Why do you choose your your teaware?

I have run several small interesting experiments with my friends, namely when giving them a choice to use any cup I have to offer, who chooses which, and why did they choose that one?  Is there something about the shape, glaze, size that appeals to them, more than any other piece? Oddly while most of my teaware distinctively speaks to me and as such has traits I admire, the pieces chosen by friends when they visit sometimes shock me, as a friend known for distinct style and flair may actually choose a very humble looking cup, while a friend who normally is incredibly quiet may choose a cup that screams *look at me.*  Now I don't analyze it too much in regards to friends, I prefer to do that on my own preferences for choosing teaware.

Regular readers know I like Hagi Yaki for its Wabi Sabi appearance, basically saying "I am not perfect" right out there in the open.  But even in more perfect looking pieces I prefer my teaware to have less than ideal glazing.  An ideal glaze has identical thermal expansion properties as the glaze, as such there is no tiny hairline fractures in the glaze that will stain over time with use, the glaze quite literally is a perfect sheet of glass adhered to the surface of the bowl.  But I by far prefer that additional imperfection even on an otherwise perfectly symmetrical and well formed piece.

To me, these pieces of teaware mimic all of us.  An absolutely perfect piece while stunning is always the same, and gets boring after awhile.  While it is the stresses of life, that create the chaos in our life, which make us interesting people.  These stresses allow us to not hide who we are, but rather throw it all out there in the open, and say "This is me, I have been through things, but here I am!"  That is what I want my teaware to say.  That is why I love each and every piece of teaware I have, to me they have shared their life, and their story, just like good friends in life.

Tough Decisions, is it time for an end?

I sat down tonight, saying it has been too long since I last posted, I specifically carved out a solid stretch of time to work on a post.  Something I am not used to as my posts had before mostly been written on a whim, when the spirit hit.  Granted the writing probably very well reflected that free and almost rushed to post attitude, however even after sitting down to tea, having a very nice session, words and  topic are still failing me.

I've thought about a variety of topics, some of which fitting my goal for this blog perfectly, however the drive and thoughts weren't there to follow through on them.   Others I felt I could write, but they continued the ongoing trend I've been wanting to break about this blog becoming overly personal, and not really about tea.   Life has been hitting incredibly hard and fast lately, where the time to sit down and enjoy tea is a savored, albeit rare opportunity, the time to write about those rare experiences non existent.

So as the time I have set aside to write, knowing full well my blog has not been updated in what is quickly approaching a quarter of a year.  I think I need to announce a belated prolonged [potentially permanent] hiatus from this blog.   I still will enjoy tea, and still hope to produce the occasional tea video. However I am not sure this blog will continue to serve a purpose for me, and my enjoyment of tea.

Days that make us Remember

I am not going to lie, for a little while there I had started to forget what it is I actually like about tea, and why I spent so much time drinking it, and learning how to best prepare it.  I think if people spend enough time on anything eventually they will need to step back and reevaluate their situation.  I've found myself several times in the past week being completely able to have tea on multiple occasions, but opting not to for one reason or another, and no reason was really particularly good.  So today after having a wonderful relaxing eight mile run, the weather was too perfect not to spend time outside, and why not brew some tea?

On so many levels I did everything wrong with this tea session, including for three of the four steeps using water that was so scalding I had to set down the water cooler mid pour to re-position my fingers, yet knowing Korean Greens can often use a bit extra heat, assuming you adjust the steep time appropriately (knock it way down!)   The first three infusions turns out quite amazing, however it clearly was too much for the Korean Sejak I was brewing as steep four was pretty much bitter, colored water with no other flavor.  Yet there was something freeing about being outside, looking at my *garden* on my deck, enjoying the breeze, and sipping on tea brewed *wrong* but delicious anyway.

Everyone gets discouraged every once and awhile, it is what we do to either give up or refocus ourselves that makes all the difference.   Cheers!


Oh in case anyone missed it I did manage to record a video a week or so ago, so another Rambling video of me brewing tea is up on Youtube.  Enjoy!

Isn't it Ironic?

