Is what I’ve called my latest creation.
Author: AJ
Soon Jy Famous Tea
I’m finishing off a tea from a friend. She got it from a coworker, and she wanted my opinion on it, so she gave me a healthy sample. It’s an oolong, but that’s the extent of our knowledge on it. Apparently “Soon Jy Famous Tea” is all the package says.
Russian Tea Cakes
I baked them today–making the dough before work so that, during my shift, it could chill the required six hours in the fridge. They came out slightly flat, but it’s my fault for not cooking a test-cookie first to see how well it held its shape. More flour next time.
Here is the link to my Cooking tea gallery (I decided to make a separate gallery for it, as I do like to bake), although I will link some thumbnails below the cut.
Tea Flowers
Just art today. Which I post while listening to Close to the Edge. This first one was just a large image I did in my sketchbook. Pencil crayon. If you haven’t recognized the subject yet, they’re both just of the same large-leafed tea plant centred on the flower.
Urban Tea Merchant
I went downtown to the Urban Tea Merchant yesterday, which is a very suave little store that deals in High Tea and exclusively sells The O Dor teas, as well as home décor and anything that “ties in to the tea culture” as one person put it. They stock tea-ware, but it is by far the most expensive I’ve ever seen. Still, they’ve got some very nice little yixings, and a gongfu tea tray. Although a French tea company.
The (Note)Book of Tea
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.
Book: The Book of Tea
Returning again to my inexperience in blogging, I think I’m going to spend a post describing in my no-doubt monotone writing style, one of my favourite books to date; Okakura Kakuzo’s The Book of Tea. It is certainly my favourite tea book, and I like to suggest it to a lot of my friends (at least the tea-savvy ones), although it’s really not a book everyone can get into. It reads as a long, sometimes rambling exposition (something I personally enjoy), and constantly goes off on seemingly unrelated tangents; it is famous for being not so much about tea, but rather using tea as an analogical lens to view culture (western versus eastern) and art. Kakuzo was, after all, (and foremost) a man of the arts.
Death, Art, Tea
00:10 this morning, I learned that Nicholas Courtney had passed away four days prior. I suppose it almost fitting that my favourite Doctor Who tea mug should break the day earlier (I consoled myself by purchasing more than a pound of jelly babies), as if foreshadowing the news to me. It makes me sad. But it’s not a subject for a tea-themed blog.
Although I do have something related, but more on-topic. I have been considering relaying some of my tea-themed pieces of artwork here. Nothing new (well, two of them are, but perhaps I will post those another day), at least not this one, but it seemed right to start with it first, partly in honour of such a famous Doctor Who actor dying.
A New Day
I have a wonderfully fitting and uplifting first post for this blog.
My favourite tea mug, pictured below the cut, broke.