How to Make We Qi Fermented Pickles

A fun thing to do in the summer is to make your own fermented pickles.  These are the directions we attach whenever we give away a jar.

To give credit where credit is due, We Qi is very much like the Korean national pickle known as kimchi.  But We Qi (pronounced “Wee Chee”) is a process, not a product!  Most importantly, you shouldn’t make it all by yourself.  Make it with your partner, with family, with friends, and your Qi (“breath” or “energy”) will alchemically merge with the Qi of the ingredients, and create a remarkable living food: We Qi. 

Make some, eat some, give some away!  Join the We Qi Revolution!

Ingredients:

            2 medium to large heads nappa cabbage

            2 daikon, peeled and cubed

            ½ cup sea salt

            5 - 10 cloves garlic

            10 green onions

            powdered red pepper or chopped fresh red peppers (adjust to your desired level of heat)

            juice from previous batch of We Qi (optional)

            2 large buckets

            plate

            big rock

Procedure:

1. Set aside several large outer leaves of cabbage
2. Chop up rest of cabbage, coarsely, and divide into two buckets for easy mixing
3. Add half the salt to each bucket, mix well by hand
4. If you have juice from your previous batch of We Qi, add it to the mix to hasten fermentation
5. Combine into one bucket
6. Cover with large whole cabbage leaves
7. Place upside-down plate over the top
8. Place large clean rock on top of plate
9. Cover bucket with moist cloth, bungee-cord it closed so critters can’t get in
10. Set aside in a cool place for three days, mixing occasionally
11. Add crushed fresh garlic, coarsely chopped green onions, red pepper, daikon cubes
12. Cover with moist cloth and set aside another three days – let it get good and bubbly
13. Transfer to clean jars and keep in refrigerator until ready to enjoy
14. Adjust for over-saltiness (if necessary) by adding more daikon; adjust for under-saltiness by adding salt
15. Give away some jars along with these directions so that others can experience the Way of We Qi!

Variations:

Add other vegetables, like carrots, kale, turnips, radish, etc., or other interesting things like kombu seaweed slices or watercress

Add fresh herbs like ashitaba leaves or gotu kola and let them ferment along with the cabbage.

If you are the adventurous type, add anchovy paste, fish stomachs, or other funky matter.

Instead of starting anew each time, just keep adding fresh vegetables, sea salt, garlic to your bucket of We Qi.

Om We Qi Yum!

The Laboratory and the Real Work

Many years ago I started making herbal liqueurs and tinctures for fun.  Along the way I went back to school to learn more about herbs and healing, and ended up with a master’s degree in traditional Chinese medicine and state certification as a Licensed Acupuncturist.  For a couple of years I worked solely as a clinician, but then, to supplement my meager income and to get good benefits for my family, I  took a day job as a research administrator at the local university, and treated people in the evenings and on weekends.

I stayed at my university job for ten years.  It was a good job, with very little supervision and a lot of autonomy.  The scientists that I worked with came to trust and like me, and to rely on me to manage their grants.  We developed a ritual where, with every successful grant submission, we would share a glass of schnapps.  Over the months and years the drink would vary depending on what I had most recently produced: it could be a strong clear liquor made from the plums growing in my yard, or absinthe, or a mix of spring bitters.  Hanging out with my scientist friends, I came to admire them immensely for the work that they did as well as for the individuals that they were.  Many of them work in biomedical research, peering into the workings of cells and the molecular basis of life, and finding out things that are resulting in a deepened understanding of, and eventual cures for, diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s Disease.  But the work they did was so different from my work.  Seized by a problem or a question, they devised experiments to test hypotheses, they ran labs that were devoted to figuring out stuff they were interested in.  I distinctly remember once overhearing a researcher in the hallway, remarking incredulously to a colleague, “I can’t believe we get paid to fuck around!”  I knew immediately that he meant “fuck around” in the best sense of the word, as in trying things out, playing, experimenting, figuring out the problem that occupies you.  I wished I had a job where I could get paid to fuck around!

