I’ve mentioned in other posts about the benefits of setting up a space to have tea at home, and how preparing ‘gung-fu’ tea in a relaxing atmosphere is a great way to unwind at the end of a long day. However, it’s also very rewarding to enjoy your tea while camping in the mountains, hanging [...]
Well, looks like we dodged a bullet this time. The typhoon veered into Hong Kong and mainland China, leaving Taiwan with a couple of days of heavy thundershowers (which can be kind of fun to watch, actually). I’m sure they’ll be other storms this summer, so stay tuned!
Part of living in Taiwan means getting used to the weather - damp, cold winters and hot, humid summers. When June rolls around, it also means dealing with the yearly typhoon season, which runs from mid June through October. Since our first typhoon of the season is approaching from the Philippines, I thought I’d better [...]
When I meet Taiwanese people and we talk about tea, I often hear things like, ”Why do you drink tea - don’t foreigners all like coffee?”, “You’re so special because you know about tea,” or “You’re more ‘Chinese’ than us,” etc, etc. Well, last week, I found out I’m not quite so special, and that I’m [...]
Last week, A-Liang said he wanted to take me to dinner as a thank-you for my help at the tea show. Master Tsai had just returned from his month-long trip to China, and so we decided to go to his Tea Restaurant to eat.
Dragon Boat Festival was June 8th. I hadn’t realized it was so early, so I wasn’t really prepared for it. Also, because it fell on a Sunday, there wasn’t a 3-day weekend to look forward to, so it was mostly just another Sunday for us. I took Keith down to Bitan, a recreation area on a river [...]
We recently attended the 2008 Baojong Tea Festival in Pinling, Taipei County. This year’s show wasn’t as big as last year’s but the events were spread out over two weekends. We ended only staying for an hour or so, and then going for a drive in the hills west of Pinling afterwards.
After spending all day making tea, then packing up the stuff and hauling it back to the shop, we were all pretty tired and ready for a break. So, naturally, we sat down and had some tea! Of course, TKY wasn’t our first choice, as we’d been chugging it all day, but A-Liang had some ‘Tou Deng’ TKY [...]
The tea competition results came in just before our show at the Taipei Zoo, so we were able to take some of our better tea to that event. Aliang had 5 teas take 3rd place (more on that in a minute), and overall was quite happy with his showing. I didn’t get to go observe [...]
I talked a bit about tea roasting a while back (Tieh Kuan Yin Roasting), and now it’s time to catch up on that. One of the unique things about TKY is that it goes through multiple roastings, and its taste improves with age (usually). In preparing for a recent tea competition, A-Liang roasted, tested, and re-roasted [...]