I've long stopped wondering about what people google to find this blog, but the past month has caught me chuckling to myself a few times due to the name I happened to choose for this blog and my current field of work.   I'm not sure I've ever explained the reason for the name of this blog, but as it initially was intended to be a tea review blog, I thought well its going to be a blog giving people tips on what tea's they should sip.  Hence "The Sip Tip."

Well within a few years of me creating this blog, several technologies started to emerge to the forefront in Telephony, especially those involving SIP servers using SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) and its interactions with TCP/IP  (Transmission Control Protocol/ Internet Protocol).  There was for at least a year in there maybe two or three, any search for something similar to 'sip tip' would produce this blog, and every single other link would involve telephony software's, technologies, and protocols.  I jokingly said to myself I'll have to learn what that is some day to actually figure out what it is.

Flash forward several years, and due to a change of projects with my current employer, I am now immersed in a land of telephony, including dealing with SIP servers, protocols, and communications between massive numbers of servers along internal networks.  So many years after creating a blog called "The Sip Tip"  I am oddly employed in an industry that was possibly the number one cause of accidental clicks on my blog for several years.

In the mean while I will keep on sipping tea, and really try and focus on producing more content, and especially more photographs for this blog!  I apologize it has been a crazy 2014 so far, and I am not sure it is going to get any more sane, as my Marathon training starts to really ramp up, into a fall full of races. 

Priori-teas

Sorry for the horrible word play in the title.   However I've been thinking a lot about where tea ranks on my list of priorities lately, and I am not exactly sure.  I view it as an incredibly relaxing and enjoyable diversion, and still enjoy it immensely.  However I've struggled to find the time for it lately, and that is what worries me.  There seems to be an endless battle between working out/ running, drinking tea, and sleep, sadly all three can not happen in the same evening due to tea's effect on my ability to sleep.  Combine this with the fact that for some reason, and I am not 100% sure why, I have only had one somewhat lazy weekend in the past 3 months, which prior to that in this past year was when I could really sit down and focus on tea.

However I do still hope to learn about tea, and share tea with others.  In fact within the past month I have had a group of running friends over for some tea, and opened their eyes to what it can really be.  (For those interested in the line up, we started with Matcha, Sencha, Balhyocha, followed by a 1967 Baozhong.)   That afternoon was quite possibly the most enjoyable tea moment I have had for many years, as it feels good to try and share your passions with others, and I highly encourage any of my readers who have not done so to try and gather a group of friends that don't quite know about tea the way you do and have them over for tea.

I'll keep trying to sip on some tea while I look at my priority list and see if I can bump the lovely leaf up a step or two somewhere in there.

The Spirit of Tea

Through over 5 years on my blog, many things have changed personally, some at least in part inspired by tea.  As tea drinkers we get a lot of questions on what tea is to us, or why we drink tea.  Honestly though through those 5 years and actually back further I realize tea has pretty much been a constant in my life.  Why does this simple set of leaves thrown into hot water help people relax, wake up, recover, etc...?

Tea was there for me after my first traffic accident.  Tea was used to celebrate numerous happy occasions in my or my friends lives.  Tea has broken down barriers with friends.  It has also granted me comfort and time to meditate when I thought there was no such thing as free time.  There seems to be something about these tea leaves that has caused tea to be enjoyed so much throughout history.  This effect of being a near panacea for everything live can throw at us certainly has been known for quite a while in east Asian religions.  Tea and Zen have been said to be one and the same, especially as their fate/history in certain counties are incredibly intertwined.

The most amazing thing though is how unassuming tea can actually be.  It will be exactly what you want or need it to be, even if that item is some dry withered leaves tossed in water with no celebration or fanfare. Tea however I have learned does demand at least two things, and they are incredibly important.

Tea must be enjoyed, and tea must be shared.  All else is up to us.

Cold Brewed [Steeped] Tea

In passing with another tea person I know I had a brief although provocative conversation.  I mentioned that I was drinking some Cold Brewed Keemun I made for a party I hosted, and his initial reaction was that it was a waste of good tea.  I a bit shocked at the somewhat up front condemnation of how I was drinking this tea, decided to ask him more about what he meant, and the conversation that followed had some rather illuminating points on how do deal with bad tea, and as sort of the other side of the coin, how not to treat good tea.

