23rd Aug
At A Liang’s recent Tea Lecture, we got to enjoy fresh air, lush mountain scenery, and of course, some gnarly nature! His friend’s farm is home to all sorts of interesting critters. Two that stood out are featured here – if you’re squeamish, skip this one! 
23rd Aug
A couple of weeks ago, A Liang held a tea event in Maokong at his friend’s farm (see Farm Resort for details). Most of the participants were teachers or professionals with a strong interest in tea. The day began with a hike from Jen Jr University to Chr Nan Temple (one of the stops on the Maokong Gondola). From there they continued along trails behind the temple until they reached his friend’s farm. They run a restaurant/coffee shop, but keep irregular hours and usually only open by appointment for group activities. Read the rest of this entry »
23rd Aug
A Liang was recently asked to organize a hike & tea lecture for a group of tea enthusiasts, and he asked me to help out by brewing tea for the guests. Of course, I’m always up for some brew, and love working the gaiwans for him, but there were around 40 guests, and it was quite a challenge to keep up with them . Read the rest of this entry »
23rd Aug
Aliang’s friend has a great place up in the hills and I got to visit them a few weeks ago to help A Liang with a tea lecture he organized. They’ve got a small farm, which means they grow a lot of their own vegetables and stuff, but aren’t really a commercial producer. Read the rest of this entry »
10th Aug
I really struggled with the decision to write this post – it’s a hard thing to admit to the whole world one is getting older. I turned ?? on Friday, August 8th (let’s just say I was born in the Year of the Horse, and you can go figure it out on your own HERE, ok??) and I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the Chinese Olympic Committee for having such a grand celebration in my honor! Read the rest of this entry »
5th Aug
I was talking to a friend awhile back about aged teas, and the fact that aging can be good for teas other than Pu-er (depending on a lot of variables, of course). I was having a hard time explaining how aged oolong is different, so in the end, I got out a sample I picked up somewhere (a gift from someone) and we gave it a try. Read the rest of this entry »
3rd Aug
A friend asked me to pick out a nice, simple basic ‘starter tea set’ for him the other day, so I thought I’d share a little about buying teapots with all of you. Regardless of the price range or skill level of the user, there are a few important features of the pot to check out. Read the rest of this entry »
29th Jul
Well, the typhoon is pretty much over, although we’ve still got some rain falling today. This typhoon was much stronger than Kalmaegi, which killed 20 people last week, yet so far only 2 deaths have been reported for this one. I think the preparation level was much higher this time around, as Kalmaegi was not predicted to do much damage and was perhaps taken lightly by everyone.
There wasn’t a lot of damage in the Taipei area, but man, did we get a lot of rain! My dog pen behind the house ( a covered area between our house and retaining wall where I keep our two dogs) had about 5 inches of standing water in it, and I ended up putting the dogs in the house for most of Monday. The record for this storm was at Tai Ping Mt. on the east coast, which ended up with a total of 32 inches from Sunday – Monday afternoon. Other areas had between 15 – 20 inches of rain on average. The quickest accumulation was a city on the western plains in Chia Yi county, which had 3 1/2 inches of rain in 1 hour yesterday. Imagine what that would do to the Magic Valley!!
Overall, I guess we were pretty lucky this time, but we’re likely to get 3 – 4 more before the end of our typhoon season (October), so we’ll keep our fingers crossed.
27th Jul
Fung Wang looks set to hit mid-Taiwan head on, so I’ve cancelled my private classes today and invited my buddies over for a tea party tonight! With any ‘luck’ tomorrow will be a day off as well. While last week’s typhoon was mild but brought heavy rains, this storm is predicted to have much stronger winds, and we’re already feeling the frontrunners of those as I write this (Sunday, 7/27, 2pm). Read the rest of this entry »
27th Jul
Well, here we go again. Our last typhoon was a bit of a wash in our area – just some general rain, little or no wind, but central/southern Taiwan saw a lot of flooding & landslides, and 20 people died, which is quite a lot for us. Now, typhoon Fung Wong is approaching (more quickly than originally anticipated), and this also looks like it will be a direct hit on central/southern Taiwan, which is just cleaning up from last week. Read the rest of this entry »