My administration job changed quite a bit in the last year or so.  With the economy tanking, the trend was for fewer and fewer people to do more and more work.  Plus, I had a new boss who managed to turn my job into that of a glorified clerk.  I used to feel like a valued consultant, advising my PIs (Principal Investigators) on grant-related issues, but more and more I felt like an overheated machine, scrambling to stay on top of never-ending bureaucratic tasks that the University would have done better to hire a student helper for.  While I still enjoyed working and hanging out with my PIs, I came to resent the middle and upper management who were, in my view, making bad decisions, ruining my job for me and diminishing the research enterprise at our university.  So, two months ago, I quit my job.

For the first time in a while, I feel a tremendous sense of freedom.  I still treat patients, but now I have some free time to fuck around!  The place I do it is in my lab.  When I left my university job, my PIs gave me a beautiful apparatus for extracting the active constituents from medicinal herbs.  I set it up in my garage this summer, and have really been enjoying experimenting with it.  I should clarify right away that would I actually do in my lab is quite different from what my scientist friends do.  They seek to find out new things: the application of nanomaterials to the detection of cancer, for instance, or figuring out how tRNAs move on the ribosome during protein synthesis.  I am interested in very old things: medicinal herbs and fungi that were first described a couple thousand years ago. My PIs use very expensive cutting-edge technology to arrive at their results, whereas my equipment is very low-tech, consisting of glass columns, jars, grinder, recycled pressure cooker, and coils of copper tubing.  And, they are way smarter than me, have tons of education, and are eminent in their respective fields.  (I myself am something of a hermit and an unknown).  And, my lab is far dirtier than any of theirs (Environmental Health and Safety would probably frown at my spiders-to-wall-space ratio).

Nonetheless, the spirit of fucking around is the same.  Will the MAO inhibition caused by the beta-carbolines in passionflower increase the antidepressant or sleep-inducing effects of some of the other herbs in this formula?  Should I change the ratio of ethanol to water in the solvent to better extract the active polysaccharides from the ganoderma fungus I just harvested?  Or would it be better to do two separate extractions, one in boiling water and one in pure ethanol, and combine them later?  Should I add some fennel seed extract to the absinthe after distillation, to soften and sweeten the final product, or some fresh melissa? How will it affect the final product if I don’t first decarboxylate the herb with heat prior to extracting it?  These are the kinds of questions that occupy me, and that I can play around with on my equipment.  There is also a more sensual aspect to this fucking around.  Tasting my herbal extracts, combining them, mixing them until they taste right to me and make me feel good, this is also an essential part of the process.

There is a sign that hangs over the door that leads from my office to my lab.  The sign says LABOR.  On the one hand, “labor” is the German word for laboratory.  But there is a double and even a triple meaning.  Labor, of course, also means “work.”  And labor is also a special kind of work – the hard work that leads to birth.  I like to think of my laboratory as the place where I do my “real work.”  It’s not that I don’t consider treating patients to be real work, or unimportant work.  But it’s a very different kind of work, so much so that it doesn’t feel like work to me.  I am fortunate in that I have wonderful patients who are more like old friends.  When I see them, we get to catch up on each other’s lives, chat and hang out while I am cupping their backs, sticking them with needles, or what have you.  My work in the lab is different.  There is a certain rhythm that I get into when I am measuring out herbs, grinding them up, mixing them, packing them in the percolation column, mixing solvents, controlling levels of heat and rates of drip.  There is something ritualistic about it that speaks to me at a very deep level.  I am doing real, time-consuming, physical work, work that takes preparation and clarity and an unhurried sense of purpose.  Making a formula is an all-day, or even a multiple-day affair.  At the end there is a final product – an amber-colored or deep green elixir that, when imbibed, has some sort of predictable effect on one’s body and mind.  I think of myself as an essentially creative person, and when I have created a medicine, it feels like a kind of a birth to me.  The labor has produced something unique, and useful, which then goes out into the world, into my community, where it can do good.