Before I go to far let me say, when I defended myself by telling him this particular tea I actually had a hard time drinking warm, due to its incredible potency and general astringency, he conceded that cold brewing may be the way to go with that tea.  Though it is a bit amazing, Iced tea is not a foreign concept in the United States, I do not know to what levels it has caught on in other countries, but at the same time brewing tea cold, and drinking tea cold is sort of a bait and switch with pretty much any tea.  There is one somewhat clear guideline that makes perfect sense and no sense at the same time depending on how you think about it:

Bad tea often make good iced tea, while good tea seldom makes good iced tea.

Its a bait and switch/ role reversal with tea when you switch from hot water to cold water.  Now there are ways to make incredible cold tea with good tea leaves, but they often require so much leaf, or give so little liquid that they don't seem worth while.  For some reason for tea to taste like tea we need that slight astringent and bitter aspect to the brew, which bad teas often have too much of, and good teas often have just enough or a little less than enough allowing us to add more leaf and get that much more in terms of extra flavors from the leaves.   

Queue the heat,  tea brewing 101 quickly establishes a correlation between both steep time and temperature with overall astringency of the brew.  Temperature is the biggest factor though, as a lot more time is needed once the temperature starts to drop. I am sure all my chemically and biologically oriented friends could offer richer more scientific explanations of the processes involved, but the general idea is the hotter the water the quicker and more readily compounds get from the leaf into the liquid.  Now these items diffuse at different rates depending on the temperature, and  the ones that diffuses very slowly at low temperatures are mostly the same compounds that cause the astringent/ bitter tastes to develop in the brew. As such cold temperatures and long steeping times get the most out of the wide variety of flavors in the tea, with the least amount of bitter components.

Why not good tea on ice? This one is probably harder to explain, as in a certain sense if we think of astringency solely as a bad item, it should not make sense. But I maintain that a bit of astringency is what makes tea what it is, and helps highlight its overall taste.  As such if you take a tea already low in those compounds and brew it in a way that further reduces the amount of those in the brew, you can often be left with a liquid that may smell nice, but taste very simple and bland.  (It is almost like astringency is the spices of the tea world, while the base ingredients may be great, typically they perform their best with a little extra spices to bring them to life). 

Other years I may have thought this is a very timely post, but I am living in an area stuck in perpetual winter, and I can only dream of eventually seeing warmer days ahead in which I'd love to reach for a glass of iced tea.  

Matcha Monday Morning Maddness

Well it is quarter after three in the morning, a time I find a little bit ironic, as 24 hours ago I had not yet gone to bed, and in those past 24 hours I've gotten maybe ten hours of sleep, a questionable four Saturday morning, and six with so much promise bringing me to this point in time right here.  So I'm stalling time writing this post hoping I get tired enough to fall back asleep, but in the mean time I am getting full well prepared to start my Monday with a nice big bowl of Matcha. 

It occurs to me, I may have not written a post about some of the do's and don'ts of matcha preparation, the goals, and the pitfalls that we all occasionally deal with while whisking up a bowl of the *magic green pixie dust.*  

Matcha is green tea right?  So I should definitely use water that has cooled for some time before adding it to the leaf? 

Not Quite!  It still seems rather contradictory in my mind how this works out the way it does, as you'd imagine finely ground green leaves would be extra sensitive to the heat and turn bitter quickly.  It likely has to do though with the thorough and careful process of shading the leaves and removing the stems and veins from the leaves before grinding that makes this possible.  (Yes, I do also realize the irony here that Gyokuro which is also shaded is brewed with cooler water than most green teas.)

So what temperature should you aim for when brewing matcha?  I still avoid boiling, but I do not cool the water off much at all. Typically only a very short time in a water cooler before pouring and whisking.  I aim for roughly half the temperature between boiling and my typical green tea preparation. The warmer water can help produce the nice frothy/ foamy top to the tea. 

Whisking, how and why?

