6 January 2020
The address was Number 1-6, Speedy Place, an alley off of a side street in the heart of Bloomsbury.
Jack found the buzzer for Lalani & Co.
Médéric opened the door.
"Jack! Come in! You found me!"
"We always find you," I said.
It's true. We found him the first time by accident, when we walked into his wine shop minutes before closing time. We found him there again a year later. We found him again a few years after that, when the first shop had closed and he was working at another. This time he found us: he was going through old business cards and found Jack's in the pile. Now he was working in the tea trade.
Médéric led us to the Lalani office, a small space at the end of the hall. He gestured us to sit down at a table strewn with carafes and empty glasses.
"What brought you here?" I asked.
"Terroir!" he said. "Same as wine."
I'm neither a wine drinker nor a tea drinker. I followed along as best I could as he lectured us on Japanese tea. He drew a diagrams of the growing seasons and the best harvesting times. He expounded on the inferiority of the teas common Londoners were drinking ("Floor sweepings!"). He peppered his sentences with bits of French: "D'ac!" for "OK," expressive whistles, and "Pff!" He touted the supposed instant brain health benefits of green tea; I did my best not to call bullshit, but I'm sure it was clear I wasn't buying it. He didn't dwell on the subject.
He started us with two varieties of green tea, which he served at room temperature. They were both the same color of highlighter yellow. They were different varieties, but I couldn't tell the difference. They both tasted vaguely like boiled spinach. I didn't like the taste, but I knew that I was tasting the best of what this was supposed to be.
Next came matcha, which, had I not been surrounded by bottles of Japanese tea leaves, I might have mistaken for lime green frit, size 0. Matcha is ground green tea.
Médéric had me weigh 1.5 grams of the stuff and mix the paste in a bowl with a bamboo whisk. I didn't expect to be doing bench science during my vacation.
He added more water and poured us each a taste. This was strong pureed spinach. He prepared another batch, this time running it through a nitro press. That made it better. He disappeared and came back with a can of tonic water. Mixing that with the matcha cut the bitterness enough that I almost liked it.
Next up was oolong, which tasted more like tea and less like spinach.
While he prepared successive steeps of oolong, he also made some black tea. The black tea tasted like tea. With a little spinach in it.
In another real-world science moment, he measured the total dissolved solids in the tap water. Unlike in the lab, where our water needs to be only water, a good cup of tea relies on salts and minerals to help it along.
Médéric told us that Lalani's clients are mostly high-end hotels and spas. His job is to broaden the clientele. "You have a fancy hotel," he said, imagining a conversation with the owner, "with a spa, healthy things. Serve the bloody matcha!"
He had swag: Lalani tea trays, placemats,
magnets, and timers made from old industrial sewing machine bobbins:
He mimicked a hipster man sauntering into a coffee shop, hand in his pocket, chin up, pondering the coffee menu, trying to look sophisticated, as he does every morning. "Hmm. Let me think." And every time, Médéric said, "he will say, 'Give me a flat white.'"
We were onto the fourth oolong steep now. I still had the taste of spinach in my mouth. I wanted coffee. Médéric suggested Origin, next to the British Library.
The door opened and Médéric's partner, Jameel Lalani, the founder, walked through, fresh off a plane. Jameel started the company 8 years ago. Médéric joined 4 years ago.
We used this opportunity to get out of their way. Jack had manuscripts waiting for him at the British Library. Before going in, we stopped at Origin.
The place looked sufficiently coffee-snob. The sole barista had a ponytail twice as long as mine. He was selling single-origin beans, always a good sign. I was hoping a pour-over would get me closer to my customary French press flavor than the Americanos I'd been ordering all week had.
Pour-overs take more time than I have patience for. The barista didn't seem to mind. When it was ready, he decanted most of it into my travel mug and a little into a cup for himself. I couldn't tell if it was performance or if he really wanted a taste. He sniffed it, sipped it, and said something about notes of sugar, which I didn't taste at all. Maybe it was still too hot; maybe my tongue had died after the nitro matcha.
While the barista had been preparing my pour-over, a young, dapper man had walked in and scanned the shelf of beans for sale. Choosing one, he sauntered over to the counter and asked the barista to grind the beans. He wasn't sure how fine a grind he needed, so the barista quizzed him. The young man pondered the coffee menu and said, "I'll have a flat white."
*****
The next day I went into Store Street Espresso, around the corner from our hotel. While waiting for the barista to prepare my Americano, I noticed six Lalani magnets on the side of the espresso machine.
No comments:
Post a Comment