaps even legitimate fears, that terrorists may hide themselves in the masses and infiltrate our peaceful nation and fears that jobs may be lost to these newcomers, but as I watched the news last night and looked into the faces of the sixteen weary Syrians who arrived at the Calgary airport yesterday, I saw people, real people, some with fear in their own eyes. Imagine for a moment what they have been through, what they’ve sacrificed, what they’ve left behind to begin a new life in a new and very strange land. They are not here to make our lives worse, but to make their own lives better and in so doing, they can make our country richer if we give them the opportunity. Who are we, born in Canada through no effort of our own, and benefitting greatly from the hard work and sacrifice of those who came before us, who were themselves newcomers from foreign lands looking for a better life, to close our doors and our hearts to these whose very lives have been torn apart by the atrocities of war? Who do we think we are?

Sadly, I also see racism in the response of some of my fellow Canadians. Canadians like the elderly man working the till at Walmart yesterday, who, during a few moment’s conversation while checking and bagging our purchases, complained bitterly that he’d soon be out of work because “one hundred of those Syrians are coming to Camrose and they’re going to take jobs from all the good people!” Perhaps I should have asked him where his people came from. He certainly didn’t appear to be of First Nations descent!

Much of the fear stems from the fact that these newcomers are Muslims, descendants of Esau, betrayed and robbed of his birthright by his twin brother, our spiritual ancestor, Jacob (Genesis 25-27). They are Muslims, painted with the same brush as the extremists who behead Christians on the beaches of north Africa and who strap explosives to their bodies and blow themselves to smithereens in the public places of Paris, killing and maiming hundreds of innocent bystanders. Are these the Muslims who seek refuge in our country? I don’t think so! That’s like saying that all Chinese Canadians are like Vince Weiguang Li who beheaded a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus on the way to Winnipeg in July 2008 and ate some of his flesh!

It would be naive to suggest that there won’t be any problems involved in opening our borders to such a huge influx of refugees and I join my voice with others in urging our government to use wisdom and diligence in choosing who will be allowed to come, but how much worse will the problems be if we greet these newcomers with fear and animosity instead of extending a hand of compassion? The government has promised intense and rigorous security checks of each person who arrives in Canada and there is every reason to believe that this current wave of refugees will face the same scrutiny and review as all those who have come before them. For more information on that process, you can go here. Our new Prime Minister has already delayed the December 31 deadline for allowing the 25 000 to enter the country in order to “get it right”. The three families that arrived in Calgary yesterday all escaped war-torn Syria a year ago and have been waiting in Lebanon for permission to come to Canada where they were greeted by family members already living there.

Darren 2

It is the response of some of my fellow Christ-followers that bothers me most of all. Yes, the Christian face of our country is rapidly changing, but if God has called us to reach the lost for Christ, how much easier will it be for us if they come to us? Not many of us can “go and make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19) but we can reach out to the ones who move in next door to us with love and compassion and be the hands of Christ to them. It is not only immigrants of other faiths who are robbing our country of its Christian heritage, it is also those born and raised here who have become so self-sufficient and so self-centred that they see no need for a god of any kind and can only express hatred toward those they don’t understand or agree with.

Darren 3