February ATB Blog Carnival

This carnival is hosted by Cinnabar over at Gongfugirl and focuses on the question:

What is the most uncomfortable place where you prepared tea (work, traveling, in a place without suitable equipment, etc.) and how were you able to overcome the difficulty?

I have actually written articles about this topic several times in the past year, one of which was about preparing tea in an Academic Grad Student office, in which chalk dust clouds all the fine points of senses. The other one about a less than ideal situation, but incredibly enjoyable although the tea was downright dreadful while in Venice Italy.

But I may say both of those situations make the setting in which I started getting serious about loose leaf teas seem like luxurious set ups. A freshman in a dorm without a kitchen, with no real access to a kitchen, and any sort of heating element strictly banned, but I had loose leaf tea and I wanted to drink tea. Not to mention I had no ceramic cups.

So how did I prepare tea? I shudder to think of it now, but I used tap water, poured into empty and cleaned paper coffee cups, microwaved till warm (we were allowed to have a certain type of pre approved minifridge/ microwave combo). Then threw in a fill it yourself teabag, often with a black tea, but occasionally a oolong.

Even though I enjoyed those cups of tea, I think it may have been the reason why it took two more years for me to think of tea as anything more than a caffeine delivery system. Though clearly as I enjoyed it, it speaks for either the enduring classic taste of the tea leaf.

Outdoor Tea

This post is for the Association of Tea Bloggers September Blog Carnival, hosted by Brett at Black Dragon Tea Bar. The focus of Septembers post is, about Tea Outside I guess a sort of reminiscent of the summer past, and a reminder that there will hopefully be a few good days this fall to have tea outside.

I love to have tea outside whenever I can. While we were really supposed to write about a memorable experience drinking tea outside, I am already a bit tapped out on that as I wrote an article for Tching about how Scenery can make the Cup which is about a truly horrible cup of tea that is one of my most memorable and remembered quite fondly, simply because I was enjoying it on a Patio in Venice, Italy.

So I decided to reflect a little bit about enjoying tea outside, and my dream outdoor tea experience.

This picture taken while I was enjoying tea outside, and something about the natural sounds and feel of the breeze of being outside is so much more enjoyable.

Though I have aspirations to hopefully in my life undertake what I consider the "ultimate" outdoor tea experience, it involves hiking with teaware up a mountain to a fresh mountain spring, and enjoying tea right there on the mountain side, hopefully off the beaten path, so it is just me and my company enjoying a truly unique experience.

Sen no Rikyu

This is part of the August Tea Blog Carnival sponsored by the Association of Tea Bloggers, and this month is being hosted by Jason Walker at the Walker Tea Review.

The focus of this post is supposed to be on a Tea person, and is in essence rather vague, it could be anyone from history or just your local tea vendor.

The fact that I am fascinated with Zen Buddhism, really helped narrow the field, and ultimately lead me to choose Sen no Rikyu. Sen no Rikyu fought for a much simpler tea ceremony, and one that focused on the tea instead of the extremely extravagant teaware that was being collected by the Prominent officials at that time. Directly related to that he emphasized the wabi sabi approach to tea and teaware, which basically boils down to the fact that sometimes things can be perfect due to their imperfections.

If he were alive today, one thing I would love to ask him, would be if Hagi yaki fits into his preferences for teaware?

The truth is from the bit I have read on Sen no Rikyu, it really could be a toss up, while Hagi yaki is one style that showcases Wabi Sabi with such elegance and ease, it can also be incredibly extravagant. It is hard to picture someone rumored to have worn the most basic of clothing preparing matcha in a solid gold chawan or something even half as extravagant.

The hardest part of learning about Sen no Rikyu is separating fact from fiction, as he was such an influential figure in the orgins of the Japanese Tea Ceremony, in fact 3 major schools of the Japanese tea ceremony can trace their lineage back to him.

It seems Sen no Rikyu's influence was also his downfall, having been a tea master for the leading warlord in Japan at the time he had access to resources through his connection to such an influential leader. This allowed Sen no Rikyu to be more highly regarded in certain circles than the warlord he worked for. As the story goes the warlord was angered when he visited a Zen monastery and had to walk under a statue of Sen no Rikyu. As Hideyoshi was known for his temper, it is not that much of a surprise that he ordered Sen no Rikyu to commit ritual suicide, which Sen no Rikyu complied.

Could I somehow meet Sen no Rikyu I would have dozens of questions, such as how he decided the "proper size for a tea room?" Some other questions I have, could possibly be answered now with a bit more research on my part such as whether Sencha and other non-powdered tea were around in Japan at that time and what their role was? With the follow up as to why so much focus was placed on Matcha?

I hope you enjoyed this little story of Sen no Rikyu. I was notified by another member of the Assocation of Tea bloggers that there is a book out there about Sen no Rikyu's life, though sadly it is not yet available in english, and none of my langauge skills in any other language are proficient enough to read an entire novel.

I'll Include a somewhat informal bibliography here:

The Way of Tea, by Aaron Fisher

Japan 101- Sen no Rikyu

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.

Tea Blog Carnival -- Favorite Piece of Teaware

The Association of Tea bloggers have decided to start doing a blog Carnival. I have seen such things done on Math blogs, and apparently they are somewhat well known in other blogging circles but to our knowledge the tea blogging community has never organized one. The Main post is found here.

So the topic for this series of posts is:

"What is your favorite piece of teaware and why?"

A rather unsatisfactory answer, but rather true is, the latest Teaware acquired. As it is newest thing in your collection you are enamored with it, and you find its quirks appealing rather than trouble some. So as of writing this first part on April 17th. My latest piece of teaware acquired is Zhu Ni Yixing tea pot, which has been featured in this post.

But lets face it, I have a site The Hagi Project in which I mainly catalog my Hagi Yaki collection. So I would be lying if I said that my "favorite child" is not a piece of Hagi yaki. I hate to say that around my Yixing, or Lins Kettle, but the way Hagi change and feel. The fact that they seem to be border line alive.

The Hardest question is: Which Hagi piece is my favorite?

This is hard, as I really like Tebineri (pinch work) pieces, and Oni-hagi pieces. Oni-hagi is extra coarse clay, often with large noticeable, pieces of sand.

Tebineri pieces feel amazing in hand, and due to the pinch work nature, they tend to be a bit more unique and different than typical hand made pottery pieces. I know all hand made ceramics are unique, but the fact that masters artists can make hundreds of pieces that look rather similar, when using a pottery wheel. It seems when pinch work is done the piece is more organic in nature. While the pieces will look similar, when examining them with your hand you get to know and feel the soul of the piece.

I like Oni-hagi pieces for reasons that are much harder to explain. Sometimes Oni-hagi clay can cause interesting effects to occur in the glaze. That and the fact that it seems to make the piece more likely to leak/weep, makes the piece feel live.

That being said, what is my favorite piece of Hagi-yaki? From what I said it seems a pinch work Oni-hagi piece would be ideal, but I do not know if I have ever seen one of those, it seems that combination is just not done.

So my favorite piece of teaware is my Noutomi Choun Hohin. Though sadly it is the hardest to actually capture its true essence in a photograph. But it feels absolutely amazing in hand, to match. This piece also looks rather alien in its appearance.