Infused

by Henrietta Lovell

  If you can get hold of a large block of ice for your punch bowl (salad bowl, mixing bowl, bucket), it will chill the drinks without diluting them too rapidly. If you can only get normal cubes, don’t put them in the punch, keep them in the glasses and ladle the punch over the ice.

  The following recipes have been shared, very generously, by Jim Meehan. They all make a litre of punch. A punch cup is usually small, at about 100ml, so guests need to keep returning to the bowl, which means the group keeps together. You should get ten cups out of the bowl. If you’re drinking it in tumblers full of ice, you’ll need about 150ml per serving and should get six or seven glasses from the batch.

  We welcomed the guests with a Cloud Nine.

  MAKING CLOUD NINE PUNCH

  250ml Cloud Tea-infused rum*

  175ml honey syrup*

  75ml lime juice

  500ml brut champagne

  Combine everything but the champagne in a punch bowl an hour ahead and chill in the fridge.

  Add a large tempered block of ice to the bowl. Then add the champagne, garnish with nasturtiums, ladle into punch cups and serve.

  Cloud Tea-Infused Rum

  15g Cloud Tea (or another very good Himalayan tea)

  750ml bottle of Banks 5 Island rum (or Bacardi)

  Measure the Cloud Tea into a jug, add the rum and stir. Infuse for five minutes, then fine-strain back into the bottle.

  Honey Syrup

  170g honey

  125ml water

  Combine the honey and the water in a saucepan. warm over a medium heat until the honey dissolves, then leave to cool.

  *

  The first course of our dinner was roasted Louisiana peaches (for these alone it was worth being in New Orleans in July) and creamy burrata. We married the sweet peaches with a strong black tea. I created a bespoke blend for this, but a decent English Breakfast would work.

  PEACHY KEEN PUNCH

  700ml cold-infused English Breakfast tea*

  150ml Banks 7 Golden Age rum or another darker rum like Bacardi Ocho

  75ml simple syrup*

  30ml peach eau de vie

  45ml lemon juice

  Combine in a punch bowl. Add a large tempered block of ice to the bowl. Garnish the punch with freshly sliced peaches.

  Cold-Infused English Breakfast Tea

  25g good quality English Breakfast tea

  One litre filtered water

  Cold-infuse for three hours in the fridge.

  You may have to vary the amount and timing depending on the tea you use. What you’re looking for is an infusion that is stronger than you would want to drink as an iced tea – it needs to be pretty strong to balance the cocktail, but not overpoweringly bitter. If you have the time, you can use just 20g per litre and leave it overnight.

  Simple Syrup

  425g super-fine sugar

  500ml water

  Combine the sugar and water in a saucepan and simmer over a medium heat until the sugar dissolves. Cool and bottle for later use (it’s handy to have around).

  *

  The next course was unctuous Southern short ribs with shiitake mushrooms. We took a pale golden rum and infused it with pu’er tea. I have since done this with whisky and it’s really rather good too. You can also use a pu’er tea as a lengthener, to dilute it down a bit for a less boozy drink. The rich, sticky rib and the soft umami mushrooms play beautifully with silky, earthy pu’er.

  RARE-ER

  600ml pu’er-infused rum or whisky*

  300ml Valdespino Deliciosa Manzanilla sherry

  75ml Bénédictine

  Unwaxed oranges

  Combine in a punch bowl. Add a large tempered block of ice to the bowl.

  Pinch an orange twist over the top of each cup and discard.

  For a pu’er lengthener, crumble your tea as fine as possible and pop it into cold water – 15g per litre – and leave overnight.

  Pu’er-Infused Rum

  15g pu’er

  600ml Banks 7 Golden Age rum (or Johnnie Walker Black whisky)

  Measure the pu’er into a jug and add the rum (or whisky). Stir and leave to infuse for ten minutes.

  *

  For the pudding an allspice chocolate cake was paired with fresh lemon verbena.

