Tis the Holidays

The holidays for someone of my age, as a graduate student, tends to mean leaving the place you live year round, and heading to your parents house for a couple of weeks. This for most of my fellow students tends to be much easier, simply bring clothes and perhaps a few books, and you are all set to spend the holidays somewhere else. But I have realized how potentially problematic it is to be a tea addict, and almost borderline obsessive about using the right teaware for the teas being used.

So prior to my drive to my parents house a few days ago I had to make the tough decisions as to what I imagined myself drinking, and what teaware I would need, and worry about how to package those items so they could survive the trip nicely. I am most certainly glad I am no longer flying which makes the packing thing a huge issue as breakage is a major concern.

So those of you that have been following this blog will not be completely surprised in my decision to stick to Japanese teas and hagi products, which while I love them, I decided mostly on bringing them because they all came with wooden artist signed boxes which make transportation much easier as the box would bear most of the burden of stress as opposed to a cloth or bubble wrapped gaiwan which a bit of misplaced weight might very well cause a chip or a more serious failure in the gaiwan.

But that being said it still feels somewhat limiting as I am without quite a few of my teaware tools that I am quite reliant on such as my lins kettle. Not to mention that I am now making tea in what is very well the busiest room of my parents house meaning distractions can happen at just about any time, some good some annoying when I am just trying to spend my time with tea. But I continue to greatly enjoy the Japanese greens and hope to getting into exploring some great gyokuro-s and a few sencha-s that I brought along.

So I'd like to take this time to wish all my readers a happy holiday season, and my posts might be a bit more scarce. (In fact as I read this I notice its been about 10 days since my last post!) But that is what finals do to your sense of time, completely obliterate it.

Happy Holidays!!!