Pursuits: In Northern Germany, a Robust Tea Culture

Written By Unknown on Senin, 25 Februari 2013 | 17.35

Djamila Grossman for The New York Times

A proper service at the East Frisian Tea Museum in Norden. More Photos »

For years, I was a green-tea snob who would drink only the freshest Dragon Well or Azure Conch Spring. Even worse, as a longtime Sinophile living in Beijing I aped Asian cultural practices, and when it came to tea, that meant fanatically seeking out the tender shoots harvested right after the first flush, usually in early April. Everything else was taboo. Black teas, especially, never crossed my tongue.

Then I met Albrecht Ude, a German who had studied Sinology. His apartment in Berlin was an homage to tea, full of manuals on tea plantations, tea import ledgers and rare works on tea botany. I was excited to meet another tea aficionado in Berlin, my adopted hometown since studying there years ago, and went over to visit.

When I first went to see him, he was studying sado, the Japanese tea ceremony, but our drink that afternoon was something else: a thick, dark, malty tea served in espresso-size porcelain cups, a piece of rock sugar in the bottom and heavy cream carefully poured down the side from a flat, shell-like spoon. Stirring was taboo. The cream hit the bottom and mushroomed up, creating a "tea cloud," as Mr. Ude put it.

"East Frisian tea," he said with pride. It was blended by a tea seller in the region where he grew up. "It is special."

I stared at the strange mixture and sipped. It was strong and biting, mostly dark Assam leaves leavened only by a bit of Darjeeling. But as the sugar and cream rushed up from the bottom of the cup, the brew softened. That afternoon, I indefinitely lifted my ban; some black teas were evidently worth drinking.

At the end of my visit, Mr. Ude showed me the source of the tea. The leaves came in a half-kilo package — a simple white bag with a faded blue picture of peasants in the field. Below it was the brand, Hedemann, and an address in East Frisia, a region in northern Germany.

"Go there and drink it," he advised. "You can only truly drink it there." I asked why but he shook his head; it was a question I'd have to answer myself. I followed his advice, and was soon on my way.

East Frisia is best reached by car. It has no major airport and is so sparsely populated that it has infrequent train service. So I drove five hours northwest of Berlin, heading to Hedemann's base in Ostgrossefehn, which could be translated as East Great Fens. That meant flat rural countryside — fens are undrained marshes — popular with tourists who bicycle.

The landscape isn't spectacular but it is scenic. Just like the Netherlands, its neighbor to the west, East Frisia is flat, with dikes protecting green pastures that swoop down below sea level. Holstein cows, windmills and marshy, canal-crossed fields dominate the view. The region bulges out into the North Sea, its coastline dotted with islands for 60 miles. Huge tides empty the shoreline and drain down the creeks and canals, leaving the mud flats, called the Wadden Sea, to worms, crabs, birds and seals. The area's biodiversity has made it one of Unesco's World Heritage sites.

That geography has defined East Frisia, isolating it from the rest of Germany for much of its history. Frisians looked to the Netherlands or England for cultural traditions rather than to their own countrymen. Starting in the 17th century, that culture included importing and drinking tea. Today, according to the German Tea Association, if East Frisia were a country its annual per capita consumption of 300 liters would be the highest in the world, ahead of Kuwait's 290 liters, Ireland's 257 and Turkey's 225.

When coffee took off in Germany and other parts of Europe in the 19th century, East Frisians kept to tea because it was economical; tea leaves can be used over and over again and they do not require grinders and filters. When guests came, East Frisians showed their hospitality by throwing more leaves in the pot and in time a heavy brew became the standard.


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