Orange Tea Cooler

Chinese Fountain of Tea

Traditional Tibetan dance

Hi everyone! In this video you can see The Tibetan Dance and Drama Group preforming a traditional dance of the Tea offering ceremony at the Festival of Tibet and Himalayan People at the Pagode of Vincennes in Paris.

Puppet that serves tea

Room puppets were toys of Japanese lords and rich merchants during the Edo period. The tea-serving puppet (Chahakobi Ningyo) was designed to bring tea to guests. It was used as kind of encouragement to get the conversation going.
The host places a tea cup on the tray held by the doll and that way activates its mechanism to move it forward. The puppet stops when the guest picks up the tea cup, lifting the weight from the tray. When the cup is put back on the tray, the doll turns around and walks back to its starting position.

Sung Dynasty tea technique

Tea custom from Vietnam

Here is an interesting tea custom from Vietnam...
According to the customs of Vietnamese people, on moonlit nights, devotees set their boats on the lake and ponds when the lotus flowers are in bloom. They open the about-to-bloom lotus flowers and place a lot of tea inside each blossom, then close them with ribbon or string. Then they get the moonlit dew from the lotus leaves . By dawn, the living scent of lotus impregnates the tea , and the gatherers have enough dew to add to their teapots. After a few hours of sleep, they enjoy a blissful afternoon of tea.
Source: Future Generation Co., Ltd (FGC)

Second tea moment - more tea in art

Hello everyone! Let me finish this weekend with yet another art video. Its title is "Second tea moment".
It was made by Finnish film editing student Jussi Rautaniemi

Lu Tong - a tea poet

Lu Tong (790-835) was a Chinese poet known for his study of tea culture. Very nice poem he wrote is "Seven Bowls of Tea"...Enjoy!!


The first bowl of tea moistens my throat,
the second breaks my loneliness, and
the third bowl racks my brains, bringing to light the texts of 5,000 volumes.
The fourth induces perspiration whereby all ills evaporate through my pores.
The fifth makes my muscles and bones feel light, and
the sixth links me to celestials.
Be careful when drinking the seventh bowl,
as it makes you feel as if a cool breeze were coming from your armpits.

Chinese love tea

It is true that almost a month ago, or to be precise on July 19 2007, I have already written about Chinese teas...But when I saw this video I told myself...I must put it on my blog for others to see...and here it is..Enjoy!

Sun brewed tea

Tea trivia

Hello everyone! Let's start this weekend with couple of interesting facts about tea.
Top tea consuming countries, per capita tea consumption in 2005:
Ireland 2.96 cups
Libya 2.92 cups
Qatar 2.89 cups
Iraq 2.42 cups
Kuwait 2.29 cups
Great Britain 2.24 cups
(source: International Tea Committee, Washington Post Weekly, October 2005)
World leading tea producers are Argentina, China, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Sri Lanka and Tanzania.
The average person in the UK will consume around 80,000 cups of tea during their life.
Tea can be found in 80% of American households. Each day 127 million Americans drink tea.
Now..here are several facts about tea plant (Camellia sinensis) itself...
1) It takes from three to five years for the young plant to grow into a bush ready for plucking.
2) One Darjeeling garden in India has approximately 3 million tea bushes and each bush is hand plucked every week, about 32 times a year.
3) The two uppermost tender, young leaves and a small unopened bud called "two leaves and a bud" make the best tea.
If you use lemon with your tea, put the lemon slice in the bottom of the cup then pour on your tea. Lemon helps prevent any scum from forming on top of the tea.
Do not throw your used tea. Instead, after brewing a pot of tea, use the leaves for fertilizer in your garden to improve condition of the soil.

Interesting way of pouring tea

Tea and art

Here is one example of tea as theme in art.

Jackson Pollock (28 January 1912 - 11 August 1956)
The Tea Cup (1946)
Oil on canvas, 101.6 x 71.1 cm (40 x 28 in)
Collection Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden (Germany)

Yerba Mate tea

Hello everyone!! New weekend has started...Today I'll write very little. Instead of me writing today I put a video about famous southamerican Yerba Mate Tea. Have fun!!

source : Nativa Yerba Mate

Tea and haiku poetry

Haiku, traditionally Japanese poetic form, certainly includes some examples of tea as motive.The most famous poet of Japanese Edo period Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) wrote a poem "A monk sips morning tea". Here it is translated by Robert Hass.

A monk sips morning tea,

it's quiet,

the chrysanthemum's flowering.