  *

  After the dinner we went on to a party and prepared a final punch for the road. It follows in the tradition of the earliest punches that were constructed around green tea, but we used a Japanese sencha instead of a more traditional Chinese green tea.

  This one is super-easy and wonderful on a hot summer night.

  GREEN TEA PUNCH

  175ml sencha tea*

  175ml mint infusion*

  100g cane sugar

  500g crushed ice

  60ml lime juice

  375ml Banks 5 Island rum (or Bacardi)

  Grated nutmeg

  Brew the teas.

  Fine-strain the teas into the punch bowl. Stir in the sugar until it dissolves.

  Add the crushed ice to chill and dilute the mixture. (You can, of course, crush cubed ice in a freezer bag covered with a tea towel, using a rolling pin or a hammer to great effect. It’s a good release for any pent-up anger, so much so that it seems silly to buy the ice ready broken unless you work in a bar.)

  Add the lime juice and rum.

  Garnish the punch with grated nutmeg.

  Pour into a punch bowl over a large tempered block of ice, or pop it into a thermos for the road.

  Making the Sencha

  Infuse 6g of sencha in 175ml of water heated to 90°C and steep for five minutes.

  Making the Mint Infusion

  Infuse 2g of English peppermint tea in 175ml of boiling water for two minutes.

  *

  We hopped onto a clanking old wooden trolley-car that trundled the well-worn rails on its way through the bright streets of neon and music. So different from the journey to visit the garden where the sencha we were drinking grew, in Shizuoka, Japan. I wondered if the Moriuchis would be horrified by me rum-ing up their lovely leaves.

  CHAPTER 25

  SHIZUOKA, JAPAN

  The bullet train flashed through drab, semi-industrial, suburban Japan. In the distance, Mount Fuji hinted cold romance. The Royal Hotel in Shizuoka was rather downtrodden, and not terribly regal. Wires and cables were matted like dreadlocks across the street outside. The reception was sticky brown with nicotine and neglect. My tatami room was clean, if stinking of cigarettes. The door was metal, like a prison, and there were no windows. But the blank walls were masked by bamboo and paper, which made it look almost cosy. In the middle of the room my futon was laid out on the floor and there was a hot-water dispenser for tea.

  It was a relief to leave town for the farm with Mrs Moriuchi, a neat, quietly stylish woman with rough hands and a smooth, beautiful face. She made me a lovely lunch of vegetable soup and showed me the shrine to her ancestors. Over the years we have learnt to chat, almost naturally, with translation apps on our phones.

  We tried some new sencha she and her husband had made using a new tea varietal she called Blue Wind. Together we made some genmaicha, using this good sencha but selecting the slightly more broken pieces sifted from the perfect leaves and combining them with roasted Japanese brown rice. I’d always been slightly reluctant to embrace genmaicha because traditionally it’s a bit of a cover-up; adding the puffed rice to the tea used to be a way of using up sencha that was past its prime or of poor quality. Mrs Moriuchi suggested the best way to overcome my reservations would be to use good sencha instead. I smacked my forehead with my flat palm, annoyed at my stupidity for not having thought of that myself. She was startled at my slap but only smiled, politely.

  We walked together around their neat tea garden; the half turned to organic cultivation had a wilder charm. Mr Moriuchi had built a funicular carriage to ride up to the steeper slopes and bring down the tea – a thrilling if perilous ride. He demonstrated his much-celebrated hand-rolling, using an ancient technique over a hea
ted table. For hours he gently rolled the same batch of leaf, backwards and forwards, tenderly manipulating it to a softness and pliability.

  In the evening I went out with an old Japanese chap Alexander from Satemwa had introduced me to, a tea buyer who takes some Satemwa leaf. A funny, chain-smoking, heavy-drinking, cynical man. He took me out for sushi and sake. It was a fairly rough place with no ventilation and he wrapped my coat in his so it didn’t get too smelly. A cross-looking cat kept a wary eye on me from his vantage point on the top of towering bundles of yellowing newspapers. Dusty bottles of rare blends from the Scotch Malt Whisky Society lined the bar, their contents long gone. The chef, who was also the barman, smoked as he poured our drinks. Old American jazz played. It felt like Murakami had written the scene.