All this talk of labor may seem odd for someone who professes to embrace an easygoing kiraku life philosophy.  But, in fact, I am not opposed to working hard.  It’s just that there has to be a balance.  The kind of work that many jobs entail – forty or more hours a week of brain-frying stress while sitting in front of a keyboard processing tasks with little or no relevance to your day-to-day life aside from the fact that they put a roof over your head and food on the table – is just not healthy.  But to do work that you enjoy is a good thing.  My goal is to work hard in the lab to produce herbal medicines for my patients and friends, continue treating patients in a leisurely and enjoyable way, and have time left over for gardening, hiking, and other fun things. 

In Memoriam: Gus Turpin 1963 - 2010

I first met Gus sixteen years ago as a first-year student of traditional Chinese medicine at Five Branches Institute in Santa Cruz, California. He was a couple years ahead of me, and with his long flowing hair and imposing stature (Gus is well over six feet tall), he made quite an impression. But what impressed me more was the depth and breadth of his knowledge. One afternoon during that first year of school, Gus led an herb walk in the alleys around the school. From the gnarled albizzia tree that greeted me every morning as I arrived for class, to the tenacious passionflower vines that took over entire neighborhoods and astounded passers-by with their blooms of alien ultraviolet, to the humble prunella that grew on the edges of dusty walkways, Gus knew the medicinal uses of all these plants. As a newbie to the world of herbal medicine, I was surprised first of all that these plants I had taken for granted had medicinal uses at all, and secondly by how much there was to know about them! For Gus possessed an encyclopedic knowledge of healing plants, and his unrehearsed lectures gave me a first glimpse of how his mind worked – synthesizing Chinese energetics with biochemical understanding and mixing in a dollop of Ayurveda here and a tidbit of medieval alchemy there.

As I got to know him better, I came to understand that Gus’ mastery of herbs came from his own intense curiosity about the world. His passion was the rich, deep realm where mind, spirit, and plants overlap and interact and play. His company, Shamanic Tonics, specialized in “spirit herbs,” and each and every one of his formulations was only offered up to the public after rigorous in vivo testing conducted on himself (and his lucky friends!). I remember one day Gus announced, quite dramatically for him, that he had “tamed the wild mahuang!” Back in those days ephedra was still legal, though the FDA was taking an interest in it due to a few unfortunate incidents in which people had abused it as an “herbal upper” to the point of death. Gus wanted to tone down mahuang’s stimulant properties, and hit on the combination of mahuang and reishi (a spirit-calming and immune system stimulating medicinal mushroom) to do just that. I remember some really fun and interesting hikes trying out that stuff. It came to market as Fungalore, and became quite the hit at dances and parties before mahuang was banned.

Gus was a very spiritual guy, a true seeker, whereas I was and am more of a skeptic. Yet, we had great discussions about everything from Tibetan Buddhism to Shinto animism to Amazonian shamanism. Regardless of our fundamentally different orientations, we shared a deep interest in religion and consciousness. I took an anthropological interest in history and religion as a record of humanity’s attempts to understand the world; for him spiritual traditions were a practical guide for his own explorations of mind and nature. He revealed to me once that he thought we had known each other in a past life. Though I would ordinarily shoot down such a statement in my usual rational way, at the time I paused and savored it, because I had to agree that we shared a bond that, whether or not it involved reincarnation, demonstrated some kind of karmic connection that I could not deny. And, not insignificantly, I took it to mean that he considered me his friend, and that made me happy.

In the years after we finished our master’s degrees in Chinese medicine, Gus moved away from Santa Cruz, settling in Northern California near Mendocino. I think the slower pace of life and immersion in lush forest suited him well. We kept in sporadic touch by email and phone, and every now and then I’d find a package in the mail stuffed with fresh matsutake (Gus and I shared a love of mushrooms), or a sample pack of a new herbal formulation, or an article on kanna or blue lotus or whatever else was occupying his interest at the time. This was typical of Gus: so generous, so giving.

