Pictured left is my physical Tea Journal. My old one was a flowery thing, although it has a long history. As soon as I saw this one, however, I had to pick it up (it has a teapot on the front, back, AND every other page! Plus interesting quotes from the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh), even though my old notebook hadn’t been filled yet. I mostly use it to list teas from companies that I’d like to try/checklists for said companies, as well as notes on tea places I’ve been to, and teas I’ve tried while not in the presence of the computer; it also has a few pages of interesting tea quotes I thought to jot down. My old book even had a poem or two by me, although not about tea. I have my poetic moments (but I rarely share them). There’s only one in there so far that I have any like for.
Since I didn’t finish my old book before getting my new book (I get completely distracted by things with pictures of teapots and tea on them), my old one has been turned into a more general notebook/thought book/novel wishlist.
What I like about this new one, as opposed to my old one, is that only the right side of every page is lined. The left (or back) side is blank except for some teapot artwork along the border, and a quote. This gives me ample room to doodle, which is a must of anything I ever write in (one should see my calculus notes as an example). So far, all it has in it is a few choice notes transferred over from my old book (tea wishlists, and my favourite quotes from The Book of Tea), and the beginnings of a scribbled draft for my previous post. Aah, and a few more recent Tea Experiments (caramel-lapsang, and notes from my role as a guinea pig for a friend/tea-shop owner’s ‘hot chocolate chilli matcha’ experiment; strangely delicious). I’ve restricted my new journal to pencil only, as I have a tendency to scribble words out if I misprint/mess up something, rather than cleanly crossing them out. Plus, with the open space to doodle, I’d rather not mess up pages with angry pen scribbles (I have the temper of an artist, I’m told).
16/03/2011 at 7:43 PM
That’s a good idea, a tea notebook filled with notes on tea.
And the design suits the theme.
18/03/2011 at 2:50 PM
What a beautiful tea journal! Where did you get find it? Everything about it sounds well thought out!
23/03/2011 at 6:45 AM
@jackie @xavier Oh, I thought I mentioned the company somewhere in the post–“Brush Dance” (brushdance.com, I believe). They have a whole section of Thich Nhat Hanh items (although I don’t think they’re currently selling any journals of any sort, just calendars). I found the actual item at Winner’s (Canadian store?), though. I’ve actually visited two that have quite a LOT of Brush Dance items. Journals and sets of cards and envelopes for sending letters. Although Winner’s usually sells other store’s overstock and oldstock, so they’re probably selling all of Brush Dance’s old stock, which BD cleared out to make room for their new stuff.
20/03/2011 at 8:58 AM
That’s a good question.