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| New neighbourWe have a new neighbour who just moved in a week or two ago, and they've already had a few kids since then
On another note, I'll be off for a bit going on a little family vacation. I'd imagine that when I come back in two weeks, these kids will have grown some feathers already.
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| The Demon Revealing MirrorThe Demon Revealing Mirror is one of those somewhat mythical and fantastical items in Chinese lore that supposedly will show who (or what) is a demon and who is really a human. You just shine the mirror on the object, and you'll get your answer.
A friend of mine in China who presses his own cakes has likened a good silver kettle to one of these mirrors, and I must say I agree. I've been experimenting with my kettle the past few days with different teas, and comparing to what I think of the teas using the tetsubin, and I think one thing is clear, and that is how different they taste with the two kettles.
The two teas I've tried recently are both 2006 Yiwu, one being a fall tea that this friend pressed, and another being the 2006 spring Douji Yiwu. When I drank them with the tetsubin, the fall Yiwu tastes a bit flat and boring -- rather unremarkable, in fact. The Douji, on the other hand, was quite nice.
All changed, however, with the silver kettle. The fall tea was very fragrant and strong. The Douji, on the other hand, turned out a little bitter and rough.
What to make of this?
Well, I think the silver kettle does a good job of telling you what the tea is like and highlighting the fragrant notes, while tetsubins are often softening -- they round out the rough edges of the teas, and adding to the body of the tea. In this case, I think that's exactly what happened -- the Douji was rounded out by the tetsubin so that the bitterness and the roughness were subdued, leading to a rather pleasant drink, while the fall tea gets a little more subdued. Since it has few low notes to speak of, it doesn't get much benefit from the tetsubin.
I'd hesitate to say that the silver kettle is more honest -- highlighting the fragrant notes is not any more honest than smoothing out rough edges -- but it does present a very different side of the tea. Here are some spent leaves for you to look at.
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| Hand built or wheel thrown pot?Here you go for the experts to peruse over.
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| Changing tastesI rarely repeat the same tea two days in a row, and never with the same teaware. I think one of the joys of drinking tea is to thoroughly explore all the varieties that it offers, be it young, old, roasted, green, black. Add in the variety that you get with changing teaware, and the combinations are endless.
Weather was nice today after a nasty week of rain, so I decided to drink out on the balcony while my cats decide to soak up some sun. Rather than using my usual tetsubins, I opted for one of my silver kettles instead
This is something I found on Ebay, of all places, for a rather reasonable price. It's Korean in origin, and on one side is inscribed the words "For Mr. and Mrs. Henderson". I'm pretty sure originally it was intended for use as a teapot, but it's very large for a teapot, and I'd rather use it as a kettle, which is exactly what I did.
Water from silver kettles tend to accentuate the high notes in a tea. With good tea, the aroma will coat your mouth and linger for a long time. What it won't do is to add to the body, and if the tea is sour, it may make that show up more prominently as well. So, whether it is really a good idea to use a silver kettle for the particular type of tea you're drinking really depends. I don't think silver kettles should be used universally for all teas. Tetsubins are much more versatile, I think.
The first tea I had today was an aged shuixian that I bought in Beijing almost three years ago.
It tasted very different from the last time when I made it a few weeks ago, using my usual tetsubin. I think I actually prefer this tea with the tetsubin -- the water from a tetsubin accentuates the qualitites of this tea. It's not the highest grade of shuixian, just some common stuff, and perhaps it only deserves the commoner treatment.
The pot I used still baffles me though. For those of you familiar with bankoyaki, it might look awfully like one, and I still don't know if this is actually a Yixing pot or not. Although the seal says "Yixing County Mengchan Made", I have my doubts as to its geographical origin. Maybe the potters out there can tell me if this looks like a thrown pot or a hand built one.
Not quite having enough tea, I had another, this time an aged oolong from Taiwan that I recently acquired. It's nice and mellow, but works much better with the silver kettle. All in all, a pretty good day for tea.
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| Bad tea, good teaI just came back from a short trip to Salem, MA, where a good friend got married. When you mention Salem, most people think witches, but in reality, witches was just a small part of the city, and the place's claim to fame for much of its history was a center for the old China trade, where they imported porcelain of all types, and of course, tea. Salem is now home to the Peabody Essex Museum, which houses many artifacts from this once thriving trade route (if you're nearby, you should visit), and where the wedding took place.
So it is with a little irony that it was last night, in this town, that I had perhaps the worst tea I have ever encountered. It's in a bag form, of course
Sorry for the poor quality -- taken with the phone. When you're at somebody's wedding, you can't really say "no, please just give me a pot of hot water, as I brought my own tea". You take what you're given. I needed something to wash down the rather decent but rich wedding cake, so, heck, I'll survive a tea bag.
Or so I thought.
The "Orange Pekoe & Pekoe Cut Black Tea" produced a "tea" that was rather acidic, more lemon juice like than tea, and utterly devoid of real tea flavour. Of course, it's prepared by a coffee company -- probably just a ploy to get people to stop drinking tea and instead, turn to the dark side of coffee. It was a very nice wedding, and the food was excellent. My wife said the coffee was all right as well. If only caterers can do better tea -- it really ought not to be so hard, even when you're trying to feed 150 people.
At least I should be pleased that it is a "Natural source of Antioxidants". Now if only I drink this every day, I'll live to a hundred years.
This morning we braved the horrific New England mid-June weather of rain and wind and went to downtown Salem to look at some things, hoping in vain that I might find some old China trade antique. The weather, however, was not cooperative, and we gave up quite quickly. This was not before we found a place called Jaho Coffee Roasters & Tea Merchants though. There were only a few customers, as I think the weather has deterred all but the bravest to go anywhere, but you can tell this is a place serious about its coffee. They also have a lot of tea canisters lined up along the wall, but as anybody who's been to Teavana knows, that's no guarantee of quality.
Turns out their tea selection, while certainly not like, say The Tea Gallery, was not terrible either. I ordered an Ali Shan oolong while my wife went for the more exotic coffees they have. I like to order oolongs at teashops I've never been to -- it's usually a pretty good indication of what their selection is like. If the oolong is awful, the place can't be that good. If the oolong is decent, it's probably all right. If the oolong is great, well, it's promising. Everybody can do good black tea, and green tea is really too much of a hit or miss. Oolong is dependable... and less likely to be toxic waste.
The Ali Shan is what I expected it to be, light to medium fired, sweet, no hint of grass, which is good. The only problem I have is with the teaware
The same cup set as that other place I went to a few months ago. I'm sorry, but this kind of cup, while convenient for drinks service, really isn't so good for tea drinkers. The problem is you simply cannot tell how well brewed your tea is, and there is absolutely no indication of the colour of the tea. I find that to be a very disconcerting thing, drinking a tea when I have no idea what colour the liquor is. One of the pleasures of tea is its varying colours, from a light shade of green when brewing a cup of longjing to a deep, dark cooked puerh, the range of the visual pleasure of seeing that colour is an experience in and of itself. Using a black cup completely obscures that aspect of tea. Why?
I suppose the tea timer I was given with the pot is a bit of a remedy, to try to tell the drinker how long he or she might want to steep the tea, but it's still a poor substitute. I don't think a coffee drinker would want to drink out of a cup that gives no indication of the colour of the brew, so why would a place that seems very serious about their coffee do that to tea?
Other than that though, no real complaints. My wife described the coffee there as mingblowingly good. I have no clue about coffee, so I won't try to pass judgment. But I think if you're in serious need of some tea when you're in Salem, you can probably do a lot worse than going to Jaho.
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