Sometimes teas seem to come to me thematically, with several examples from a certain category from different sources all ariving in sequence. One example of this is that over the past couple of months I have had at least six different batches of Da Hong Pao, all from different vendors, which is something of an [...]
The third and final part of my interview with Nigel Melican is now posted on Cha Dao. Excerpted: Cinnabar: The attempts at growing one place’s regionally-specific tea in a different location seem strange to me, because if you’re taking a type of tea varietal and growing it somewhere else, with a totally different climate and [...]
The second part of my interview with Nigel Melican is now available for you to read on Cha Dao. Excerpted: Cinnabar: I guess there are really two focuses of organic farming. I wasn’t even thinking about how it affects the end product, because it seems like that’s not the same conversation. The impact on the [...]
The question posed for this month’s Blog Carnival, sponsored by the Association of Tea Bloggers was: “What is the most uncomfortable place where you prepared tea (work, traveling, in a place without suitable equipment, etc.) and how were you able to overcome the difficulty?” I have had an array of tea-related experiences ranging from exquisite [...]
Sometimes tea comes to me from completely unexpected sources. A couple of months ago I began working on a project with a woman who had spent a considerable amount of time working in China on business development, in coordination with the US State Department. During the course of our initial conversation talk turned – as [...]
It’s probably not time yet to start running about in a panic wondering what to buy all of the people that you have to buy stuff for this holiday season, but you should plan ahead if you want to take advantage of the Christmas Range on special now at Canton Tea Co., particularly if you [...]
The topic of this month’s Association of Tea Bloggers sponsored Blog Carnival was to describe a memorable outdoor tea drinking experience. I like tea. I also like flora, fauna and the outdoors parts of the world. But I don’t often appreciate or experience them concurrently. So in order to fulfill my agreement to contribute to [...]
After 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 [...]
There is good reason why royalty was associated with the finer things in life. Kings and government meant taxes, and if gold couldn’t be had, your locality paid in other forms. If your locality was recognized for horses, you worked to contribute your best horses as a form of tax. The emperors of China were [...]
This is my contribution to the first in a series of tea blog carnivals sponsored by the Association of Tea Bloggers, the theme of which is, “What is your favorite piece of teaware, and why?” While it was a bit of a challenge to choose just one item of tea ware among so many that [...]
