Fermentation and Culture

Thoughts on fermentation:

It may seem a little out there to have a post about tea on my spirituality blog, but this is a perfect example of how my thought process works, regarding daily spiritual practice.

The first infusion (rinse) went into a bowl, and that along with half of the second infusion (which I drank) got left as an offering. In drinking tea I cannot help but think about all the work, the human effort and inspiration that went into crafting the tea, and how the combination of different forces and factors has created the beverage I consume daily. Pu-erh tea in particular has a lot of work put into it, and it’s a group effort between the leaf, the person crafting it, and the bacteria that ferments it (and, eventually, the person brewing and drinking it).

Fermentation is one of those weird, ancient food prep techniques that really makes no sense when you think about it, allowing things to rot and then consuming them anyway and somehow that makes the food different and in many cases better tasting and better for you than just eating it raw. What the hell, man! The first people discovering cheese when like, their mare’s milk got jostled and bacteriafied in a leather pouch on the way from point A to point B must have freaked out. It’s one thing, really, to eat something like that once because you know, early human cultures, subsistence level society, etc, you’d better clean your plate. If you are working with limited resources, yes, it makes perfect sense that a food-mistake ends up getting eaten or drunk anyway. But the weird thing, the special marvellous human magic thing, that happens when people decide to do it again, on purpose. We as a species are great at making tools, and taking disparate elements and combining them and making something completely different from them. And we’re great at thinking completely outside the box. We think nowhere near the box. The box is on a different continent.

Eventually, through generations of experimenting and probably lots of people getting poisoned from bad fermentation efforts, we end up with with a standardized process to make edibles that are really delicious, infinitely varied, and full of the energy, focus, and passion of a lot of human beings: Beer, bread, yogurt, cheese, dried sausage, miso, pu-erh. When I sit down and take the time to actually think about it, it blows my mind.

The thing about fermentation is that you need bacteria. And these days, in modern western society, bacteria is a thing that we in general are terrified of. Every day at work I am confronted with great huge pump bottles of antibacterial hand sanitizer, because it’s cold and flu season and for god’s sake get the germs off your hands. But I always take the time to wash my hands with soap and water instead, because I don’t want to kill off all the bacteria on my hands. And I especially don’t want to do it with glorified rubbing alcohol that dries out my skin and creates a billion little microcuts and allows more bacteria, the different, nasty death-kind, to get into my bloodstream.

Bacteria are weird. We vilify them and fear them and yet we need them, to make things we consider staple foods. A group of bacteria isn’t called a population, it’s called a culture. And that makes me think about what defines a culture, both human or bacterial. In both cases we have a group of individuals working in harmony, and that group creates something unique, something that differentiates it from other groups, something that leaves its mark on the world. As an artist and a crafter and a cook I participate in my culture, and I try to add to it and enrich it with my efforts. I can’t do it, can’t create or savor or fully participate, without the aid of other people and other organisms, and without the forces that create and maintain life on this earth.

And for that, I offer the tea I brew as thanks and recognition. I hope it was well-received.