Professor Herschler: Fit to a Tea

Dr. Stephen Herschler, assistant professor of politics at Oglethorpe University, brought greater understanding to his Comparative Politics of China and Japan class by serving tea. Twice weekly students in his upper-level class were required to bring a ceramic mug along with their notebooks and textbook. Those who forgot their mug were to write a haiku and email it to their classmates.

Professor Herschler introduced a different tea each week, including basic black, green, gun powder, pu-erh, lapsang souchong, sencha, bancha, longjing, bi luo chun and oolong. “My idea is to open up the space in the classroom, to take the academic edge off and to help open the students’ minds about the differences in China and Japan. To use the variations of teas does a similar thing in an immediate way,” Herschler said.

A majority of his students had no experience with tea other than sweet tea, but in this lesson there was no sugar allowed. After tasting the tea of the week, students discussed their reactions striving to use language to effectively communicate how each tea was different. He prompted the students by asking them to think about tea with language commonly reserved for fine wine: personality, mood, landscape or environment, what it reminds you of, seasons, how it makes you feel. Students were also required to keep a tea journal, to be typed up and submitted at the end of the semester as part of their class participation grade.

Each student loved certain teas while disliking others, but Professor Herschler is certain that the divide is part of the learning experience. “I want to reach the students through their mind but often we are most impacted through our senses. This exercise will have an impact in a way that words and ideas do not. Perhaps they will use this process to help the other ideas stick.”