Tea lovers find comfort in one of life's simple pleasures

A higher grade often includes leaves and buds harvested by hand from the upper branches of a younger plant.Photograph by: Ian Lindsay/Vancouver Sun fileDavid Pidhirney walks around the table, carefully pouring a little bit of his brew into seven delicate china cups.

He's "equalizing" the pours so the cups of his Pu-Erh tea will all end up tasting the same, he explains. As he walks around the table, the six women gathered inside this Calgary home listen intently.

The fermented tea, named after a county in Yunnan, China, speeds up metabolism and helps flush fat through the system, among other medicinal qualities, says Pidhirney, owner of Totalitea tea boutique in Calgary.

Pidhirney will host tea parties at private homes upon request. He brings about 10 different teas plus all the accoutrements, including ornate teapots for serving. The host invites the guests and sets the table with sweet and savoury dainties to go with those teas.

Pidhirney charges only $5 per person, but brings along a selection of teas he hopes guests will want to buy.

In a two-hour party, Pidhirney gives tea neophytes a taste of its history, the country and region of origin, growing secrets of specific plants, and the differences in tasting characteristics among teas.

Indeed, there's much to learn about tea, yet the appeal is simple: there is something inherently calming about curling up with a cup. It's warm, does a body good on bitterly cold winter days and comforts the soul.

Perhaps a cup of tea is just evocative of more civilized times when life seemed less complicated. It's hard to rush a proper cup of tea, after all.

Today, it's the second most popular beverage worldwide, behind water. In Canada, we drink about nine billion cups a year. According to Tea Association of Canada, that added up to 270 cups per person in 2007.

But all of this tea drinking began as a happy mistake, or so the story goes. In 2737 B. C., Chinese emperor Shen Nung accidentally discovered the drink when a tea leaf fell into a hot bowl of water he was drinking, says the association.

Like coffee shops, tea houses are places to kick back and savour a pot with friends, or sip a cup while working on that latest work project or college paper. It's about slowing life down, says one tea house manager.

"People really love sitting with a pot of tea for hours," says Sarah Proudlock, general manager of both Steeps Tea House and Oolong Tea House in Calgary.

"It's about taking that time out in your day, and definitely more people are doing that," Proudlock says. "It's fun, it's healthy, it's trendy."

"It's very comforting," adds Paulie Duhaime, manager of the Tea Trader in Inglewood. "I like to tell people it's a little gift you give yourself."

Like wine, tea knowledge is vast and deep. Drinkers' understanding of and tastes in tea have also become more sophisticated, both women say.

"There's definitely more knowledge about tea out there," says Duhaime.

Knowing your tea grades is a good place to start.

In the simplest of terms, a higher grade often includes leaves and buds harvested by hand from the upper branches of a younger plant, explains Duhaime. Those varieties may also be processed by hand, including curled, twisted or rolled.

Lower grades may include lower level leaves and buds machine-harvested from more mature plants that are then processed by machine.

The less the tea is processed, the healthier it is, Proudfoot adds. "It's so dynamic. There's so much too it. It's not just a simple beverage," she says.

Prices can vary dramatically, depending on the tea's grade

At Oolong Tea House, for example, in-house tea costs $3.50 to $5.50 per pot with free hot water refills. Small tins (or about 25 cups) range, on average, from $4 to about $15. The most expensive tea at Oolong, called Jade Oolong, costs $38 for a small tin.

Back at the tea party in Pump Hill, tea expert Pidhirney masterfully brews seven pots of tea: an Oolong, a Rooibus, a Yerba Mate, among others.

He performs a Matcha tea service, mixing the green tea powder with his bamboo whisk in a little bit of 70 C water, adding 90 C water to the potion to finish the brew. If the water is too hot, it kills the antioxidants within, he explains.

If the Matcha tea is bitter, you'll know the water was too hot or you were served a lower grade of tea, he tells the women.

Pidhirney wraps up by serving a flowering jasmine, which is a hand-bound tea blossom that opens up as it steeps, in a clear glass tea pot, much to the delight of the guests.

As Pidhirney says: "There are so many things you can do with tea. It's wonderful.