Quilaishan – Long Wu (Dragon’s Fog) Tea

by admin on December 21, 2011

I just ordered some very special tea for my birthday. I’m so excited. I’m a fan of the Taiwanese oolongs, and this is some high quality stuff. I shall write a post on it after I taste the stuff. :D

http://www.sevencups.com/tea_shop/Qilaishan_Long_Wu_-Dragon-s_Fog-_Taiwan_Oolong_2010.html

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Water For Tea And A Sweet Story

by admin on August 7, 2011

So, I’ve been reading this book, The Ancient Art of Tea. Great little book, I highly recommend it. (The links to my introductory post on the book).

So far, I’ve been fascinated by what Peltier has to say about water. Well, ok, it’s not Peltier, but the ancient Chinese tea masters (or… his translation of them… so I guess it’s both). But, according to the ancient masters, good water is vital to good tea. One of them said that a leaf that’s only an 8 with a water that’s a 10 makes a tea that’s a 10. But a leaf that’s a 10 with a water that’s only an 8 makes a tea that’s an 8. So, in essence: water makes your tea.

They review different water sources in Chine — they compare well water to river water to spring water; they talk about mountain water and different rivers and where to get water from different rivers… fascinating stuff.

Mountain water is best, river water is next, and well water is inferior, according to Lu Yu who wrote ‘Classic of Tea.’ I guess the Classic of Tea is a compilation of this guy during the Tang dynasty of ancient texts on tea (I’m looking into getting a translation of that next, if I can find one). According to Zhang You Xin (who Lu Yu excerpts in the Classic of Tea), the very best water in China is the Yangzi’s Nan Ling water. The Yangzi is a river (here’s the wikipedia article on the river). I’m not exactly sure where the Nan Ling part of the river is… the book isn’t real clear.

Another exceptionally good water is dew water. Wow. I’m not sure how you collect dew water, but how sweet would it be to drink tea made from the dew of a mountain or something? I really want to try that sometime. I’m trying to figure out how to collect dew water.

Certain types of rains were also considered good for tea. Melted snow was also used.

While I’m on Zhang You Xin, I came across this totally sweet story he tells in his work. It sounds like something straight out of The Golden Legend, lol.

So one day he meets Master Lu Hong Jian — a renowned tea master who traveled China testing various waters. So Zhang You Xin is all excited, and he begs Master Lu to instruct him about tea. So Master Lu tells one of Zhang You Xin’s trusted guards to fetch some water from the very middle of the river — from the Nan Ling. So, the guard goes off in his boat and fetches the water in a jar. But when he comes back, Master Lu looks at the water and says “This is not from the Nan Ling!” The guard argues otherwise, but Master Lu is adamant. He pours out the water from the jar on the ground, but then stops abruptly midway through and declares that *now* the water is the Nan Ling water. Everyone is awed when the guard admits that he got the water from the middle of the river as Master Lu instructed him, but spilled half the jar on the way back, and fearing that what was left wasn’t enough, ladled in some water from the shore.

Now if that’s not sweet, I don’t know what is. I mean seriously, isn’t that a great story? :D

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Li Shan – Pear Mountain

August 1, 2011

I’ve been enjoying some tea from Li Shan in Taiwan (translated ‘pear mountain). Li Shan tea is widely regarded as the best tea in Taiwan. The mountain used to be quite the place for pears… thus its name. There are, of course, different grades of tea from any mountain. The glass I was enjoying above, [...]

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Sweet Old Japanese Tea Farmer

July 29, 2011

This is a cool video. I was surfing around youtube this evening and came across it. Here’s the description from the youtube video. While hiking in the mountains recently I met an 80 year old man who invited me to visit his mountain top green tea farm. The man bought and cleared the land at [...]

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Morning Tea

June 24, 2011

This morning’s tea outside on my patio. Nothing like a good cup of tea to start off the day.

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The Ancient Art of Tea

June 23, 2011

The more I study tea, the more I realize there is to be studied. In Asian culture, tea really is a way of life, and something that can be studied for a lifetime. I just got this book “The Ancient Art of Tea” from amazon, and I am highly happy with it. It’s a collection [...]

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Everything You’ll Need to Know About Loose Leaf Tea

March 30, 2011

What is loose tea NOT? Tea comes in three different forms. Bagged tea, caked tea, and loose tea leaf tea. Bagged tea is the lowest quality tea you can find. Puer tea, or fermented Chinese tea will usually come in ‘cakes’ or ‘bricks.’ Puer, as well as anything you can find in bags, also comes [...]

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Oh Interwebs, The Things You Come Up With…

March 9, 2011

So I come across the oddest things when searching the web for new stuff that pops up that mentions green tea somehow. I just found this really funny, because it’s pretty much completely irrelevant to green tea. Article “Rumors of well-endowed blondes have been circulating campus with increased fervor over the past few weeks. The [...]

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What You Need To Know About Green Tea And Pregnancy

March 8, 2011

So, I just wanted to make a few comments on green tea and pregnancy. I get a fair amount of people on this blog looking for information on green tea relating to pregnancy, so I wanted to make a few points. Is Green Tea Bad While Pregnant? The only thing about green tea that would [...]

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What’s The Worst Mistake Made In Brewing Tea?

March 6, 2011

Burning Your Leaves There is an art to heating water for your tea. You probably know already that boiling water will ruin most green teas. It will in essence burn your tea leaves if you pour boiling or near boiling water over most green tea leaves. (This is something important to keep in mind even [...]

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