Archives for the month of: June, 2011

Making tea for people

June 12, 2011 //
3
by neilgorman
, a photo by neilgorman on Flickr.

Today I got the chance to make lots of different tea for people who came over, and it felt wonderful.

I was able to make an eclectic verity of things:

- Some Lapsang Souchong for someone who was getting over a gold and claimed he could not taste anything at all. (He was able to taste the Lapsang though!)

- An incredible bamboo aged Pu-Er which I bought from Norbu Tea. This is one of my personal favorites, and it was a great pleasure to share it with others who lacked exposure to Pu-Er teas.

- A Sen Cha Fukamushi from Shizuoka Japan, which really pleased someone who said he wanted a strong cup of Japanese green tea. (I also brewed a “regular” Sen Cha, also from Shizouka for the sake of comparison. It went over well too.)

- A Hoji Cha because so many people have never tried it. People kept saying, “This is a green tea?” Almost as thought they did not believe me.

Being able to have people try all sorts of different teas is something that I think is an amazing experience for me. I feel so very fortunate that I’m able to offer this range of teas!

Overall a wonderful tea session , or #teasesh as it would be called on Twitter. I hope to get a chance to do this again soon.

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Categories Tea Community

Darjeeling in the morning

June 10, 2011 //
2
HIP_329418153.641918 by neilgorman
HIP_329418153.641918, a photo by neilgorman on Flickr.

I woke up today feeling foggy, so I decided that a strong cup of black indian tea would be just the thing for me.

The vintage Darjeeling (a first flush Darjeeling made in what I’m told is the “old traditional style…) is what I think will get the job done. As the water is heated I go and fetch my mail. When I return to my house I toss the mail on the table, thinking “I’ll look at it later.”

After I prepare the tea I pick up the mail and find something, junk mail really, addressed to the woman I use to share this house with.

This causes me to remember some of the good times… and I feel sad, not overwhelmingly so, just a little sad.

I sip my tea and think that it would be wonderful if there were a single word in the English language to describe the feeling of accepted melancholy that one feels when they find mail addressed to a former partner who at one point was a enormous part of a shared life together… but who is now gone.

Perhaps a phrase… The spirt of good times past which lingers, and shows up at very unexpected moments?

I don’t know.

Anyway. My tea is gone, and there are things to do.

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Categories Black Tea, Darjeeling

Gungfu Cha and Recovery From Surgery

June 5, 2011 //
1

I had a minor surgery (hernia repair) done a few days back.  The surgery went well, but like any sort of abdominal surgery there has been a fair amount of discomfort, and at times pain, that has come along with it.

One of the things that I’ve found has helped keep my mind clear of pain is to find something else to focus on.  At first I tried reading, writing, and watching TV, but the discomfort was always there imposing its self over whatever my experiences were.

At some point I decided I’d try to make some tea.  I sellected a Bamboo Pu-Er tea from 2008, heated water, and then hobbled about and gathered the things I’d need to do a Gungfu session.  Then I got started….

I had been brewing tea for some time, I’m really not sure how long, before I realized that the discomfort had more or less vanished.  Of course as soon as I noticed the lack of discomfort it it came back, but there was absolutely a good period of time –where I was focused on my Gungfu Cha– when I can say that the discomfort was greatly relieved.

When I thought about what why the Gungfu session was so effective at helping me forget the discomfort this is what I came up with:

Making tea is something that I was actively engaging in, as opposed to the passive forms of distraction, such as reading and whatnot, I had been trying.   The act of preparing tea required me to put in energy, as well as some thought into the process.  In addition to this the tea became a sort of tactile reward, a positive feedback, in ways that the passive forms of entertainment could not.

In addition to this I realized that having an “enemy” (i.e. discomfort / pain) trying to take my focus away from the act of Gungfu Cha actually helped me focus my skills in a way which nothing else I’ve tried has been able to.  Thus I think it might be safe to say that the discomfort ended up helping me learn something about how a high level of focus can help to improve my Gungfu skills.  Interesting how that worked out, eh?

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Categories Pu-erh Tea, Tea Photorgaphy
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