Three years ago (wow, I’ve been in Berkeley that long?!) I won this set at a silent auction at a Japanese Buddhist Temple. I was *so* excited. I didn’t know what they were called at the time, but I knew…
Pair of porcelain yunomi
Category: Teaware
A sure sign that you’re a tea addict
You give yourself a monthly allowance. $70 from that goes to a tea set. Then you have 67-cent cup noodles for dinner, the American kind. All the while marveling at the celadon color, the smooth glaze, the delicate tasting cups.…
Wednesday 04/09 – Four Season oolong, Mao Jian, and warming the yixing pot in style
We had two blind taste tests today to distinguish types of tea. In the first one, I failed horribly: mistaking an oolong (Baochong) for a white tea because it was so light, and thinking that a green tea (Lu Shan)…
Wednesday 14/03 – Pu’er, the Chinese Black
Back then Darius told us that there are 2 main tea varietals: Camellia sinensis sinensis and Camellia sinensis puer. Obviously, pu’er tea comes from the latter. It’s the only kind of fermented tea. Fermentation and oxidation are two different things:…
A little bit on teapot materials
Usually, for bar use at tea houses, glass pots are for white and green teas, yixing brown ones are for oolong, and others for black and puers. The reason: not to mix up the flavors, as yixing pots are known…
The drinking vessel matters
I’ll risk sounding like a snob while actually being an illiterate by saying this: drinking from a little porcelain teacup gives a much different, and nicer, feel than drinking from a big tea mug. And I’ll try to dissect the…