Well first lets be clear it is far closer to the motion of trying to beat an egg, than stirring.  The goal here is not just to mix, but to also aerate the tea and produce the nice foam on top of the tea. A common set of instructions given, and I under stand different schools of Japanese tea ceremony have different whisking techniques.  Aim for making an M or W shape with the whisk, as unless you are actually studying a formal Japanese ceremony technique from a particular school for home enjoyment this is fairly straight forward and easy to think about when whisking.    Also, the urge might be to feel like you need to scrape the tea off the bottom of the bowl, please avoid scraping the bottom of the bowl with the whisk when whisking, nothing is worse than taking a sip of matcha, and getting a nice piece of bamboo tine. It is pretty much the equivalent of a fish bone in the tea world.  

I've used hot enough water, and I'm killing my arm trying to whisk this tea into oblivion, and I can only get a meager thin foam on top of my matcha?

Don't fret too much, try a few different matcha while working on your technique, sometimes it really is the tea and not the tea maker.  

Snacks? Sifting?  Supplies?

The Japanese have quite a few treats that they often pair with their tea, in terms of items somewhat easily available in the Western Hemisphere, some dark chocolate often goes incredibly well with matcha. Sifting is also up to you, I prefer it, but depending on which method you use to make matcha, there are ways around sifting that still help remove lumps of tea.  A question often asked is do you really need all those supplies to drink matcha: Scoop (Chashaku), Whisk (Chasen), Sifter (???) , Bowl (Chawan)?  Most houses have items that can do the trick for each of those except for possibly the whisk.  Chasen, are really in a league of their own for doing the job and still protecting the ceramics you are using.  Scoops can pretty much be replaced by any sort of spoon. Chawan can typically be replaced by a typical household bowl, though you may want to consider shape and dimensions as some might be easier than others. 

I did not mention the sifter because its a bit of a funny story, the only tea infusing basket I have in my apartment, is actually my matcha sifter.  Without buying a sifter designed specifically for matcha unless you really want to, find any somewhat fine mesh screen, the type you somewhat often find on some infuser baskets, it does the trick and will save you quite a few dollars. 

Morning Crane Tea group buy of Yi Ho Yeong teas

When I first started this tea blog, I really had no clue how far it would go, or who I would become acquainted with in the process, but rest assured as with most things, if you are in the *circles* long enough you eventually meet quite a few people.  Arthur Park is actually a potter, with an impressive bio in ceramic arts, but he also views himself as an educator in things reaching beyond just pottery, and one such area is Korean crafts and culture.  Through his work educating others he has in the past arranged for items such as tea tours, and ceramics tours of South Korea, and operates a small little tea business which helps make artisan Korean teas available in North America.  To help further educate the tea lovers of North America into how amazing Korean teas can be, he is arranging a group buy of Yi Ho Yeong teas. For more information on Yi Ho Yeong feel free to visit this post on his blog.   To find out how you can be included in this group buy, he has details on Morning Crane Tea's Facebook page.




I have had many of the teas offered by Morning Crane tea, and they have all been of great quality and value, so much to the point that he has become pretty much the only person from which I buy Korean teas. I have made several videos involving the brewing of Korean teas, but I decided to make a new one to help spread word of this announcement.  I do apologize for the somewhat abrupt ending, turns out the time the inspectors checking that the apartment was up to code had to happen during the 10 minutes I wanted to film the video.  But such is life.

Chawan, the tea lovers Super Bowls

So I couldn't help but laugh yesterday, while I have never been that much of a professional football fan, this year I've followed it far less than I have in quite a few years.  Somewhere in the endless mentions of the Super Bowl, I couldn't help but think that as tea lovers and/or pottery loves we all have come to appreciate the Super Bowls known as Chawan.

So inspired by yesterdays game, today for #MatchaMonday I took out my most gargantuan and favorite Chawan.  I made a large albeit weak bowl tonight, not wanting to risk being wired well into the morning.  I have a love hate relationship with matcha, I love Chawan, but I hate that their uses in tea over all are rather limited.  I love matcha, but I dislike having it more than once a week, but it fades from its peak freshness so quickly.

I will say though the roughly 8 months I went without matcha, lead to my technique falling apart, and turning absolutely horrid.  Though knowing the right temperature, amount of both tea and water are all key components, the number one thing to keep in mind is the whisking motion, which I sadly have lost over time. Well going back to practice it is then...

