Photographs of wet things
Posted by Cinnabar on July 28th, 2010These are the first of a handful of tea-related photographs that don’t fit with any written articles. Water Steam Wet with Puer An Assemblage of Teaware Tea and Wine Pairing
Archive for the 'Gongfu Cha' Category
Using a Chou Zhou tea stove to heat water for tea
Posted by Cinnabar on July 1st, 2010After I purchased my Chou Zhou stove from Tea Habitat several months ago the biggest obstacle I faced in learning to use it for tea was finding appropriate charcoal. As Imen of Tea Habitat wrote in this article on the Tea Obsession blog, good charcoal has been hard to get in the United States for [...]
From the sublime to the ridiculous
Posted by Cinnabar on April 23rd, 2010There are tea mascots that are entirely charming and wonderful. Of course I am partial to my wonderful bat, who I decided to name Xingfu (幸福), and who sits at the tea table during nearly every session of Gongfu Cha, receiving frequent doses of tea and water over his shiny clay body. But there are [...]
Fu Finds the Way
Posted by Cinnabar on December 8th, 2009John 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 [...]
The Metallic Spirit of a Tea Scholar
Posted by Cinnabar on October 26th, 2009One 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 [...]
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Bat
Posted by Cinnabar on September 10th, 2009Some 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 [...]
Tea Review: Canton Tea Co: Bai Ling Gong Fu
Posted by Cinnabar on July 26th, 2009I 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 [...]
Tea Mascots
Posted by Cinnabar on December 22nd, 2008My 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 [...]
Gongfu Portable
Posted by Cinnabar on November 30th, 2008This 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 [...]
Tea Review: Formosa Alishan Oolong
Posted by Cinnabar on November 11th, 2008Before 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 distracting. [...]
