put plums in your tea
you won't
Over this time off from writing, I took more time to observe what exactly I like to eat or drink. I’ve continuously found myself seeking far beyond the bounds of the products I’ve designed and launched. I’ve never felt limited as to what I can design for a given product which is its own kind of freedom. Though, sometimes my heart aches for the designs left on the cutting room floor than the one that makes its way to shelves. But alas, economics, food safety, and myriad other things take precedent over my lowly preferences.
What I’ve found is that I’m an atypical consumer. I suck to have around sensory because I gravitate to what I think is interesting, even if it’s against what the results from the lab tell us.
And in this I’ve found that I do some things around my kitchen that I think you should too. They’re not hacks, just pairings that make me happy and I hope you’re able to try them with me someday. But for now I want to talk about why you should be putting plums in your tea.
I’m not even sure what podcast I was listening to, but umeboshi was just something I wanted from H Mart. I bought them for the first time when I moved to Chicago, shortly after I binged on my favorite tea site (literally not an affiliate link, I love this shit). Again, because to this day I still have not placed what podcast I had listened to, I didn’t know what to do with them. So I began putting them in my rice and stews and I liked it, but it wasn’t always what I was looking for, and they sat in my fridge.
Until I found how pleasant they are in tea.
See, I started drinking a lot of oolong, especially a pomelo flower dancong I couldn’t stop drinking for its bright, fruity top note over that grounding, roasted base. I ran out too quickly, and when I moved on to other oolongs, I kept missing that flavor. One day, half out of curiosity, half out of wishful thinking, I dropped an umeboshi into my cup.
Oh this is what this stupid podcast was trying to tell this idiot.
I know I didn’t invent putting plums in tea. I just stumbled into a version that made sense for me, like how I only learned to love oatmeal once I started making it savory. Sometimes it’s all about finding the right context, the right set and setting, for something to reveal itself.
After that initial oolong-umeboshi revelation, I started filling my maté thermos with umeboshi-soaked water before pouring it over my leaves. It brought on a fun new dimension that was bright, tangy, and saline. Nothing quite like the other additions I’ve had like juice, Himetel or sugar. It gave me a new version of how to drink one of my weekly (sometimes daily) fix of yerba.
But for some reason, I just wanted to try making umeboshi. Or at least something like it. Then I thought of all local fruit I’d have access to in a Midwestern winter to salt, ferment, and dry, and pickings were pretty slim. That’s where cranberries came in. I had a bag left over from the holidays and didn’t want them to go to waste, so I packed them in a brine that’s been quietly sitting in my cupboard for ten months.
I’d meant to dry them last July and experiment with what to do next, but life got busy and I missed the summer heat. So, cranbushi will have to wait until next summer. But just like my other experiments, it might take a few years. Ultimately, it’s not always about getting to the finished thing and more about chasing the impulse to make, taste, and see what happens next.