The 2nd: Spilling the (Green) Tea
Some six or so years ago at Starbucks, a friend introduced me to the Green Tea Frappucino. It got me thinking, back then, because green tea was something that I had always associated with China and Japan, each for their different reasons. It was odd, I thought, that such a drink was available in a wildly successful American chain. I was used to green tea ice cream being served at sushi restaurants I rarely went to, so I was delighted that the Green Tea Frappuchino was so accessible. Fast forward to last Wednesday, and I hear a barista call out an order for a Green Tea Frappucino. In contrast to the me of 6 years ago, I gather no satisfaction from people ordering it. I don’t feel as if people are finally realizing the greatness of green tea. Instead, I feel a vague sense of >.>, over the fact that most of the history and culture is lost and/or omitted because of globalization and consumerism and capitalism.
As a disclaimer, I’m not saying that tea should be exclusively for Asian people to drink. Tea, while holding historical and cultural significance, is not particularly dangerous. A white person drinking green tea is different from a white person having dreads, because dreads are something black people are made fun of for and have lost opportunities because. Green tea, in it’s more “white” iterations, is not harmful to Asians. That being said, they share the same experience of being devalued because of their growing popularity in mainstream America. In becoming globalized, many items have lost their cultural and historical significance. The product exists, but has none of its history does. Green tea is no exception to this.
What strikes me as a little funny and a lot sad is the way that a Green Tea Frappucino/Latte (and by extension, many many Starbucks drinks) have a “basic white bitch” connotation. Let’s pick this apart. Basic: accessible, boring, insignificant. White: ditzy, stupid. Bitch: feminine. The western perception of Japanese tea ceremonies is usually of a submissive, silent woman serving men, when in reality, Japanese women started learning it in the early 20th century as a way to demonstrate their “economic and cultural(-educational) capital” in the face of gender inequality (Kato). It’s certainly a stark contrast to something that is said by POCs to express annoyance over typical white behavior, and by white people as a way to distance themselves from “uncultured heathens” aka other white people. Also, I wanted to add: why is the phrase about a “bitch” anyways? It’s a term, like many other female coded insults, that refers to their behavior towards men. (I could go on, message me if you want)
Another point of contention: why does drinking tea, green or otherwise, imply pretentiousness? For some reason, tea in America carries a sense of “Whole Foods” elitism. It’s consumed for health rather than a need of caffeine, like coffee. And healthiness, or rather health culture, can be argued as classist, because being healthy means having time to exercise and money to spend on meal plans and trainers and gym memberships. Not only is tea connotative of the elitism of health culture, it also implies that the person drinking it is “cultured” and “sophisticated.” And this itself is an indicator of exoticism. And exoticism is bad, despite the general positive meaning of “exotic”. As writer Rachel Kuo says, in an article about WOC but that is also applicable to objects, exotic things are “less normal, less human, and less real” than western things. In short, the cultural value of green tea is dependent on how “other” it is.
The globalization of green tea has wrought several consequences on it. It has experienced both devaluation and inflation because it has been popularized in America. Devaluation, because it is sometimes seen as simply a way to boost metabolism or “purify toxins from the body.” At the same time, its value is inflated because of its association with “exotic” East/Southeast Asian culture. Green tea is both stripped of its history and culture and exotified because of it. People need to consider their actions and what they mean in the greater scheme of things. Tea exists outside of diets and foodie fads and consumerism. At the same time, its culture and history should not be used by Americans to elevate their social/cultural/educational capital. Indeed, this can be said of a lot of so called “ethnic foods.” The globalization of green tea and its subsequent development in image is but an example of a larger trend of white gentrification/stealing/hipsterification/hipsterilization of non-white foods (credit Laini Nguyen @not-a-foodie).
Links:
http://everydayfeminism.com/2016/01/calling-woc-exotic-is-racist/
KatoÌ, Etsuko. The Tea Ceremony and Women's Empowerment in Modern Japan: Bodies Re-presenting the past. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2004. Web. https://books.google.com/books?id=E8wg9pbfkdAC&pg=PT169&lpg=PT169&dq=are+japanese+tea+ceremonies+held+by+men+or+women?&source=bl&ots=fHZdUU-2mT&sig=tN5356NqJM6RRsxCAqzBH_-N3HI&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjV0O3i1ebRAhUFi1QKHSFhAtcQ6AEIVDAJ#v=onepage&q&f=false.
https://books.google.com/books?id=AGaTAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA28&lpg=PA28#v=onepage&q&f=false
http://routledgesoc.com/category/profile-tags/cultural-capital
(credit Laini Nguyen @inkwingart)
