Tea’s Me Cafe, the local tea company owned by former WNBA star Tamika Catchings, opened a second location in 2021 and now offers a monthly tea subscription for home delivery. In-house Tea Chemist Joi DeFrantz shares some tips on how to get the most out of every sip.
You have an unusual background. You started your career in a lab as a chemist, and now you’re informally known around town as the Tea Chemist. How did that happen?
Yes, I have degrees in chemistry and Spanish. I was in the lab for about 12 years, and then made the transition into business. I’ve been at Tea’s Me for four years, and I was Tamika’s first hire.
The perfect tea does seem like a chemical pursuit. Can you talk about that connection?
I’ve learned a lot about the molecules in tea. You have L-Theanine, which is a natural brain relaxant. You have polyphenols, which are the antioxidants. There’s thioflavin, which is an antioxidant in black teas. All of these are part of the tea naturally. There’s a lot of great chemistry with tea because you have an extraction process, which is what you’re doing with the tea when you steep the leaves in water. You need a certain water temperature based on the type of tea that you’re drinking. And then the amount of time you steep it depends on the type of tea leaf. If you have a more fragile tea leaf like green tea, you brew for a shorter time at a lower temperature. If you have a more robust, fully oxidized leaf like a black tea, you steep it longer at a higher temperature.
What do you think is the biggest misconception about tea?
I think people don’t understand all the health benefits of tea. It sounds like a gimmick, but I honestly feel like my overall health has improved because I drink tea on a daily basis. We have loose leaf tea at the café, and the flavor is so rich. Sometimes people want to add stuff to it, and I try to tell them that you really don’t need it. There’s a lot of flavor in the tea naturally. A lot of things that people add to it will mask the natural flavors and potentially reduce some of the health benefits. Customers are usually pleasantly surprised with the flavor of loose-leaf tea, because they’re used to tea that they get in tea bags, and those are the leftovers in production. It doesn’t have the robust, beautiful, fresh taste of loose-leaf tea.
When you talk about people adding things to tea, are you talking about sweeteners and milk? Those kinds of things?
Yes. Milk and artificial sweeteners, because they have their own taste. If you want to sweeten your tea, we recommend you use raw cane sugar. There’s nothing wrong with honey, but since it has such a strong taste on its own, it can mask the taste of the tea. There are times that you just need that honey tonic, right? It’s very soothing for your throat. So, I definitely understand putting honey in tea now and then.
Can you give us a quick lesson on loose-leaf tea? Something like loose-leaf tea for dummies?
It’s part of the tea plant. All tea comes from the same plant. Originally, it was in more Asian countries like China and Japan. And now of course they’ve been able to get the plant in more tropical regions. But, whether it’s white tea or black tea, it all comes from the same plant. Tea is harvested about four times a year. White tea is the most delicate, and it’s the first offering of the tea plant. Green teas will be next. They’re going to be evergreen, with that lush, grassy look. Then there are the oolong teas, which are a little darker because of the oxidation (the amount of time they’re exposed to the air before they’re harvested), and finally the black teas, which are fully oxidized, and that’s why they’re the darkest.
What are your top selling teas?
The green teas, definitely, because there are so many great health benefits to them. They’re great for metabolism, blood pressure, lowering cholesterol.
