“some things are too important to be taken seriously” - oscar wilde
“learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist” - pablo picasso
i learned how to cook from a cup of tea. when i first started cooking though, i thought good food came from quality ingredients—and i couldn’t afford good ingredients, so i just stir fried bad ones. everything is stir fry if your pan is hot enough—chop it, rip the heat, drown it in soy sauce. honestly? bomb. it’s pretty easy to beat your tongue into salty-spicy submission, but as a young cook i dreamed of making food that could stop time. i remember eating my first handmade pasta—handkerchiefs in emerald pesto—a pasta as delicate as the wind. a pappardelle paradox! i dreamed of cooking something with reverence, something that inspire silence in a raucous restaurant— how the hell does a chef do it?
the first time i brewed tea was around the time i was learning how to cook. it was a tazo zen green tea bag—it tasted like mint toothpaste but i’m pretty sure i levitated while drinking it. at the time, i was cooking white rice topped with scrambled eggs, an entire microwaved sweet potato, and cholula to “bring the flavors together.” the first time i had pu erh tea (a chinese fermented black tea pronounced “poo; air”) i was on my friend’s roof in oakland and it tasted like a dewy morning in the redwoods as the cold air ripens, fog settling into the soil—it tasted like dirt, but good dirt. at the time, i was hand making orcheitte pasta with the consistency of polyurethane (apologies to the friends i gave celiac disease). my cooking was, well, shit… but the pu erh—poo air—showed me the door out. it transported me. brewing tea was the first time i cooked the way i dreamed of—cooking to taste—and so, i began brewing tea to learn how to cook.
brewing tea is sort of like cooking an egg—it’s applying heat to a single ingredient—but the way you heat it drastically changes the outcome. at the end of this issue is my scrambled egg recipe but it’s… pretttttty advanced… so let’s start with the tea. first, the ingredients—leaves.
the tea plant (camellia sinensis in latin) was discovered in 3000 b.c. china after a leaf fell into emporer shennong’s boiling cup. he had fallen fatally ill while studying medicinal (and toxic) plants and grew curious over the aroma wafting from his cup. upon drinking the broth and was mystically healed from certain death. i mean. it could’ve happened. i wasn’t there. crazier stories exist… but the emperor also reportedly donned a head of horns like an ox and invented irrigation, so, believe what you want.
regardless of origin, traditional chinese medicine, agriculture, and tea are closely linked and their mutual popularity quickly spread the tea plant’s cultivation throughout china. eventually, buddhism absorbed tea drinking, using it’s energizing and calming qualities to extend their meditations thus adding a spiritual dimension to tea. after tea and buddhism propagated to japan in 800 a.d., the artist sen no rikyu freed tea brewing from monastic rituals reserved for fine porcelain with the creation his new “wabi sabi” aesthetic—a philosophy that praised close attention to the hidden beauty in imperfection and impermanence of nature.
with the shift of focus from formality to reality, wabi sabi transformed tea brewing into a practice of presence—of directing immense attention to the smallest of details. in zen, they say the flavor of tea does not come from the leaves, but from the stillness of the mind. and so too, good cooking is about listening—even the ugliest stir fry has something to say. cooking is about listening with your tongue… eating with your ears.
but also, it’s about the ingredients. 2,000 years of tea cultivation blossomed into a spectrum of flavor from snappy, laser focussed green teas to sweet, full bodied red teas. the difference between green and red tea is oxidation (note: chinese red tea = western black tea). fresh, green tea leaves taste of grass, crisp bitter lechuga, and fresh morning dew, but with time and exposure to air, they relax like a banana ripens into a sweet-not-sugary red tea. although oxidation breaks down flavor and certain organic compounds, it does not affect caffeine—but tea farmers heat tea leaves to control oxidation breaking down caffeine molecules in the process. basically, green teas are more caffeinated, red / black teas are less caffeinated.
if you like bitter (or drink your coffee black like psychopath) try an astringent green tea. if you like bright floral and nutty notes (think toasted sesame), try a roasted genmaicha or oolong. if you like sweet, try a highly oxidized red tea. if you like a dense, almost smoky flavor, try a fermented black / pu erh tea—it’ll ruin your life i promise. if you hate tea bags, try loose leaf for higher quality. if you hate tea, try coffee! i’ll never yuck anyones yum.
