Tea Outdoor

01/09/2010, posted by Cha in journal

Another month, another tea carnival from the Association of Tea Bloggers.  This month, the carnival is hosted by  Brett at Black Dragon Tea Bar and the topic is Tea Outdoor .

Last week was a week without tea, but spent outdoor. Initially I planned to have a lot of tea outdoor, but I decided to make a (big) pause.  However, sometime the missing element, tea in this case, is obvious when absent.  I have found so many beautiful places for tea and I felt so many times ” Ah, a **** Tea would be so good now” .

I usually have tea outdoor while I am at my parents.  Some teas are better under certain circumstances. For example, I feel that the best time to have a Tie Guan Yin is during summer evenings, near a lot of flowers. Most of the Tie Guan Yin  I tried have a floral taste, so it seems natural for me to surround me with flowers while drinking it.   And,  I can feel that this tea is best during evenings.

The first time I tried Tie Guan Yin outdoor I also learned that Gongfu cha doesn’t need a lot of fancy and rare items. You can brew tea with the tools you have at hand.  I understood that being okay with yourself  is the most important thing. The human element and the environment are key aspects to tea. We can’t always choose the environment, but , it has a deep impact on how the tea is perceived.

The whole Tie Guan Yin experience is better described here .  I just want to say that if you choose your tea well, all the outdoor experiences are memorable.  I feel that the environment has the capacity to enhance the tea. Choose the tea well, and you will stop to admire the surroundings and start to become part of it.

2006 Guang Lin Fu Shu puerh

20/08/2010, posted by Cha in journal,tea

I didn’t investigated too much on Guang Lin and I never had a cake from this factory before. It does share some characteristics with some shu puerh cakes of a similar age so I will not bother you with details regarding its taste (I actually forgot my impressions, I plan to age the cake , I brewed a sample).

I want to talk about other details.  Lately, I studied water, pouring, heating, teaware  and began experimenting with them. I noticed major improvements on most of the teas, so some things, especially related to softness or their effect could be related to that or my awareness and not to the tea itself. In addition,  by using the cups I recently acquired, practically any shu puerh becomes more attractive in an instant.

At some point I will update this post with more information about that factory. Right now it is not important, I am glad I have the opportunity to appreciate tea.  I feel at peace when I match the tea with my mood and sometimes I wonder If I should write about it at all.  I do hope that this information is useful and will help some people, and at a very least, it’s a form of diary to notice my progress.   But most important, what I would like more, is to receive feedback on whatever I can do better from those that are more experienced than me.  I am always thankful to anybody who reads my blog.

Tea Experience

08/08/2010, posted by Cha in journal

I was mentioning at some point the energetic nature of the teas.  In short, I am studying their yin or yang effect.  Besides their effect,   I have also been experimenting with tea setups lately.   I believe that by  combining the tea effect and the tea setup properly,  you get a proper tea experience ( Cha Xi as mentioned on teamasters ) .

In the following pictures, I tried to express the setups by placing some objects in the tea pic to reflect them.  In the third picture I was able to catch the tea setup feeling without the use of additional objects in a separate pic.

Canton Tea Co

02/08/2010, posted by Cha in journal

As you may have noticed, I enjoy the teas offered by Canton Tea Co.   They send me samples for time to time, but I have no other benefit from them. I blog only If I enjoy their teas.  It simply happens that they offer great teas and I enjoy all the teas from them. Honestly,  some of the best teas I had are from them. Like this  Pouchong . Most of the the teas mentioned on my blog gained several awards last year, and (what a surprise) the teas from this year gained several awards too.

So (quote):

To celebrate, we’re offering a special Gold Award Taster Pack comprising 10g of each winning tea for only £13.00 .

Their package includes :

• 10g Bai Lin Gong Fu
• 10g Jasmine Pearls
• 10g Ali Shan
• 10g Mi Lan Dan Cong
• 10g Silver Needle
• 10g Vietnamese Puerh
• 10g Meng Ding Huang Ya
• 10g Pouchong

In addition , the guys from Canton offer you  a discount (15%) on any other teas that you may buy by using the code LEAF. This code can not be used on the above offer, but with any other teas.

