John Rocco, author and illustrator of the recently-published children’s book Fu Finds The Way, contacted me a few weeks ago, alerting me to the existence of his book. After previewing the book on his website – including watching a trailer for it (When did books start having trailers?) – I really liked the look of [...]
One thing that I find interesting about nearly all of the portrayals I’ve seen of Lu Yu, the 8th century Chinese writer of the Cha Jing (茶經, “Classic of Tea”), is that they are so consistent in style. He is almost always seated and shown with a teapot to one side of him on an [...]
Some people call the human figures, animals and mythical creatures that hang out on the tea table receiving a bath of water and tea during a Gongfu Cha session “tea toys.” I prefer to call them “tea mascots” myself because that term seems to be pretty easy for anyone to figure out if they’ve ever [...]
I have not encountered very many black teas that were suitable for brewing using the gongfu method, but as the name would suggest, Canton Tea Co’s Bai Ling Gong Fu is one of them. It is quite a marvelous tea, with a rich, velvet-like character much smoother than most black teas, even Yunnan Gold (Dian [...]
My first exposure to a tea mascot was at New Century Tea Gallery. As the owner prepared and served tea gongfu style, I noticed an inexplicable yixing sculpture hanging out on the table and accepting a wash of tea and water every so often during the course of the tea service. I was told that [...]
This is a wonderful and convenient travel set for gongfu cha. Using it requires some improvisation of some kind of a draining table/tray at the destination, but the set takes up very little room in a carry-on bag. (The gaiwan in front of the case in the photograph fits into the case inside of the [...]
Before any of the tea samples arrived, I spent some time on the auraTeas website and found it quite nicely laid out and easy to navigate. Searching for particular teas by type or by region is a pretty smooth process. There are a few errors in English throughout the site, but they’re not too [...]
For me, a large part of the enjoyment of tea culture is in the appreciation of design and artistry of teaware. Teapots and accessories must always be well suited for the task that they perform on a technical level, but they should also be attractive. Of course “attractive” is quite subjective, and fortunately the enormous [...]
For a loose tea available in bulk at a grocery store, Rishi Tea’s Jade Oolong is surprisingly good. I have bought it several times, and usually drink it while I am working because I can get it within walking distance of my workplace.
This past weekend I prepared some of it gongfu style, which revealed even [...]
I must say before I get to the tea-related topic at hand, that I really love the food at Wild Ginger. It is quite a melange of cuisines and styles without feeling incoherent, the menu is always interesting and the food, in my experience, has always been well prepared: fresh, high quality ingredients, savory and [...]
