Cape Town - How do you take your tea? I like mine strong, without milk or sugar.
Whatever your preference, we all have our reasons for drinking tea. From warming you up to helping you relax, or when you need a daily dose of antioxidants - the beverage has many benefits.
The story of tea reportedly began in China in 2737 BC. Shennong, the legendary emperor of China and inventor of agriculture and Chinese medicine, is said to have been drinking a bowl of boiled water when a few leaves from a nearby tree fell into it changing the colour.
The emperor took a sip of the brew and was surprised by its flavour and restorative properties. A variant of the legend says the emperor tested the medical properties of various herbs on himself, some of them poisonous and found tea to work as an antidote.
Fast forward to today and tea traditions vary across countries, from China and Japan, to India and England.
“There is so much more to tea. It is something that has been here for thousands of years and there is a reason that it has been so popular for so long,” says Jessica “Lady” Bonin the brains behind the Lady Bonin Tea and founder of South Africa’s first tea bar, Lady Bonin’s Tea Bar.
“The culture of drinking tea is sort of coming alive again. I think it’s because people are after a different way of living. They are realising that the way we have been living is not sustainable for us or the environment and that we have to find a different kind of balance.”
The tea parlour, situated on Long Street in Cape Town’s city centre, offers a range of 45 teas - combining traditional herbal, green and black teas with unlikely flavours that, surprisingly, taste good. I tried their turmeric tea that can only be described as a golden spiced calming milky tea.
Bonin’s tea business began in 2010, out of a caravan as the “Mobile Tea Room”. She says it was Cape Town’s first food truck, selling take-away tea with the mission to revolutionise the tea drinking culture.
“I was working in the film industry for about five years and was desperately unhappy not doing anything that was creative or that I was passionate about. Tea has always been a thing in my life that I have shared with so many people.
“When I was in boarding school that was the thing that we used to share with each other and my grandma, June de Jager, was a tea drinker,” says Bonin
“Initially I wanted to open a cafe, but realised that a cafe was way too risky. And that was when I took it down to the bare minimum and came up with the idea of take-away tea.
“I bought the caravan and it ended up being South Africa’s first food truck. From there I started travelling around different parts of Cape Town, to markets and festivals serving take-away tea. The media and bloggers started picking up on it.
“It was a magical sort of way for people to experience tea. People who wouldn’t normally drink tea wanted to have the experience of the caravan and taste the tea and would be like Woah! it’s unlike any tea I have ever tasted before, “Bonin recalls.
At first she imported many teas, except for the rooibos and honeybush teas which she sourced locally.
“I didn’t have any idea about blending or mixing, but I started playing around one day. I got a bunch of spices from a spice trader and started blending. That’s when I realised that I don’t need to import all these existing flavours, I can just do them myself.
“I used to drink normal bog standard tea, mostly rooibos with lots of milk and sugar. I knew nothing of tea until I started enquiring about it as a potential business idea.
“I travelled to India and tea was a medium that allowed you to bridge worlds. It’s a sort of thing that is common to everyone around the world. Everyone knows tea and everyone has their particular way of serving and enjoying tea,” she says.
Now, Lady Bonin Tea is sold across South Africa and exported to several parts of the world.
The Lady Bonin Tea Bar opened in January and offers a take-away option as well as a sit down alternative in their garden situated at the back of the store.
Bonin says they will soon hold tea ceremonies performed by a tea master, so visitors will enjoy the tradition of drinking tea influenced by Zen Buddhism.
“Tea was a calling of sorts. A few months after getting the caravan, I was like this is the thing that I have been looking for my whole life”.
“This is the thing that I wanted, not because it was necessary but because tea became a medium or the vehicle by which I can explore the world,” says Bonin.
“Tea has become my passion and my practice.
“As I started exploring the rabbit hole that is tea, I discovered the reason why it’s been a meditation practice in China and Japan for thousands of years.
“There are physiological effects that tea brings to your body and your mind, that brings you to the present moment.”
“It brings a different kind of mindfulness. It brings you back to yourself and that is what I I love so much about it and that is what I want to share with people.”
The Lady Bonin Tea Bar is at 213 Long Street in the Cape Town CBD. For Lady Bonin Tea stockists and information, visit: www. ladyboninstea.com.
Cape Argus