STiR coffee and tea magazine

44 STiR coffee and tea | 2024 Issue 5 (October / November) By Lesley Jacobs Solmonson I The History and Renaissance of Tea Liqueurs n the book, "The Art and Alchemy of Chinese Tea" (2011), author Daniel P. Reid discusses the significance of jin dan, the alchemical "golden elixir of life" in Chinese culture. Contrary to the Arab and Western alchemists who sought to create an elixir from real gold, the Chinese searched for a different tonic. "This precious essence," Reid explains, "is the 'green gold' in the alchemy of Chinese tea." As the centuries passed, cultures worldwide embraced tea's health benefits and its recreational role. The two eventually merged when tea became involved in the modern version of alchemy— alcoholic liqueurs. The first substantial influx of tea to reach Europe was most likely thanks to the Dutch East India Company in the early 1600s. While originally brewed for medicinal use, tea soon became a social fixture in society, albeit for those of wealthy status. But from the 1600s to the 1800s, society underwent massive changes, including industrial- ization and the emergence of a middle class. Both of the latter led to more disposable income and more leisure time in which to spend it. Recreation Leads to Good Spirits All of this added up to one word: recreation. Among the most popular forms of rec- reation was the consumption of alcohol, and liqueurs were enjoyed in multiple ways: before and after dinner, as an afternoon pick-me-up, and as a surreptitiously sipped lubricant for the ladies. In the same period, spirits production became more efficient, making for better- tasting and cheaper products. In Europe, liqueurs had been a staple among the rich since the 1500s. The Italian noblewoman Catherine de Medici brought her favorite liqueur, alchermes, to the French court when she married King Henry II. In Holland, the Tea has been a prominent ingredient in spirits since the 1700s. Photo courtesy Liqueurious Bols Company, founded in 1575, started producing multiple liqueurs flavored with exotic spices from the East. While not a spice, tea was still exotic in its own way and expensive, so it naturally made its way into liqueurs, allowing those who drank them to flaunt their wealth. Eventually, it could be had by all mem- bers of society, albeit of different qual- ity depending on price. In M. Demacy's L'Art due distillateur liquoriste (1775), the au- thor classifies liqueurs as "fine, ou bourgeois, ou commune" (fine, or bourgeois, or com- mon) based on the amount of sugar and the purity of the other ingredients. Among the liqueur recipes, Demacy included was one for eau de thé or water of tea. The Prominence of Tea Liqueurs Almost a century later, in 1871, Pierre Duplais's "A Treatise on the Manufac- ture and Distillation of Alcoholic Spirits" mentions tea multiple times as an ingre- dient in liqueur production. Eau de thé is among the recipes; its ingredients include two green teas—Imperial and Hyson—as well as Pekoe black tea. Tea also appears as a component in a syrup and a perfumed 'spirit', both of which were employed in making tea li- Many different types of tea, such as Darjeeling, green tea, and even hibiscus, are used to make liqueurs. Photo courtesy Gabriel Boudier & Edmond Briottet

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