San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
A Napa winemaker makes dazzling teas
Viticulturist behind Favia label’s herbal infusions are a drink of choice for cold winters
I did not observe dry January, but I did drink less alcohol than usual last month. Having grown a bit fatigued with all the canned mocktails out there, and craving a hot beverage on these cold winter days, I’ve found myself turning to tea.
To treat myself, I ordered tea from Erda, a company that viticulturist Annie Favia-Erickson founded in 2018. Favia-Erickson and her husband, winemaker Andy Erickson, make celebrated Napa Valley wines under their Favia label. At their property in Napa’s Coombsville area, she grows the herbs and flowers that go into her teas alongside wine grapes.
Visually, the Erda teas are dazzling, still in their whole-leaf and whole-flower forms. A tea called Mount Olympus ( Sideritis scardica, often referred to as Greek mountain tea) consists of long, fuzzy stems studded with golden flowers. For Erda’s spearmint tea, the mint’s delicate, dried leaves remain fully intact and vibrantly kelly green. I invested in FaviaErickson’s preferred brewing vessel, a glass teapot, which gives the brewing process a real sense of spectacle, not unlike the ritual of pouring wine from a sleek decanter.
Favia-Erickson has been a tea obsessive her entire life. Growing up, she told me, her mother would tell her to “grab the colander, pick what you want from the garden and we’ll make a fresh pot.” This is what the French would call a tisane — a fresh, quickly brewed herbal infusion. (Technically, Favia-Erickson said, “tea” is a misnomer for the Erda products, because they are not made from the tea plant Camellia sinensis. But since “herbal infusion” is a little clunky, let’s stick with “tea” for now.)
As an adult, she learned how to taste tea with Winnie Yu, the late Berkeley tea importer “whose influence on American tea culture was quiet but pervasive,” as Jonathan Kauffmann put it in a 2017 obituary. Initially, Favia-Erickson tried growing Camellia sinensis at her Coombsville property, but it never thrived. She was already growing lots of different herbs, though, including chamomile, and she decided to start drying and blending them. When her mother was undergoing cancer treatment, she made teas from medicinal plants.
To make the teas, Favia-Erickson’s vineyard crew harvests the plants between March and June. She brings them into a special room that’s kept cold and dark, where she lets them dry for three to seven days. She doesn’t do any roasting or fermenting, as is standard with some types of tea.
I’m a neophyte when it comes to tea appreciation, but I love its similarities to wine tasting. Tea has tannin, of course — Erda’s lemon verbena can have an especially tannic bite, Favia-Erickson said — which leads to varied (and variable, depending on how long you steep) textures. Like wine, tea can have highly complex aromas and flavors. And there’s something wine-like about the way teas like Erda’s preserve the integrity of the plant when it was harvested: the whole leaf or flower, minimally processed. That’s what many winemakers aspire to convey with grapes.
I love the Mount Olympus, which is unlike any tea I’ve ever had before. It makes me feel like I’m smelling the Greek mountains — piney, earthy and bright. (The flower is a member of the mint family.)
Erda’s other mint teas are distinct from each other: While the spearmint’s bite is subtle and smooth, the peppermint has a much higher menthol content. “It really wakes you up,” said FaviaErickson of the peppermint (though, like all the Erda teas, it is caffeine-free). She also likes it with chocolate or as a digestif.
For those who are used to just throwing a tea bag into a mug, brewing whole-leaf tea can look intimidating. Favia-Erickson promises it doesn’t need to be; a simple kitchen strainer can get the job done. She even endorses using a fork to fish the leaves out of a cup of hot water.
If your kitchen can handle one more appliance, though, I can attest that the glass teapot (which Erda sells, bundled with tea leaves, for $70) makes the process very enjoyable. You simply throw some of the leaves or flowers into the central chamber, pour in nearly boiling water, let it steep for a couple minutes, then pour it out. All of the Erda teas can be brewed multiple times and still retain their flavor, so you can keep the pot going for the better part of a day.
Making tea has made FaviaErickson a better winegrower, she said. “Anytime you’re doing something adjacent to your day job, it allows you to look at things with a sharper, keener eye.” Her herb and flower plants have allowed her to pick up on nuances when tasting wine that she didn’t perceive before. Maybe drinking tea can make you a more thoughtful wine lover, too.
Erda Tea. $36-$38 per bag. (Each bag makes 8-10 pots of tea.) erdatea.com