Here is an example of haiku by Stephen Fox...titled "Whisking tea"

seamless sky

winter water

whisking tea

side by side

offering, receiving

stars drift down

moonless

winter rain

tea bowls passed

no dream

whisking tea

voice of the kettle

winter chills

sweeping the tea room

vows renewed

Title: Haiku poem written in calligraphy on board about tea

Time and creator unkonwn

Source: California State University, Sacramento Library

Tea and stamps

Tea appears as a motive on stamps. I am a stamp collector but I must admit that I do not have such stamps. Still I managed to find few scans on the internet...

Tea in literature

Tea is and has been a topic in literature. For today's post I chose a paragraph from "Lady Audley's Secret" (New York: Dover Books, 1974) by the British Victorian era popular novelist Mary Elizabeth Braddon (1837-1915).

[Lady Audley] looked very pretty and innocent, seated behind the graceful group of delicate opal china and glittering silver. Surely a pretty woman never looks prettierthan when making tea. The most feminine and domestic of all occupations imparts a magic harmony to her every movement, a witchery to her every glance. The floating mists from the boiling liquid in which she infuses the soothing herbs; whose secrets are known to heralone, envelope her in a cloud of scented vapor, through which she seems a social fairy, weaving potent spells with Gunpowder and Bohea. At the tea-table she reigns omnipotent, unapproachable. What do men know of the mysterious beverage? Read how poor Hazlitt made his tea, and shudder at the dreadful barbarism. How clumsily the wretched creatures attempt to assist the witch president of the tea-tray; how hopelessly they hold the kettle, how continually they imperil the frail cups and saucers, or the taper hands of the priestess. To do away with the tea-table is to rob woman of her legitimate empire. To send a coupleof hulking men about among your visitors, distributing a mixture made in the housekeeper’sroom, is to reduce the most social and friendly of ceremonies to a formal giving out of rations. . .

. . . My lady was by no means strong-minded. The starry diamonds upon her white fingers flashed hither and thither among the tea-things, and she bent her pretty head over the marvelous Indian tea-caddy of sandal-wood and silver, with as much earnestness as if life held no higher purpose than the infusion of Bohea.

Tea in Russia

Tea came in Russia in the mid-1600s when the Chinese ambassador to Moscow made a giftof several chests of tea to Tsar Aleksey Mikhaylovich.Important event for establishment of tea culture in Russia was the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) which identified boundary line between China and Russia, making it possible for trade caravans to pass between two huge empires. The journyes to and from Moscow took more than16 months which made prices of tea very high. By the end of 1700s tea prices fell a bit. This enabled popularization of tea in Russian society.Russian tea customs were influcend by other cultures. For example, The samovar is an adaptation of the Tibetan hot pot. The samovar was also used as heater.Tea was, and still is, sipped from podstakanniki (under the glass); silver holders which hold the heat tempered tea glass. The podstakanniki are very similar to Turkish coffee cups.Typical Russian tea is a mixture of two or even three different teas. These different teas are prepared in separate pots. When mixed together in the cup, some extra hot water is added to dilute the mixture. The teapots are designed to sit one atop the other with the bottom pot holding the hot water.The next pot, typically, will be a very dark tea followed by a pot of herbal or mint flavored tea.The Samovar is Russian most popular teapot. By 1800 it became very important part of traditional Russian household. Samovar exists in different sizes from 3 upto 30 liters. The record holderis the one made in Tula in 1922 who can hold 250 litres of liquid. Materials which were and areused in making of Samovars are copper, bronze, iron and silver. As to the above mentioned high price of tea samovar were sybol of economic status.Tea was served by the lady of the house to her family and guests. Rich families had two samovars.One for every day situations and one for special occasions.Because of a special tube (which contains charcoal or wood) connected to the body of samovar enables boiling of water. A small teapot with concetrated, dark tea, called zavarka, is kept on top of samovar. Water from samovar is used to dilute this tea. Today electric samovars are produced. Many of them are decorated with nice pictures.

