In addition to their own specific form of the tea ceremony, the Koreans have a centuries-old tradition of drinking tisanes prepared with fruits, spices and leaves. One of these, which I discovered in a Korean grocery store, is sujeonggwa (수정과, 水正果), sometimes spelled “soojunggwa” and other ways. It is made from ginger, cinnamon, sugar, dried [...]
Have you ever wondered why, when most of the major tea-growing regions of the world, including China, where the tea plant was originally cultivated, all use some variant of the word “cha” to indicate tea and the plant that it comes from, almost all of the Western countries call it “tea” or variants of that [...]
Some of the most serious objects and implements can be translated into gleeful-squeal-inducing cuteness when fake and miniaturized. And what could possibly be more charming and clever than tiny Chinese and Japanese tea ceremony sets? The only thing that would make these better would be if they were reproduced in traditionally accurate materials – clay, [...]
I wouldn’t normally have any contact with those odd, restricting constructions of convenience called “tea bags,” but Mighty Leaf Tea sent us some bagged teas to sample, so I gave one a chance. Mighty Leaf Tea’s bags are a little different, in good ways. The company calls them “silken pouches” to differentiate them from those [...]
The Lotus is a very important symbol in India and of Buddhism. It refers to the complete purification of body, speech and mind, and the blossoming of wholesome deeds in liberation. The lotus refers to many aspects of the path, as it grows from the mud (samsara), up through muddy water it appears clean on [...]
