The Pittsburgh Dish
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The Pittsburgh Dish
082 Tea and a Sweet Treat
In this mini-episode... we trade the 12:30pm coffee surge for a calmer tea routine. Catherine Montest helps to unpack caffeine timing, yerba mate culture, and simple ways to control the buzz. Then we pivot to a bright cranberry loaf suggestion from Baking Across America that pairs perfectly with any afternoon brew.
If you're in the market to grab a cookbook from B. Dylan Hollis as a gift or for yourself, be sure to shop locally at one of our great independent bookstores like White Whale Bookstore in Bloomfield or Woolly Bear Books & Gifts in Carnegie.
Welcome to The Pittsburgh Dish. I'm your host, Doug Heilman. Well, we've been off for the last couple weeks for some needed rest and holiday activities, but we are easing back into the podcast with some new interviews coming up soon. So here is something to whet your appetite. I call it tea and a little something sweet. Have a listen. Hey Catherine.
Catherine:Hi there, Doug.
Doug:Catherine, recently I decided to switch from coffee to tea in the afternoon.
Catherine:Wait, wait, wait a minute. Your 1230 cup of coffee?
Doug:Or those three cups of coffee I would have at 1230. Yeah. That's not happening anymore. No, you know. Who who are you, Doug? I am an older version of me. I just feel like tea hits me a little more evenly for the rest of the day if I want that caffeine and I don't probably need as much as I used to intake.
Catherine:Well, in the afternoon, if we're taking in caffeine, we're also probably trading that off for some sleep. That's true. Yeah. The half-life of caffeine is about four to six hours.
Doug:Yeah.
Catherine:Yeah.
Doug:The reason I'm bringing this up to you is when I first met you, I nicknamed you the tea lady. Yes, you did. And do you recall why is that?
Catherine:Um, I was drinking a lot of tea back then, and my husband and I owned a small coffee house in Moon Township. And that came about because I was researching getting into the tea business.
Doug:Yes, you were like a tea connoisseur.
Catherine:I was offering about 30 different varieties of tea that were all organically grown, hand rolled, um, everything from black tea to white tea to herbal infusions. And what yea r was that that you had the shop? I want to say 2005, 2006. Yeah, like 20 years ago, Catherine. Stop it. I know, I'm sorry.
Doug:But I I bring that up to say I don't think a lot of people knew about like white tea or matcha tea or uh yerba mate, which I think is the tea you brought me with a special little spoon, right?
Catherine:Yes. And that the uh yerba mate is from a plant in oh gosh, I can't remember now if it was Africa or South America. And the version of caffeine that's in erba mate is called matine, and it's not quite as potent as caffeine as we're familiar with it.
Doug:Yes.
Catherine:Um and it tends to give people a little bit less of the jitters and goes into your system a little bit more slowly. And how it's drunk traditionally is in a wooden cup, and you just throw the herba mate leaves into the cup, add water, and okay, so now these leaves are just kind of floating around willy-nilly. Yes. Drinking those up into your mouth, that's kind of uncomfortable and blah. I mean, who wants that in their face? So the straw that you use to drink the herba mate is called a bombilla, and it has little holes in the bottom of it. Yes, you gave me one. I did. Um, and that filters it as you drink it. And then throughout the day, uh, what's traditional is to just continue adding hot water to it so you can get the flavor. But the more water that you add and the longer it goes in the day, caffeine and matine are highly water soluble. So that first drink you get, you're getting most of the caffeine. And on and on, you're as you continue to add to it, it's less and less and less caffeine with each additional addition of water.
Doug:Yes. You know, you brought up something else that I sort of recall, and that is about the solubility of caffeine. You once told me that if I had a caffeinated tea bag and I wanted to really reduce it or make it lower caffeine, get a regular tea bag, add hot water, let it in for maybe 30 seconds, and then dump that hot water, you'll remove a lot of the caffeine.
Catherine:You'll remove up to about 90% of the caffeine. Wow. And this is a fun trick that I learned again when I was researching setting up a tea business. I met a gentleman named Guy Piranavitana, and he owns a company called Empire Tea Services. Um, he's out in Columbus, Indiana, imports teas from all over the globe, runs a tea education business, and has an online website where you can purchase teas directly from him.
Doug:Wow.
Catherine:Um, he is an incredible authority on teas. As a small child, he grew up in Sri Lanka. And there's tea plantations all over the place in Sri Lanka. As a small child, he was in the fields picking tea leaves. And he grew up literally in the tea business, ended up not just running one tea plantation, running two tea plantations, and then became um the president or I I forget the proper name for it. Um, but he was in charge of a company that owned a lot of tea plantations. And he has been involved in the tea industry his whole life and is just really passionate about it. And it was really fun to learn that from him. Catherine, today, are you still a tea drinker? I am still a tea drinker. What do you go for? I like just good old traditional black tea.