Some years ago Gus gave me a piece of writing he had authored. It was about his fascination with the young god Dionysus. I wish I had kept it, so I could read it over again in my effort to understand him better, to try to understand why he is gone. Because I still don’t understand. I saw Gus a couple of months before he died. We went on a hike in the Berkeley hills with our friend Andy. He was in the process of moving from Mendocino to the Bay Area, and was excited about some new prospects for his company, about reinventing himself and his business. He seemed content. We had a great time; it was like old times, Andy driving like a crazy man, Gus with his long stride leading the way as we hiked, pointing out flowers, talking about plants. He would have made a really great teacher at any Chinese medicine or naturopathic school.

Soon after we became friends, Gus gave me a baby gotu kola plant. Gotu kola is an Ayurvedic herb that is revered for its effects on the brain and nervous system, circulation, and skin. It has since become one of my favorite herbs. Gotu kola is easily propagated, as it spreads runners that put down new sets of roots and establish babies that can be dug up and given away. Over the years I have given away many such babies, to friends and patients, as well as tinctures and teas that I made from the harvested plant (I’ve eaten quite a bit of the fresh leaf as well). I think of the gotu kola as Gus’ good influence, spreading outwards in an infinite web, doing good, humans and plants working together for the betterment of all. Like I said, I’m not so sure about reincarnation. But if anybody would consciously reincarnate as a plant, it would be Gus. Perhaps his consciousness is spreading through the world as gotu kola. Perhaps, every time I take a nibble, I re-enter that Dionysian wave. Perhaps, as I graze, I will get my friend back, just a bit at a time, in subtle explosions of metabolism and neurology, as plant and mind merge and my grief (I hope) slowly diminishes to be replaced entirely by a love and appreciation that grows only deeper with time.

The Art of the Herbal Liqueur

The first time I ever distilled my own liquor, I experienced something of the excitement that must have been felt by Jabir-ibn-Hayyan, the eighth-century Mesopotamian alchemist who is said to have discovered the distillation of alcohol. It was the year that our apricot tree fruited like never before, an embarrassment of riches that yielded apricot pies, apricot sauce, and finally, due to sheer neglect (some over-ripe apricots left in a bowl, then accidentally submerged in water), apricot "wine". The wine got me all excited, but my excitement waned when I tried it, then reached a new height as I was hit by the inspiration to extract the alcohol from the wine. I rigged a crude still out of a pot, a ceramic vegetable steamer, and a bag of ice, and produced a few milliliters of clear, strong, and deliciously fruity-flowery-aromatic moonshine. Tasting it, I was transformed by the spirit, the essence of apricot as it melted into my tongue then shone out of my every pore. This, I thought to myself, is definitely something I could do full-time.

As it turned out, I never did become a big-time producer of whiskey or rum or apricot liquor. Fortunately, there are other ways of extracting plant essences with alcohol. When I was a child, I used to help my parents make umeshu, the traditional “plum wine” of Japan. My sister and I would carefully wash and dry the unripe fruit (actually a variety of apricot), then poked them full of holes with a fork. My mother put the fruit into large glass jars, together with rock sugar, and poured shochu (grain spirits) over them. A couple of years later, we enjoyed the resulting liqueur, neat or mixed with soda water and ice as a refreshing summer drink.

This, essentially, is the art of the herbal liqueur: you take a plant, soak it in strong alcohol to bring out its flavors and other qualities, then (after a wait of at least two weeks) drink this extract in small amounts over time to appreciate its effects on your mind and body. You can do this with all sorts of things: ginseng, astragalus, angelica, walnuts and Chinese wolfberries all yield decent tonic liqueurs. And you can experiment with a variety of solvents – rum is one of my favorites, although you can use vodka, tequila, or any strong liquor.

