It's hard to get a good cup of tea around here

You have no idea how hard it is to get a good cup of tea in Los Angeles. Most places serve English tea: bags of Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Green Tea, Mint or Chamomile for those who are trying to be healthy. Chlorine bleached teabags mostly, although a few establishments have taken to serving tea packaged in silky mesh sacs in an attempt to be classy. They usually bring you a pot of hot water, a teacup, and a selection of foil-sealed packages for the discriminating palate.

Ah, the folly. That is when I begin my acrobatics: pour some hot water onto the teabag in the cup, then dump the teabag and partially brewed water back into the pot so that the entire thing can steep at a relatively even temperature for the right amount of time. Then pour, add milk (or not), and enjoy. Most of my dine-out companions think I'm crazy, but I'm just trying to enjoy a good cup of tea.

Where can you go in Los Angeles for a good cup of tea? There are a few places that try a little harder: the Four Seasons, Peninsula Hotel, Beverly Wilshire Hotel. They actually serve their tea loose, in porcelain. They also provide the tea drinker with a strainer and holder, and they offer very fancy versions of the usual selections: Earl Grey, English Breakfast, Green, Mint, Chamomile.

Actually I've never been to the Peninsula or Beverly Wilshire for tea but I know how the Four Seasons does it. It's a luxurious experience to sit in their padded, floral-print chairs and nibble on petits-fours or a fancy breakfast while sipping tea. However, it's not really about the tea there. It's about who is eating with you, or next to you, or two tables down. I've had tea at the Four Seasons under the most painful circumstances: at 7:45 AM while sitting with my nagging boss, Karen, then-head of a motion picture studio (but since deposed), waiting for two ICM agents to show up so that they could take down our orders for writers and directors, and possibly pitch us an actor or has-been or two. No one you'd want to work with is ever available. Let's just say the Earl Grey was very stimulating.

Unfortunately you can't drink only Earl Grey for the rest of your life. Why not? There are so many reasons.

Candida, for one. If one grows up on an American diet of refined white flour and sugar, with corn syrup included in almost every packaged food, there is a strong likelihood that by age 30 one will develop food intolerances and aggravated intestinal conditions, ranging from mild to severe. In particular the American population is threatened by candidiasis, gluten intolerance, and wheat allergy. Of course there are also the increasingly common incidences of simple indigestion and irritable bowel syndrome (known as IBS) which lead to ulcers, colon disease, you name it we've got it. We are a nation with a lot of digestive disorders.

If you live in Los Angeles, it seems wrong to have to live with the scourge-like effects of these disorders: bloating, weight gain, constipation, redness in the skin, subcutaneous acne. It makes it hard to look good, and feel young. There are simple ways to prevent these things. Like through nutrition. So back to Earl Grey.

From my personal experience it seems that at various times and often for different reasons, coffee and caffeine seem to be a big no-no with all the health professions--by this I mean the MDs, acupuncturists, homeopaths, and nutritionists. A lot of my health-conscious friends have given up coffee to be more healthy. So did I; my homeopath gave me a medicine guaranteed to remedy my 'hopeless despair' unless I cancelled it out by having dental work, eating mint, or drinking coffee. I turned straight to black tea for my fix.

It turns out drinking a pot of Earl Grey a day is also a no-no. In fact, I gave myself recurring candida because I didn't lay off the black tea like the nutritionist told me to. The symptoms are ugly. Really, this isn't the place to go into it. But if you want to test yourself for candida, there is an easy way to do it: first thing when you wake up, fill a clear glass with some water. Spit into it. Wait five minutes. If your saliva has manifested long strings that dangle into the water, there is your proof. Candida is a yeast overgrowth that has mutated into long, string-like branches that link together and have the power to bore holes in your intestines, causing raw sewage to leak into your blood, sweat, and saliva. Candida as well. Yummy.

So what is a tea drinker to do? At this point in time my expertise was quite limited. And crappy Green Tea bags didn't cut it. So I went to the experts, first the Chado Tea Room, and then Hugo's teas. In 2005, on the eve of '06, Chado feels dated. Their website has never heard of Yixing pots. Hugo's boasts Green Tea that actually have names: Dragonwell, Bi Lo Chun, White Monkey, Silver Needle, Jasmine pearls. Pu'er and Oolong teas too. All served the same way: in 12 oz glass Bodun tea presses with boiling water poured on them and sitting at the server's station for no one--especially not the server--knows how long before they are delivered to your table. I wasn't impressed by any of the selections.

So I went to Palais des Thes in Beverly Hills to buy my way into tea culture.

Tea culture at Palais des Thes is extremely sexy, and it's wonderfully colorful. If tea was a kind of opium and could be smoked, if tea was a beautiful woman wearing a kimono suggestively opened at the bosom and tied tightly with a silky sash, they would sell it. Their tea wares cost more than any I have been able to find in LA or on the internet, except possibly Gray & Seddon's beautiful porcelain.

I have to give them credit, though, their tea smells great. The du Hammam is guaranteed to impress the nose of the most novice tea drinker, with its peachy-floral bouquet and light, almost citrusy flavor. I gave it to my Creative Executive, Bridget, who drinks only Starbucks Grande Soy Lattes or Soy Chai Lattes, in a package of twenty sealed foil packets containing beautiful silky sashes full of tea--2 grams a bag. She was very impressed.

The des Songes, a chocolatey and fruity bouquet, was an impulse buy on my part. I didn't want to spend more than thirty dollars in that store but I couldn't resist. It said the tea was good for sleepytime. However when I brewed it at home the tea sucked. It did not taste like chocolatey fruity sex in a glass. Why? I used a 32 oz glass pot, 2 tablespoons of tea. I read the package. It said Wu Long. What the hell was that? Oh, oolong. The gross tea from Hugo's.

What IS that? This was the first time the question ever crossed my mind. And more importantly, the following question: how do you brew oolong tea to extract the best flavor, the flavor I knew was lurking in there somewhere?

Unfortunately, no one in Los Angeles knows. (That is, no one that I know, knows. Like, REALLY knows).

So my quest began. And continues.

Welcome to my obsession.