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Stretching into the morning air and sucking in the fog down to my lungs, I opened my eyes for the first time to the roadside attraction that proudly pronounced itself as "tea". I was very young then and it seemed to me nothing as spectacular as grass on a golf course. The even course of tea brush sprawling up and down the rolling hills and fading into a fierce green on the horizon where cloud, sky and leaves met hundreds of kilometers away was Kericho. Kericho, in East Africa, was well known for its tea plantations, its deeply imbedded green gems that every other tourist or new resident to the country would stop by to gawk and marvel at. I don't know how many times we passed the road through Kericho, but I have seen it in various stages of dress and undress as tea pickers littered the green course with baskets behind them and heads intricately wrapped in cloths to ward off oppressive sun rays. They unclothed the bushes of their leaves, throwing the young buds behind their heads and darted among the plants to get the best of those tender young leaves. Then there were times when the entire expanse of brush was laid with barely a cover of leaves. Other times, the great curtains of fog would momentarily lift to showcase to the world, a fresh young crop of tea. It was so much a roadside show that I soon began to mark the Kericho tea plantations as a vantage point from which I could gauge the distance of our final destination. For some reason, like clockwork, as I slept in our traveling car, I would always wake up right at the point where the tea plantation would suddenly spread alongside the highway. And I would of course, get up, sit up in the car, rub my eyes and roll down the window, letting in the cool, furious wind and fog up my nostrils.
On other days when we weren't in the car passing by roadside attractions, I would be in the sports club on weekends or at school during the week drinking up the green leaves now turned to brown in my white cup. Always with a dash of milk and two sugars, the steam rising out of the cup to warm my face before I drank it down along with a cucumber sandwich or a scone with butter and jam. At the sports club, the old, dusty relic of a grandfather clock would deeply strike at four o'clock and people would mill about the dining room for a cup and a sandwich or two. At school the din of the school bell would strike, like clockwork, at half-past-four. Although it wasn't as proper as the club, there still was plenty of tea in plastic mugs, jam tarts or cucumber sandwiches on good days. The tea came ready mixed with milk and sugar and there were seconds if you fancied another mug. Also, if you fancied a walk in the woods, you would perhaps run into a farmer’s small field of tea that was about as high as your waist, fog mingling with the cold air. Then you could pretend to pick the young buds and throw them behind you in your imaginary tea harvest basket.
During certain afternoons or holidays, mothers and other types of ladies would fill living rooms and tea would be served out of electric kettles on silver platters. Of course, there were more delicious things to devour like cakes and pastries from the French patisserie or boulangerie: almond croissants, tortes, and home made ham and cheese sandwiches. The ladies trilled and giggled, gossiped and invited each other for more tea parties in gardens, living rooms, dining halls, and kitchens.
As I grew older, I left the country of tea plantations and moved away where the only tea I saw were in boxes and tins on grocery store shelves and specialty stores. By this time there were more tea species and instruments than tea pickers I ever saw among the tea plantation bushes: Princeton Darjeeling, Earl Gray, Chamomile, Moroccan Green Mint, Jasmine, Oolong, Puchong, Sencha, Raspberry, Strawberry, Mango, Passion Fruit flavored teas, and Rooibos teas; pot boiled teas, tea bags and tea pouches; tea strainers, tea balls and the like. A whole complication of tea and the art of tea drinking: the Japanese tea ceremony and the method of pouring mint tea from a great distance in the air in thin, tiny glasses in North Africa. I myself drink it several ways – with milk and sugar (only in Darjeeling), with honey and lemon, straight up hot and steaming. Now there are multi-purpose uses for tea: tea bag facial infusions, tea bag pouches for puffy eyes, and slimming tea. Tea is no longer a roadside show, it's become an entire spectacle, a culture of its own and its practitioners, no doubt, have only the slightest idea of where the humble, tiny tea leaf begins.
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