Warming up with some Aged Sheng Puerh

First I needed to warm up from a bit over 6 mile, hour long run in the ever falling snow.  While it was an incredibly fun and miserable run at the same time, there is just something impressive about the glaciers that were forming on my eyebrows by the end of the run.  [See photo below for amusement.]

Now hoping to film a tea video again, and having a peaceful Saturday to get it done, after getting back, and nibbling on some food, I put the kettle on and set out to film a video.  While it may not be a great tea video, though tea is the subject, I did capture post run stupidity in full effect.   I swear I am normally better put together than this, while I have never been a great off the cuff speaker, this video is especially atrocious.  So watch the tea, and laugh all you would like at the jumbled up words and dialogue :).

Enjoy:

Tea and Weight loss, Three Reasons For and Against

I am sure anyone that has been around the block in the tea world a few times has heard all sorts of wonderful health claims, including the magical claim that tea can help you lose weight!  Well, to go a little into my personal life again, sorry I seem to be doing this a lot lately, I have in the past year lost roughly 40 pounds, and who knows how much muscle I gained in the processes.  Well lets think about this, we've had about 5 years of The Sip Tip, and in the processes in the last year I have probably had less tea on average than each of the previous 4 years which had a slow and steady weight gain.  So what gives?

Why tea might not actually help you lose weight:

1. While caffeine is an appetite suppressant, I've found tea tends to do just the opposite.  In fact after drinking enough strong tea on a less than full stomach I often find myself craving some fatty and oily snack.  (Read as: high in Calories).
2. It can be easy to have the mindset that doing good, can counter doing bad.  By that I mean I've known people (and have been one myself) that use moderate exercise (burning 100-300 Calories), as an excuse to over eat way in excess of what they burnt off.  Viewing tea as something good that you have done, can lead to thinking along the lines of an extra cookie is okay.
3. Tea can help keep you awake.  While this can be good, it has been surprising how many things I have read that actually show how beneficial a proper nights rest is in managing and attaining a healthy weight, in addition to properly allow you to recover from workouts allowing you to more quickly go out and do one again, maybe harder or longer next time.

But to talk out of both sides of my mouth, where are people coming from when they say tea can help you lose weight?  Actually there are good reasons why it can as well, but keep in mind when reading them the full implications of each one, and why you may or may not fall into that category.

Why tea might help you lose weight:

1.  You use tea as a replacement for a highly Caloric beverage.  Quite a few of the successful tea and weight loss stories I have heard involving tea, the real reason is actually not tea, in fact the same results would have likely happened with water, coffee, or pretty much any near zero Calorie beverage.  These stories all involve the person finding tea, and liking it so much that they decide to have it in place of a Soda, flavored Latte, Alcoholic beverages, or pretty much any other high Calorie drink.  Weight loss is ultimately a numbers game, if total intake is less than total expenditure, then the body much find that additional energy elsewhere in fat and muscle mass.
2. Tea actually has been shown to boost metabolism. Now before you jump up and down and celebrate, the increase is so small it might as well be considered non existent.  By that I mean an extra chocolate chip cookie, or brownie a year would amount to more Calories than  those burnt from the boost in Metabolism.
3. To really speak out of both sides of my mouth on this one to go with number 3 above: tea has caffeine.  Though this applies to when you are having it early enough in the day that it does not noticeably interfere with sleep.  The caffeine when used in moderation can help give people the energy to be more active throughout the day, thus improving the number of Calories burned.

This post felt a little weird to write, but I have gotten some comments lately about how I must be losing all of this weight and improving my health due to my tea drinking.  I want to honestly say, it is not the tea, it is the activity!  

Matcha Monday (and more)

It had been far too long since I have had matcha on hand, and I need to get a whole lot more.  I have oddly realized that Matcha may actually be the ideal tea to make in an office setting.  What makes matcha ideal? Well besides the few random additional items you need to make it properly such as a whisk, there are no wet spent leaves to dispose of, as you drink all of them.  More so when you work in a building that has rules against doing any sort of dishes in any sink on the floor (possibly even building), being able to rinse out and drink from the bowl while *cleaning it* is certainly a plus.