  The next morning, having slept in my windowless room like a corpse in a tomb, I was in desperate need of tea. By extreme good fortune I had arranged to spend the day with one of the most respected gyokuro blenders. He showed me his rare art of blending these highest-grade green teas from different producers. Gyokuro is so very valuable because for the last few weeks before harvesting the leaves are shaded. Entire tea fields are tented under netting to let only the finest freckles of light through. (Gyokuro is made from a very similar leaf to that used for ceremonial-grade matcha.) It is no easy manoeuvre, nor is the meticulous steaming and pressing of the precious leaf.

  I get my gyokuro direct from the farm in Uji, about 300 kilometres west of Shizuoka. I’d never seen blending like this done before, but I was keen to learn his skill. The best producers send him their prize-winning leaves, and he assesses and experiments in much the same way as I might craft an English Breakfast tea. He placed one-yen pieces, the coin weighing exactly one gram, on an old iron scale and measured out variables of combinations. We tried the same gyokuros together in various ratios and mulled over the differences. What defined the best result he was vague about. I got out my phone and typed into the translation app: ‘Something better than the sum of its parts.’ He laughed and slapped me on the back, hard, the way he might a man, and invited me to sit down to drink his best tea.

  I hadn’t just wandered into his blending room. I had been introduced, and the meeting had been set up. My first visits to Japan had not been so easy. Finding my way to the best producers took many years of smiling miscomprehension, for a woman could surely not be in the business of buying tea. The discomfort experienced by a proud and respected man asked to negotiate directly with a woman, Western or otherwise, is often profound. Where a man might be courted for his business, a woman is, at best, tolerated. My advancing age and grey hairs, along with perseverance, have served me better in recent years. But as a young woman at the outset, the way into the Japanese tea world was often marked by humiliating rebuffs.

  MAKING GYOKURO OR SENCHA

  To make it easily in a teapot, use 3g per 150ml, with the water at 60°C for gyokuro and perhaps as high as 70°C for sencha.

  For a more intense infusion use 7g per 60ml.

  *

  With the gyokuro master we drank eight infusions, starting at 37°C, blood temperature, and rising by 5°C or so each time. Then we ate some of the leaf with yellow miso paste. The master blender declared the tea was not, after all, exhausted and made a further two infusions. Ten in all. All of them astounding.

  So many things in Japan are astounding. When the conductor passed through the sleek bullet train racing back to Tokyo, she stopped at the end of the carriage. She turned to face us and bowed to the passengers, then made her way onwards to the next carriage to check the tickets.

  CHAPTER 26

  AMBADANDEGAMA, UVA HIGHLANDS, SRI LANKA

  A tuk-tuk ride along steep mud roads winding down from the hills takes you from Amba Estate, just outside Ambadandegama, to the train station at Heel-Oya. The station sign is neatly hand-painted, along with the times of the trains. Original Victorian points shift the track with a large brass lever. The station house is unchanged from the original that was built almost two centuries ago by the British. The ticketing system is the same too, its small rectangles of thick card kept in countless wooden cubbyholes. When the train pulls in, the station master buttons himself into his white jacket and paces the platform with its neat, bright flowerbeds.

  The Colombo train stops across the tracks from the station, where there is no platform. To board it you must leap down onto the tracks, with your bags and suitcases, cross over and try to scramble up the metal ladder at the train door, directly from the tracks, hoping for a friendly arm to pull you up. The train meanders on to the capital over the next eight or so hours. Through dirty windows the tea country unwinds over ridges and hillsides swathed in tea. Hawkers jump on and off the train, offering a steady stream of delicious snacks. Eventually you are disgorged into the loud jumble of Colombo station.