Doug:Me too.
Catherine:Um, and I will confess that I do buy dust in a bag, which is what we typically refer to as, and I don't want to say anything bad about any of the commercial brands that are out there that offer dust in a bag. But it's what I'm drinking. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. If you've ever put a tea bag, oh, it's dust.
Doug:Uh-huh.
Catherine:Um, real tea, and I'm kind of saying that in quotation marks. You want the tea leaves. Yes. And it's just it takes a little bit more effort, and I'm just kind of a little bit too lazy. Um, but you would steep the tea leaves maybe in a basket if you're making a pot, a tea basket within a uh teapot, or you can even get little disposable tea bags that you can put the loose tea leaves in and steep from there. Um, and that makes it a little bit easier and less clean up.
Doug:Now I know we have a few places around the area, like uh Dobra tea, I think over in Squirrel Hill and a few others. Is there any tea shop locally that you ever visit?
Catherine:I will confess that when I'm looking for loose tea leaves, I do go to my friend Guy Piranavitana. You still go to him. I will I will purchase from him online and he'll he'll send it to me.
Doug:Oh, I love you still have that relationship.
Catherine:Yeah.
Doug:Well, thank you so much for introducing me to several different types of teas many, many years ago. I honestly do still grab some dust here and there.
Catherine:It's convenient. I'm an American, I'm gonna own that all day long.
Doug:But uh whether you like black tea, green tea, white tea, if that's still a thing.
Catherine:Oh, it's a thing. Yeah. Now here's here's a fun fact: white tea, green tea, black tea, oolong tea, they're all made from the same tea plant.
Doug:Oh. Are they just being picked at the different times or fermented differently or dried differently?
Catherine:Yes, yes, and yes. Okay. You hit on all the things, Doug.
Doug:Okay.
Catherine:Um, you will have, you know, first flush teas where um in the spring, when the plants are just waking up and the plants are putting out their first couple of little leaves and the new buds, when the tea is picked, and regardless of what time of year it is, they're only picking that terminal bud and the first two leaves. And what do they call that?
Doug:That's that's the first flush.
Catherine:Oh. And you know, as the growing season goes on, they'll go back out and pick and pick and pick. But those first ones tend to be a little bit more special because the plant's been kind of resting for a while.
Doug:Yes.
Catherine:And you'll get some different flavor profiles on a first flush tea than you will on a second or third.
Doug:Oh. So, Catherine, my my next and maybe final question for you is when are you gonna grab that handle, your fairy tea mother?
Catherine:Oh, my plate's full, Doug. Or I should say my cup is full.
Doug:It is, but you're such a wealth of knowledge. Thank you so much for sharing some insights on tea and tea drinking and tea growing. I love it.
Catherine:It's always so much fun to talk with you.
Doug:You too. Thanks, Catherine. Thank you, Doug. And when she's not serving up tea, she's usually pouring us a glass of wine. That was Catherine Montest, our resident wine expert. And you can learn more about Catherine on her website, your fairywinemother.com. Well, if we're gonna have tea, I think we should at least be thinking about a sweet treat. Here is a suggestion from cookbook author and social media sensation B. Dylan Hollis. Dylan, you've been on the road promoting your latest cookbook, Baking Across America. And when we talked last, you were just getting going on the tour. But as we're getting into the later months of the year, Christmas time, is there a recipe from your latest cookbook that is kind of a standout for that time of year? Something that you like to make? It's not from Pennsylvania.
Dylan:It's okay, but it is from it is from Massachusetts. Massachusetts produces a huge amount of cranberries. You know, you can think of it as the cranberry capital. And in Baking Across America on page 31, there's a great recipe for an old-timey cranberry loaf. And I love quick breads. You know, you pile these things all together, you mix them up, they're super simple, you throw them in a nine by five, and Bob's your uncle. But when you pair together cranberries and, you know, some good sour cream and some orange zest, it's such a great way to use up some of those baking ingredients that sometimes you don't use all of when you're baking other things. So I'm a big fan of the cranberry loaf. You know, I was testing that around uh Thanksgiving last year, and so I have a bit of a soft spot for it and a sweet tooth for it. So that's what I would say.
Doug:I think that's the perfect answer. Cranberry loaf from Baking Across America.
unknown:B.
Doug:Dylan Hollis, thank you so much for being on The Pittsburgh Dish. Thank you. If you're in the market to grab one of Dylan's books as a gift or for yourself, go pick up one locally at one of our great independent bookstores like White Whale in Bloomfield or Woolly Bear in Carnegie. That's our show for this week. Thanks again to all of our guests and contributors, and to Kevin Solecki of Carnegie Accordion Company for providing the music to our show. We'll be back again next week with another fresh episode. Stay tuned.