There’s a lot of discussion among students of herbal medicine as to the proper percentage of alcohol in the solvent, in relation to the type of plant being extracted. For our alchemical purposes, I suggest any strong liquor of about 100 proof. That way, you’ll end up with a balance of water-soluble and alcohol-soluble herb constituents. Also, to create a pleasant-tasting brew it’s good to start with more liquor and less herb, significantly less than the one to five ratio (one ounce dried herb to five fluid ounces of solvent) that is considered standard strength for herbal tinctures. Better yet, begin with something that tastes good to start with, like peaches or cherries or any kind of berry! There’s a lot to be said, in terms of antioxidants, bioflavonoids, and other phytonutrients, for the health benefits of fruit. One of my fantasies, yet to be fulfilled, is to travel the length of the West Coast one summer with a huge jar of Kirsch or Calvados or some other fruity spirits, throwing in large handfuls of wild berries as I come across them in my travels. Olallieberries, raspberries, strawberries, huckleberries, currants, even the somewhat medicinal-tasting berries of the California Spikenard and Devil’s Club would all be welcome to the mix. By the end of the summer I’d have a quantity of berry elixir to last me through the rest of the year, to share with friends and loved ones, to stretch a little bit of the summer’s sweet goodness into the cooler days of fall and winter.

The satisfaction that comes from making stuff, especially stuff that tastes good and makes you feel good, is a feeling that many people do without. In this day of instant gratification and 40-hour workweeks, few of us take (or make) the extra time and effort necessary to cook our own meals, much less concoct our own medicines and dessert wines. Why bother, when our natural food stores and supermarkets offer us everything we need, pre-made and ready to go? I bother because I find this type of activity to be deeply satisfying in a way that’s difficult to describe. To be in touch with the flux of the seasons, to pick an herb when its qi has sunk into its roots in the fall or risen into its flowers in the summer, to harvest by the time of day and phases of the moon, to extract the essence of a plant and then to ingest it – these are activities that are so ancient that their re-enactment awakens in us an almost shamanic appreciation of the natural world that we are a part of. Why not take the time to appreciate, in some small way, the great cosmic cycles that shape and influence all life on our planet? Watching the sunset or the moonrise, or the Milky Way on a clear night, can do the trick. But to drink the light that was captured by a plant – that is the unique pleasure, and the rare medicine, of the herbal liqueur.

On Herbs

Plants are the original chemists and alchemists of our planet, synthesizing out of water, air, earth and sunlight thousands upon thousands of bioactive chemicals. Many of these chemicals are used in the plants’ own self-repair, self-defense, and health maintenance. Since individual plants exist not in a vacuum but in complex communities including other plants and animals, their various antimicrobial, anti-cancer, immune system strengthening, and other therapeutic compounds benefit all the members of their community. Until quite recently, human beings were also part of that community, and they also benefited from the wide range of nutrients and medicinal compounds that they encountered in the wild plants that they foraged. Fortunately, the healing properties of plants were remembered and passed on. This body of knowledge is what has come to be called herbal medicine.

Unfortunately, with the rise of agriculture and modern monoculture, modern humans eat an appallingly small selection of foods (and those that we eat have often had their healthiest phytochemicals bred out of them in favor of blandness, uniformity, and long shelf life). The result is that we don’t get the same range of beneficial substances from the foods that we eat. And, generally speaking, we are less healthy than our ancestors (we may live longer, but that is primarily due to advances in sanitation rather than to changes in diet).

I suggest that rather than run to the nearest herb store to buy herbs with which to supplement your diet, head into the woods and gather stinging nettles, edible mushrooms, miner’s lettuce, or other locally-growing herbs to cook at home. The experience of foraging in the wild will itself be a healthy and deeply satisfying activity, with the health benefits of wild foods an added bonus. If you are unsure about what plants to pick, check with your local natural foods store – most cities have an herbalist or two who lead herb walks in the local woods or hills.

In addition to incorporating herbs in your diet, I suggest that you consider making herbal medicine your primary healthcare modality. Many of our most common health complaints, including colds and flu, menstrual problems, and digestive disorders, are not very effectively addressed by conventional medicine. Herbs often help, with fewer side effects than pharmaceuticals. The truth is that many of us run to the doctor far too quickly and far too often, and end up using medications that cause unpleasant side effects, pollute the environment, and often don’t work. By using herbal preparations for your healthcare needs, you increase your own innate vitality and immunity, and do your small part towards decreasing the growing environmental impact of excreted pharmaceuticals on the biosphere.