Home, episode 3, Red Robe

23/06/2010, posted by Cha in journal,tea

This was my last  brewing experience during that weekend.  The scope for all the tea sessions was in fact to study the energetic nature of  tea (chaqi) .  While the others were supposed to cool me down (and they did), this one was supposed to  put me in motion.

Of course, the time of  choosing was (not so) early in the morning.  I have chosen an heavy oxidized  oolong for this.  It’s the “Red Robe” (well not actually Red Robe) I wrote about here.

I took my time to take a pic with my porcelain teapot and to reflect on what I’ve learned during the weekend.   The main purpose for all these three teas was to study the effect of the teas on myself and the people around me.  Besides this, I have also began to use a plate instead of a tea tray for brewing tea in the gongfu cha way.  During the next week I acquired a nice looking plate  and a simple bowl in order to further brew tea in this fashion.

I have found that  using a plate gives you a great deal of flexibility in arranging your tea setup and makes you more focused on the tea.  However, reverting back to the tea table feels nice, mostly because of it’s commodity.  But most important, I now have multiple choices.  I always did, but I was too focused on brewing the tea in the proper way, with a tea table.

Home, episode 2 – Green Tea With Mint

20/06/2010, posted by Cha in journal,tea

This was the second time I brewed tea in that weekend. It was extremely hot so I had to cool down some how. That’s why I decided to use some mint. There are very few situations when I mix tea with something else and it doesn’t happen often, but this time, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to use fresh mint.

I had some green tea left from 2009 ( Monkey King)  and I used it all to fill the teapot. Perhaps I put to much tea, because the best results were after the forth infusion or so. But anyhow,  it did cool me down.  Both of the plants are yin, so I imagined the cooling effect has to amplify if I mix them both ( and there has to be a reason why in Morocco they love green tea with mint ) .

I think I made a much better use of the plate now,  and my understanding (combined with a lot of reading and pictures on the subject) of gongfu cha took a step further. With this understanding, the week that followed was a very good week for tea.

Tea Details

05/06/2010, posted by Cha in journal

I start to believe that we  (westerners) give to many credits to tea grades, tea origin, tea whatever.  We promote good quality tea, but in a very mechanic way.  Like collectors. Tea, at least for me,  it’s not  just a beverage, it’s a state of mind, a way to become self aware, a tool to reflect or not to reflect at all.

I want to describe the feeling you have when you drink the right tea in the right moment.  I’m not good with words, but I hope the pictures bellow are more than enough  to describe that feeling.

I always  drink tea  on the floor.  Due to my martial arts background, I have no problems sitting like that for extended periods of time. It is actually relaxing and I am always focused on the tea or to my guests that way. (If you want to read more about enjoying tea on the floor , Adam Yusko talks about it  here.)

In fact, I feel very uncomfortable at a table, because I feel I don’t have enough space.  For a better experience , I recommend you to have a wall at your back , not in front, and a large space ahead (or windows).    ( These are actually Feng Shui principles. Since we are in that  zone, I highly  recommend the series of posts related to tea energy from MattCha’s blog.)

Now please press play while you watch the pics.

Kung fu tea , puerh , 4 nov

04/11/2009, posted by Cha in journal,tea

Kung fu means continuous practice  and great effort until one obtains “great skill”.  Writing about every time I brew tea would be a waste of my (and your) time.  However , pics are not harmful.

I brewed a 2008 puerh cake and I used my new boiling plate.

A tea session

14/10/2009, posted by Cha in journal,tea

I have already posted about this great tea from @JINGTea . Following are some very nice pictures of a tea session after a exhausting   day. Be sure to click on the image to view it in full size.

interesting posts during last week (4-11 Oct)

12/10/2009, posted by Cha in journal

A list of interesting #tea posts that were published last week.

• http://www.gongfugirl.com/2009/10/tea-review-aurateas-formosa-aged-wuyi-variety-oolong/
• http://englishtea.us/2009/10/08/the-importance-of-water/
• http://englishtea.us/2009/10/08/tea-and-theanine/
• http://marshaln.xanga.com/713988402/the-information-age/
• http://www.hong-tea.com/blog/the-water-for-tea/
• http://tea-obsession.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-time-good-brew-without-timer.html
• http://www.hong-tea.com/blog/how-to-process-tie-guan-yin-te/
• http://www.hong-tea.com/blog/romance-between-tea-and-buddhism/