i remember when i was young and hated tea and coffee. i also remember puking in my mouth a little just thinking about people eating canned anchovies. but i gobbled up that prepackaged costco caesar salad after soccer practice. i later learned caesar dressing contains anchovies and raw egg yolks—my parents were feeding me surf and turf in a salad those sick fucks! point is: there’s nothing wrong with an ingredient, there’s only something wrong with you. wait—no. i mean there’s something wrong with it’s context. tasting a bad tea—or a bad ingredient—is like hearing a song thats time hasn’t come yet. sometimes you need to drive down the coast with your hair down to really understand what lana meant in born to die. choosing a tea—choosing ingredients—is a dialogue with the seasons. if the tea doesn’t change though, you might.
tea has a soft flavor—the further you peer into it, the more it reveals. it takes patience to understand. water works the same—if you’ve ever drank from a los angeles tap, you know what i mean. not all waters are created equal. hard water—stinky water—has a high mineral content while soft water is clean. tea is soft, so it likes soft water, but if your water is hard, just mask it with a harder, darker tea. props my berkey brethren and brita babies, but i just wasn’t born a filter freak. new york tap for me, but suit yourself—just never settle for dasani. you’re at least worth an evian.
tea is stillness and every ripple in quality can obscures it’s depths. over heated tea will complain with bitterness, astringency, and an almost metallic mouthfeel while under heated teas will hold back and taste one-dimensionally thin. there are a few steps in actually brewing tea, but even before heating the kettle, the best first step is to clean. it’s like my old chef once asked me once: “how are you going to make clean food without a clean station?” after i’d spilled a quart of mayo on the floor right in from of his beading eyes while attempting a charmoula a-la-minute. the embarrassment faded, but i still think the truth in what he said—he does has a michelin star after all.
the simplest recipe for brewing tea goes like this: first, clean the table (to clear your head). second, place enough leaves in a tea bowl. third, pour boiling water to quench the leaves. third, wait for the tea to brew—et voila! boiled tea is the o.g. method—the 1500 a.d. method. after tea boiling lost steam in 600 a.d. (ha…ha…) whisked tea like matcha powder grew popular, then, in 1400 loose leaf tea was refined—nearly 200 years before britain sipped it’s first lipton and went crazy with crumpets. tea bags weren’t invented until 1908 when an american modernized the tea brewing ritual for the busy capitalist on the go. each method pulls something new from tea—sometimes the most troublesome technique is the best teacher—but you won’t catch me with a tea bowl at work.
the trick of brewing tea is knowing what to listen for—intensity, body, and brightness—and responding. in cooking, we call these salt, fat, and acid (the secrets out!). the tongue needs the same basic blocks, but it craves the tiny, detailed nuances. cooking is about thousands of tiny creative decisions and brewing tea is about a few thousand less. deciding how hot and how long to brew a couple leaves is still a creative act—and often an intuitive one.
i’ve been reading rick rubin’s book and i like his idea that “not all projects take time, but they do take a lifetime.” every action is like a master calligraphers brush stroke, “everything before that then led to a single, embodied movement. all the intention is in that single, concentrated moment.” brewing tea is a bit like this—you can pour your entire life into a very small cup. cooking an egg works the same way. little things still hold enough space for momentous creativity.
i’ve been drinking tea while writing this and maybe i’m feeling a little tea drunk. it’s a bowl of tea for fucks sake. shut up and enjoy it. well, that’s what eat your ears is all about—food is just food, but at the same time, it’s not. i learned to cook from a cup of tea and through cooking, i learned how to see the world through a lens made of olive oil. i started this newsletter thinking i wanted to write recipes, but later realized food is a language of its own—i dream of speaking through food, whether on a plate or on a page.
if you’re looking for recipes i recommend
or or . there are plenty of chefs unloading inspired weeknight recipes and biting off aspirational projects, but i'm realizing eat with your ears is more about little ideas, fresh out the oven as they waft through the air of the internet—eat with your ears is a place beyond the kitchen to explore food, creativity, and the culture sandwiched in between.as always thanks for joining me for dinner- if you want to learn more about tea history, let me know and i can publish my notes.
now i think you’re ready to scramble an egg—save this one for a quiet sunday morning where you have someone to feed and nowhere to be. clean your apartment and maybe turn on that one wichita lineman cover i love so dearly…
I didn't know Oolong was nutty like genmaicha (my favorite!). I have a bag in my pantry. I'll brew it in a little Chinese tea pot from my mom.