Using herbs is one way to wake ourselves up out of the hypnosis of modern living. Head for the woods! Eat wild plants! Taste all the flavors! Your senses will come alive, and your organs, your blood, your entire being will remember what it was like to be an integral part of the living environment as we once were not too long ago.

Lab Notes II

Last night was a good night. First, I ground up a bunch of herbs in the big grinder down at the clinic and made some big tea bags of mugicha (roasted barley), dokudami (houttuynia) and jiaogulan (gynostemma). The inspiration was the Japanese dokudami migraine tea that my mom sends us for Sara (who now hasn't had a headache in close to a year). Dokudami is an interesting herb that the Chinese use primarily for hot phlegm in the lungs. It's said to be broadly antiviral and antibacterial, and is mildly diuretic and laxative as well. The Japanese adore this herb; since ancient times it's been valued as a detoxifier, and it's hailed as a panacea for everything from migraines and acne to cancer and malaria. The mugicha's roasted nutty flavor does a good job of masking the more intense flavors in the other herbs. Anyway, I figured I might as well make some migraine tea myself, and experiment with other herb combinations. This one I'm calling CLEAR, with the idea that both the jiaogulan and the dokudami clear heat, damp, and toxins, but that overall the formula is pretty balanced and even slightly tonifying because of the barley and jiaogulan. The companion formula, NOURISH, will also have both clearing and nourishing properties, but will be slightly more nourishing, with nettles and gotu kola instead of the dokudami and jiaogulan. Gus says he would switch the jiaogulan and the gotu kola, and now that I'm treating a new teenaged female migraine patient, I can see how that might actually be a very nice combination: heat-clearing,toxin-flushing, liver-moving and liver-tonifying,but also nerves/brain soothing and calming (remember that in ancient days gotu kola was given to epileptics and the insane - which many migraine sufferers can relate to!). Very satisfying to hold in my hands a final product in professional-looking heat-sealed teabags, and even more satisying to be drinking it right this minute. Mental note: market CLEAR to smokers and people trying to stop smoking, also high cholesterol and high blood pressure, as well as migraine headaches and PMS. NOURISH for stressed-out people, anemia, chronic skin problems, and as a post-menstrual (and general) tonic.

AND, I ran my still for the first time this season! It was a three-hour operation, me sitting anxiously in the garage while the cider warmed slowly, worrying that the copper tubing had gotten crimped, or even worse punctured when I wound it up from the pressure cooker over the beams of the garage and then through my new 2-gallon condenser. Played with Charlie, our adopted stray cat (I'm not sure who adopted whom), who was very active, one moment flopping around on the ground meowing to be stroked, then suddenly shooting into the dark garage after a mouse. Then, about two hours into the operation, a splutter and a start and the moonshine began to flow! I discarded the "head", then proceeded to collect about 200 ml of clear fruity goodness. Around midnight I shut the operation down, feeling like an alchemist who has successfully concentrated the elixir. And an elixir it is! Fruity, floral, but with a firewater kick. I estimate by bioassay a strength of 50-60% alcohol. Looking forward to taste tests with different batches, and trying to establish the differences between the two trees, ripening times of the apples after they're picked, fermentation times and temperatures, distillation times and temperatures, etc.

Cheers!

Lab Notes I

Very active lately on the laboratory front. Finally cleaned out my corner of the garage, moved my herb stuff there, artfully arranged old Ladle Brand bottles, set up the still. Very excited about this next round of distillation. Am constructing new condenser unit that will allow replacement of cooling water while distilling continues. Boiler unit perfectly sealed and works great. Have juiced almost two gallons of apple juice from Tree Number One; will begin fermentation when I reach two gallons. Am so excited! It'll be interesting to compare the final product from Tree Number One versus Tree Number Two. Last year's #2 eau de vie was my favorite of all the experiments. Am looking forward to trying #1.