But having fun with alliterations one day, I realized Matcha Monday sounded like a fun tradition to try and ignite.  I realized in the first Monday, which is captured in these images, that perhaps after work is not idea for a tea as powerful as Matcha (though it may have been the coffee in addition to the Matcha), so I may need to make it a habit to wake up early enough to have a bowl before work.  But I've gotten a shocking amount of praise for this teabowl, which is quitely shocking to me.

While granted, while being my own worst critic, I will admit this bowl has the least issues of all the pieces I made in my Anagama class, but that does not make it anything special at all.   It is quite pleasing though to be using a piece that at least feels like it has the proper weight to it when used.  Sadly the Koudai / foot is not incredibly pronounced but it was carved from an otherwise pinchwork bowl, which I thought had walls that were too thin until the final product came out and they were just right.

I actually highly encourage anyone to try and create some of their own tea items to use while drinking, it is rather nice to be able to enjoy tea while thinking "I made this."  But with only two *semesters* of ceramics classes under my belt, I am still incredibly skeptical of my ability to make anything resembling a functioning teapot.   I would like to be able to throw pots eventually, having in those two semesters due to a few missed classes spent less than 10 hours attempting to use the wheel for pottery.


So for the next few weeks (years, or more) does anyone want to join me in #MatchaMonday ?

Tea Eye Candy!

Honestly, I am trying to get back on a somewhat regular posting schedule, but having been sick for the past few days, and realizing I probably can't write anything new and original about drinking tea while sick, I have decided to just share some eye candy I have not posted yet to this blog.




Below is a Youtube video I posted in which I did not speak, though you can hear some sounds of me brewing off camera, while I filmed the blooming process of a blooming tea. I apologize for the near complete lack of action from minutes 2-6, but I lack editing software.  (If any of my viewers knows of some affordable video editing software I would love to know!)

Keep on enjoying tea, I finally am stocked on Asamushi Sencha again, and quickly working on bringing down my supplies of Gyokuro.  Also Matcha Monday will start on the 13th!  Besides that I am fighting the good fight of cylcing through my collection.

Happy New Year! Tea Resolutions

A bit late to post this on my blog, but to all my readers out there Happy New Year!  While an otherwise great 2013 fizzled out with out much ado, 2014 started off rather incredibly, and yes tea was involved. But before I get on to the tea, I want to share something I am still thrilled about, on a 5k Race I ran New Years Morning, I won my age group!  While for about 99 out of 100 5k races my time would not win my age group, heck if I do *place* I'd often be fighting closely for 3rd.   Call it weather, or luck of the field this race, but my time of 22:21 was enough to put me on top of my age group!  I am still a bit amazed at how far I have come with running since I set out to try and make it a habit to improve my fitness, a year ago I struggled to run a single mile significantly under 9 minutes per mile, let alone 3.1 of them at an average of 7:13 minutes per mile.

So now for the tea resolutions!  I am going to continue with my "return to practice for tea brewing" which has already helped me focus on tea in ways I have nearly forgotten I could use to brew tea effectively.  For those of you that like my tea videos, I am going to commit myself to one new one a month, and really try for two new videos each month.  In a rather odd twist for a resolution, I am going to declare 2014 "the year of the return customer"  by that I mean I am really not going to seek out many new vendors, but rather focus on getting my tea purchases from tea vendors whose products I have liked in the past, and have earned in a certain sense a great deal of trust from myself that they will continue to source and sell quality products.

My very first tea purchase for 2014 was with a vendor of which I am quite fond.  Charaku Tea out of the Seattle area,  fitting into the theme of the return customer, at least with their sencha, I have always been thrilled with the qualities of their tea especially given their prices.  This included a some Matcha, and a tea resolution I hope to keep up with as often as  I have matcha  in stock, would be on social networking sites, try and start a #MatchaMonday theme, in which I will post a picture of the matcha I enjoy each Monday.

Also,  I am not sure my readers have fully appreciated this, but I am quite fond of making others happy when ever possible/ feasible.  So if there is something that you want to see more of in 2014 please don't hesitate to comment, and let me know what you want to see.