Make a reviving cup of puer for the afternoon of Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Tea crops up in history in all kinds of ways, we suggest you celebrate Martin Luther King Jr and peace making with a good afternoon cup of tea.
As one of humanity's greatest and (some ways) simplest staple drinks, tea has a funny way of popping up in history: in China, tea was a drink by which Emperors sometimes communicated with the outside world, by sending teas to foreign leaders as gifts and gestures of diplomacy and peace. Within Chinese history of course, it winds its way through the long timeline, touching the lives of the humble and the grand. In America, while the popular love affair with coffee might be the most robust, tea has certainly had its moments, most famous of which being without a doubt the Boston Tea Party – a 1773 protest against taxation that saw boatloads of imported tea (an especially colonial drink in the eyes of the American protestors) dumped into Boston harbor, presaging their War of Independence.
Martin Luther King Jr, one of the great 20th century leaders in America, was an African American orator who fought for freedom for his community and is celebrated tomorrow – he was more fond of a cup of coffee or a strong drink, and even had tough words to say about foreign imports of tea in his own time.
However, it is worth remembering that two everyday ways of preparing tea have their origin in American tea drinking history: the tea bag and sweet, iced tea that reigns in the country's warmer south. Most of the tea drunk in the US is made with teabags, and most of that is enjoyed with ice and some sort of sweetener. The bags are credited to Irish American Thomas Sullivan, who sent small samples in silk bags to clients in New York in 1908; the clients infused their tea using the bags, and the technique caught on. In the South, tea drinking sweet tea is so common that it is sometimes called "table wine of the South."
As Tea Plays founder Siyi discovered during the 'Tea Meetups' she organized in Germany, nowadays the international appeal of tea is a great leveler and peacemaker. We propose an afternoon / evening Sweet Home puer tea to mark the day.