Improved moxa-making machinery works great. Made a bunch of beautiful fluffy white moxa from last year's mugwort. Also experimenting with using a magnifying glass to focus sunlight on St-36, Sp-6, etc. And left K-4 area which has been sore recently due to fucking up my rib and lower back. Am feeling impending old age, don't bounce back so well anymore. Sunlight moxa feels really good when you get on the edge of burning and move the point around in little spirals. I think it works pretty good. Iwashina-sensei's comment: "Pull away as soon as you feel heat." And, "Please do not forget that applying one time and even number can result in a sedating effect." (I kind of wonder about that odd and even stuff - smacks of typical Chinese numerological thinking that I'm not convinced is therapeutically useful). And, "Be careful not to over do this being carried away by its fun."

Also recently made a new all-purpose balm out of almond oil, beeswax, St. Johnswort, and gotu kola. Makes me think of first time Grossmuetti showed me how to macerate Johannischruut in olive oil many years ago. I really think it's better as a wound-healer than as an anti-depressant. Plus the gotu kola is an amazing skin herb; figured why not use it topically (interesting that they're both brain/nerve herbs and also both good for the skin. Skin as the outer physical boundary of mind? Maybe what's good for the one - antioxidants, circulatory stimulants - is good for the other). A little too herb-stinky for commercial use. The addition of a dollop of sandalwood oil hardly made a difference. Works great on moxa burns, and used it to good effect on Luki's butt, which was hypersensitive and painful from overconsumption of apricot pie.

Will hang up old Garlic Grotto sign, or maybe make a new one: "Ye Olde Brimming Laydle." Gotta get back to work.

On Tea

It is said that when Bodhidharma, the first patriarch of Zen Buddhism, arrived in China from India in the fifth century, he sat down facing a wall and meditated for nine years. During that time, he fell asleep once. When he woke up he was so angry with himself for this lapse in concentration that he tore out his eyelids and threw them to the ground. Where they landed, so the legend goes, the first tea plants grew. Ever since that time, monks have been using tea to keep their minds clear during meditation.

This story is interesting in its depiction of tea as a stimulant herb, but it is known that the origins of tea use go much farther back than the time of Bodhidharma. In fact, tea is one of those drug plants that humans have probably been foraging in the wild, then cultivating on their own, for many thousands of years. And why not? Tea tastes good, refreshes the mind, and is an important medicine in its own right.

Scientists now know that tea contains potent antioxidant chemicals known as polyphenols. A University of Kansas study shows that EGCG, one of the strongest known polyphenols, is about a hundred times more effective than vitamin C in its power to protect against the ravages of the body’s cell-damaging free radicals. The presence of EGCG and other compounds makes tea (especially green tea) an important weapon in the fight against cancer. In fact, Japanese research shows that people who drink four to six cups of green tea every day have a much lower incidence of liver, lung, breast, esophageal, pancreatic, and skin cancers, compared to people who don’t drink tea at all, or drink less. Other research shows that tea lowers the risk of stroke and heart attacks, lowers blood sugar levels, fights viral infections, and helps control allergies.

Because tea has received much publicity for its health benefits, you can buy it in the form of concentrated and caffeine-free pills and capsules. These products are fine for people who truly dislike the taste of tea or wish to avoid caffeine. But, I would ask those who place themselves in either of these categories, have you ever tried a cup of really good tea? Tea is made from the leaves of a flowering plant, Camellia sinensis. Since the best leaves are picked in the springtime before the budding of flowers, the floral essence of the bloom-to-be is captured in the leaves and stems, giving some teas a delightfully sweet, floral scent. Other teas, especially those green teas that have been steamed before drying to prevent the oxidation that would otherwise produce an oolong or a black tea, have a fresh vegetal quality to them that reminds one of an ocean breeze or cut grass in the summertime. My point is that tea drinking is as complex and enjoyable a sensory experience as is wine tasting, and if you think you don’t like tea, it just may be that you’ve never had a decent cup. So give tea a chance and treat yourself to the good stuff! Get high-quality leaf tea (avoid the finely chopped and oxidized tea that comes in tea bags) at specialty stores, or buy online at http://greentealovers.com/ or http://www.imperialtea.com/.

