Construction Zone!

Pardon my dust, but I decided to bite the bullet and get a custom domain name for this blog, so hopefully in the next few days you can go to www.thesiptip.com and see this blog. That being said some things may take a while to go into effect, and I will be forwarding people going to thesiptip.blogspot.com to the custom domain. So I apologize in advance and retroactively if in the next week or so you try to view my blog and you get a filler page!

Either way, I learned some settings with DNS take a day to go into effect so I will try pushing it forward tomorrow again and hope it works that time!

1 Sudafed, 2 Aspirin, and A very strong Session of Puerh

This is a rather interesting cocktail, which I only attempted today because I think I am on the rebound from on this cold, and I asked some people on teachat what they thought was a good tea for a cold. Tim from the Mandarins tea Blog, said his cold remedy is very strong young raw puerh. He recommends High mountain or old tree, though as my puerh selection is not that deep/ diverse.

But I will say this much, the sudafed and aspirin did little to actually improve how I felt these past few days. But after 8 infusions of a 100 ml gaiwan that was packed after the leaves fully expanded, and doing extra long infusions. It did nothing to improve my cold, but I must say I did not care that I had a cold any more. Sadly the not caring did not last an extremely long time but it was great while it lasted.

I had forgotten the feeling of a good tea buzz, and I think the packed gaiwan of young puerh is definitely the most sure way to get there.

So anyone else have any good tea approaches to getting over a cold? I am not really that interested in black tea with honey and lemon.

Update.

So I am back from my trip to the Mediterranean, but I only managed to get in one session of tea before coming down with a cold. So I am sorry to say there will be a bit more delays. But I have some more Shincha on the way.

I miss good tea, but I figure I would not fully enjoy it with this cold. So To my readership, I beg of you just give me a few more days and I will hopefully be back to posting regularly and about tea.

Respect for Tea

Just about all Asian Tea Enthusiasts know about The Leaf and the free online magazine they release. An article in one of the earlier issues of this magazine said something, which I tried before, but never really understood until recently. Simply put, enjoy tea on the floor, something which sounds absolutely absurd for a large majority of Westerners, and I have to admit for someone not quite all that flexible rather hard to pull off sitting cross legged on the floor for an entire tea session if not more.

But this past spring semester I took a Zen Buddhism class, just to round out my schedule and finally fit in a personally interest (other than math) class. I absolutely enjoyed the class, and it inspired me to work on my flexibility so I would attempt to sit cross legged a little each day and work for longer and longer times. A hint from the Buddhists for their meditation, actually sit on some cushions so it does not stress your legs nearly as much.

Moving back to my parents house for the summer, in my room I have no good place to really have a tea set up, other than a Blue trunk in the middle of the room, which is far to low to work comfortably with if sitting in a chair, so I figured it was great to practice sitting cross legged on the floor while brewing and enjoying tea.

I must say not only does it force your posture to be much better, the slight discomfort in your legs, forces you to pay close attention to everything at hand, and makes it rather hard for the mind to wander. I find that the tea sessions I have had lately have been the most enjoyable string of tea sessions since I started drinking tea.

Somehow when doing this, I feel I am showing a greater respect for the tea, as even when my computer is close at hand, I hardly ever turn to it, and never get lost searching the web while drinking tea, something which happened constantly when sitting in a chair.

This is just a personally narrative sharing my experiences, and my opinions on the matter, but I highly encourage you to drink tea on the floor every so often.

June Tea Blog Carnival Main Post

So our topic today is: "how do we fit tea into our daily life?"

I choose this topic because I was hoping for some varied responses and definitely got them.

Ginko over at Life in Tea Cup talks about some of the experiences we all tend to come across with lack of general knowledge about tea in the American Public. I especially liked the part about how when glass brewing tea, a coworker was completely taken back at what was in the cup. I myself have had similar responses walking around with a glass thermos full of leaves.

Brett from Black Dragon Tea Bar in almost more pictures than words shares how being a Teashop owner, he really has no problems fitting tea into his day to day life, in fact a bigger challenge might be to try and escape tea.

Eric from Tea Finely Brewed asks a series of questions which we should all take into account every time we drink a tea, especially when approaching a new tea. These questions are always a good starting point if you review teas in a more competitive fashion.

Cinnabar at Gongfu Girl has a situation we would probably all love to be in the fact that she has teaware invading her office, in her quest to enjoy good tea when ever possible.

Jason from Walker tea review takes a deeper look into why there are problems incorporating tea into an office type environment. We can only hope for a better future in terms of tea in the corporate settings.

Kay from That Pour Girl talks about how easily it is for her to fit tea into her student life. She is a grad student just like I will be starting and it gives me hope that I can fit good tea into grad school work.

I hope you Enjoyed all of these Posts. Now onto my experiences:

I fit tea into my day to day life, sometimes easily sometimes with a bit of a struggle. The life of a student has been rather unpredictable. If I wasn't so much into Japanese tea, and getting in entire sessions of many infusions and using the proper teaware for the beverage, I would be taking much more tea to class.

But as I view homework time as tea time on a somewhat regular basis. I can not thank my Lin's kettle enough, as I fill it up with water, and put it on my electric hot plate and I work for 30-40 minutes till it boils, then its time for an hour long tea break, which will rejuvenate me and let me finish my work more easily.