Russian samovar, photo by Yannick Trottier,
2005 Russian Samovars: Tula Samovar

Japanese tea ceremony

Japan is certainly the country where tea preparation...if done in traditional way...is very complex.
For a Japanese tea ceremony is not only preparation of a beverage. It also has much deeper, spiritual meaning.
Japanese tea ceremony (chado or sado, "the way of tea") is influenced by Zen Buddhism. It is actually ceremonial preparation of powdered tea or matcha by specially trained person for a small group of guest. Everything is done in
very peaceful atmosphere.
Tea ceremony can be preformed as single event. This is called cha-no-you ("hot water of tea"). There is also cha-ji or chakai ("tea meeting") which is treated as full tea ceremony which includes kaiseki (a light meal), usucha (thin tea) and koicha (thick tea). This full ceremony lasts about four hours.
Person preforming tea ceremony has to be very educated. Apart from all kind of knowledge about tea this person has to know issues in connection with kimono, calligraphy, flower arranging, ceramics. That is why education of such person lasts for several years or even whole lifetime. The person preforming tea ceremony usually wears kimono.
It has to be said that even being a guest at tea ceremony is not easy. Person has to learn proper gestures, phrases etc.
What objects are needed to preform a Japanese tea ceremony? This tea preparation equipment is called dogu. Dogu includes
following basic object (full list of objects is very long and complex):
1) chakin is rectangular white linen or hemp cloth used for ritual cleaning of the tea bowl.
2) fukusa is square silk cloth used for ritual cleaning of the tea scoop and the tea caddy. Fukusa is also used to hold hot kettle or pot lids. Guests of the ceremony use fukusa to examine some objects during ceremony. Fukusa for men is usually purple and the one for women is orange or red.
3) hishaku (ladle) is made of bamboo with a nodule in the central part of the handle. Hisaku is used to move water to and from the iron pot and fresh water container.
4) tana ("shelves")includes different wooden or bamboo furniture used in tea ceremony
5) chawan (tea bowl). Shallow ones are used during summer as tea in them cools faster.
6) chaki (tea caddy) Chaki has two styles: natsume and cha-ire.
7) chashaku (tea scoop) are used to carry tea into the tea caddy. Chashaku are made from ivory, bamboo, Japanese apricot etc.
8) chasen (whisk) is carved from bamboo. Old and damaged chasen are not just thrown in garbage. They are carried to tempeles where they are ritually burned in the ceremony called chasen kuyo.
Japanese tea ceremony actually appears in several variation depends which traditional school is preforming it. Three main schools are Omoteseneke, Urasenke and Sansenke.
Tea ceremonies are usually organized outside or in a tea room or a tea house.
Now something about the ceremony itself, the way it is actually preformed. Guests entering the room where the ceremony is organized admire its beauty. Then everyone kneels on determined places on tatami mat. When guests are seated, the host (ceremony preformer) enters the room. He or she brings all the objects neccessary for tea ceremony. The hosts ritually cleans them with fukusa cloth. Moves during this process are specially determined. It takes lotof practise to learn them properly. Everything is done slowly, in kind of peaceful way. After this process the actual tea preparation begins. The water is boiled in metal or pottery kettle or pot. Hot water is thenpoured or scooped with the hishaku into the chawan. The chasen (tea whisk) is checked in a special way before being used to whiskthe hot water. The whisked water is then poured out into the kensui bowl and the tea bowl is cleaned with a chakin (linen cloth). This is done to cleanse the bowl after each guest has their tea, as well as being part of the ritual cleansing process.The guest are then offered some sweets. When everything is clean tea preparation begins. A small amount of powdered green tea (macha) is scooped with the chashaku (tea scoop) out of the natsume (tea caddy), into the tea bowl. Hot water is then poured or scooped into the tea bowl. The tea and water are then whisked quickly, making tea for the first guest.The first guest is offred tea by the host. He takes the tea. He appologizes to the guest sitting next to him for getting tea first.
It took me quite a while to write this post. And I know it is probably a bit difficult to read.
To make everything more fun I put this video. It's the best I could found on the Internet.

How to prepare a perfect cup of tea?

I know you think it is rather simple to prepare your cup of tea...I mean pour boiling (or very hot depending on the type of tea) water over tea leaves or a tea bag...and wait for few minutes. But when asking a true tea lover the whole matter is much more complex.
Recently I came across one of those guides to a perfect cup of tea...It was published in the Evening Standard (England) of the 12th January 1946. World famous writer George Orwell wrote there about things necessary for making great tea. Here are those instructions:
1. Use tea from India or Ceylon (Sri Lanka), not China
2. Use a teapot, preferably ceramic
3. Warm the pot over direct heat
4. Tea should be strong - six spoons of leaves per 1 litre
5. Let the leaves move around the pot - no bags or strainers
6. Take the pot to the boiling kettle
7. Stir or shake the pot
8. Drink out of a tall, mug-shaped tea cup
9. Don't add creamy milk
10. Add milk to the tea, not vice versa
11. No sugar!
That was an advice of a tea lover...Now let me write some advices of how to make a great cup of tea as presented by the United Kingdom Tea Council:
Use a good quality loose leaf or bagged tea
This must be stored in an air-tight container at room temperature
Always use freshly drawn boiling water
In order to draw the best flavour out of the tea the water must contain oxygen, this is reduced if the water is boiled more than once.
Measure the tea carefully
Use 1 tea bag or 1 rounded teaspoon of loose tea for each cup to be served
Allow the tea to brew for the recommended time before pouring
Brewing tea from a bag in a mug? milk in last is best