As for caffeine, tea is an altogether different beast than coffee. Or, perhaps more accurately, if coffee is a beast then tea is more like a wise friend. It is the great fallacy of modern pharmacy that the effects of a natural substance can be reduced to a single active ingredient. Unfortunately, this type of thinking has led some to believe that tea, because of its caffeine content, is an unhealthy stimulant. The reality is quite different. Coffee contains about five times more caffeine, cup for cup, than green tea, and its many volatile oils, acids, and other components make for a much rougher ride through our metabolism. Green tea does contain some caffeine, but it exists in an organic matrix of healthy substances, including chlorophyll, vitamin C, and the antioxidant polyphenols. In any case, the overall mental effect of tea is quite different from that of coffee, more the heightened awareness of a samurai warrior than the mile-a-minute mental chatter of the coffee addict.

But all this talk about health benefits, antioxidants and caffeine is almost beside the point. The true value of tea, in my opinion, is that its proper preparation and ingestion require us to pause for a few moments in our mad scramble through life. This is how you do it: you let the dry leaves fall into a favorite ceramic teapot, cover them with hot but not boiling water, put the lid on, and wait. After a couple of minutes you pour the tea, and let its sweet fragrance waft up and enter into you. The fertile earth, the monsoon rains, the blazing sun have conspired to place in your hands a bowl of jade-colored dew. You drink it with gratitude, then go about your day.

Celebrate the Green!

Set aside a whole day. Pack a sandwich, some drinking water, a large paper bag, a pair of garden shears or scissors, and gloves. Head for the nearest woods. Find a stream. Follow the water until you come across a stand of nettles. They're usually a couple feet tall, with square spiky stems and beautiful dark green leaves with serrated edges and hairy silvery-colored undersides. If you're unsure about identification, rub your hand across some leaves. If they sting, you've found the right plant!

Take your shoes and socks off and play in the stream. Eat your sandwich. Take a nap, if you feel like it. Approach the nettles and ask if you can harvest some leaves. They usually say "Yes." (It helps if you don't automatically take the stinging to mean "No.") Put on your gloves, get out your shears, and start clipping healthy leaves into your paper bag. Gather a lot, but just a few from each individual plant. Stop just as you're starting to feel greedy.

When you get home, wash the leaves in a colander. Dry them in a salad spinner or by swinging them hard in a cotton bag. Cut individual leaves off of stems. Make a batter by mixing a cup of flour with an egg and a cup of iced water. Don't mix too hard - lumpy is good. If you're feeling adventurous you can substitute chilled carbonated water for the water. Heat a pan with at least an inch of cooking oil, or use a deep-fryer if you have one. Coat one side of each nettle leaf with a thin layer of batter, and throw these into the hot oil. Fry until the batter is crispy but not burnt. The uncoated side of the leaves should turn a brilliant translucent emerald green. Dip the leaves in tempura sauce or any sauce that you like. A bowl of rice, some kimchi or sauerkraut, and a cup of miso soup rounds the meal out nicely.

If you don't care for tempura (or next time you do this), make a delicious cream of nettle soup: in a pot, saute a chopped onion in melted butter until it is golden brown. Set aside a couple of baby nettle leaf-pairs. In a blender, blend up the rest of your fresh nettle leaves with some water, a boiled potato, and the sauted onions. Pour back into the pot, and add chicken broth until you have the amount of soup you want. Heat until it's boiling, then reduce to a simmer. Let it simmer for half an hour, stirring occasionally and flavoring with salt and pepper, to your liking. Add a dollop of sour cream or whipping cream, garnish with the baby leaves, and serve with crusty fresh bread and a glass of wine. Enjoy!