  During the civil war in Sri Lanka, which lasted more than twenty-five years, from 1983 to 2009, some of the tea estates were abandoned. It was considered too difficult to operate in a country torn apart by civil unrest. Communities dependent on tea were abandoned. When peace finally came, the aid agencies, non-profit organisations and various advisers moved in to help rebuild. One of those was Simon Bell, the man behind Amba. He put his money where his mouth was, and rather than just pontificate he bought a farm and tried to establish a new model for sustainable development.

  I had been struggling to find a garden that I could work with for many years. A lot of tea is produced in Sri Lanka and is often sold under the old colonial name, Ceylon. (I wouldn’t call Zimbabwe tea Rhodesian, or Taiwanese Formosa, either.) The problem is, it’s almost all industrial, produced by huge conglomerates that work in ways far removed from those I want to support. Added to this, their tea really wasn’t of the quality I was looking for. I had visited beautifully laid-out gardens in pristine condition, marvelling at them, along with the tourists, in the hills around the tea country of Nuwara Eliya. But as I looked a little closer I found I was in tea Disneyland, a Hollywood-like fantasy that offered tourists what they wanted to see. The pretty horrendous conditions the tea workers are forced to live in is hidden from view, away from the luxury tourist hotels.

  I kept looking and not finding until I received an email from Amba. Simon had taken on a Yorkshire woman of some grit, Beverly, and they were determined to create a value crop, something that would sustain the local community long-term, wouldn’t be vulnerable to the vagaries of tea commodity markets and wouldn’t require expensive machinery. The abandoned farm in the Uva Highlands, above the Ravana Falls, was in some disarray. As a woman, an outsider and someone with no previous experience of growing tea, Beverly was struggling to get any local support. She asked for my help. Fine help I’d be, being just a Tea Lady and not a master craftsman. But I asked Alexander from Satemwa, who had been doing what they were seeking to achieve for many years and had also set up hand-rolling from scratch. Alexander was willing to give up his time and share his expertise to help Beverly and Simon. All I had to do was bring him over from Malawi.

  Simon had created a simple but extremely stylish guest house. Tourism boosts the project, with the chance to stay right in the middle of the tea and see a working organic farm rather than a holiday stage set. The first day, the local cook made us tempura tea leaves with a spicy coconut sambal: fresh, tender green leaves straight from the bushes dipped in a light batter and deep-fried in a hot wok. We crunched them as we discussed the obstacles and opportunities ahead.

  As Alex and I wandered through the farm, we discovered that the local people weren’t drinking tea. They were cultivating a wild lemongrass from the hills. Beverly was experimenting with cutting and drying this herb. We watched them harvest the long leaves with machetes, break off the dry tips, cut the leaves finely with scissors and lay them out to dry on a sun dryer. That’s the way they still do it today. I did try to get them a cutting machine but soon realised it was a foolish plan: it would take away employment. There are worse ways to earn a living than sitting in the shad
e, carefully snipping stems.

  Every plant that grows in the earth, from grapes to tea to lemongrass, expresses a little of that place in its taste. I’m particularly fond of a lemon verbena grown by friends in Hastings in view of the sea. I dry it in my airing cupboard, scenting my sheets. It tastes nothing like any other verbena grown anywhere else. There is a scent of rose about it, but perhaps that’s just memory association as I think of the garden thick with blooms, and an almost imperceptible hamster’s lick of sea salt.

  Sri Lankan lemongrass is like no other. It tastes sweet, like lemon-drops, with lovely grassy notes of fresh hay and bright, sugary lemon. Amba’s lemongrass is incredibly vibrant and yet soft. It’s so good, Rare Tea sells more than they can grow. We now also work with a group of organic smallholders dotted across the country, many of them women with less than a hectare of land. Under the guidance of an extraordinary organic visionary, Dr Sarath Ranaweera, who provides all the help and expertise, the lemongrass takes little work. It provides the smallholders with a vital year-round supplement to their incomes.