A Girl's Best Friend

You know what I love more than anything in the world? Tea. But feedback is a close 15th or something in that list. Hahaha. I have a hot yoga class tomorrow morning so I can't say much right now, but how about instead you say something? What do you like? What don't you like? What do you want from me? Without facebook "Likes" here it's hard for me to gauge what your reactions are. Although I do appreciate the nice OVER 250 HITS! Woo!

And now, as a reward for your wonderful patience with me, a picture of my new kutani set! (Please help me think of a name for the pot, I don't really name cups, but I guess this one is special and deserves it. And preferably a Japanese name, since it is Japanese.)

Dang Seattle Rain and High School Graduations!!

My dear friends could not join me in any tea adventures today due to STUPID things like IMPORTANT HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATION HOMEWORK and DANGEROUS DRIVING CONDITIONS so there was no tea adventure. But I stopped by New Century Tea Gallery after service at my Choeizan Enkyoji Nichiren Shu Buddhist Temple to inquire at the very least about this year's spring harvest and found that the owner would be bringing it all back from China on June 1st! I'll have to stop in after that date instead then, which is fine and actually makes me pretty happy because then I get super fresh green tea! Woo!

In preparation for this I have broken in my beautiful new Kitani with a delicious Western Zhejiang Long Ding from Tea Trekker back in Northampton, MA. I need to drink all the Chinese greens I have up faster so that I can get more and have room for some Japanese greens too!! Hehehe. I'd really love to get some more Gyokuro, but I'm afraid my budget may limit me to Sencha. I love Sencha too, but oh my fluffy bunnies from the land beneath the bed, Gyokuro is just heavenly to me. So we shall see. It's also quite likely that I'll finally start experimenting with Matcha. Matcha is really great, I think, because I can just put it into a bottle and shake it up. Hahahahaha. Just like with putting a Chinese green into a Japanese tea pot I feel kind of sacrilegious, I also feel kind of sacrilegious for shaking up my matcha in a plastic bottle. Hahahahaha. But since I'm in college, I consider everything fair game.

And I swear to those fluffy bunnies again that ONE DAY I will summarize a few original research articles for you all here! On my list is Caffeine content, L-Theanine content and effects, and I should probably do EGCG too since everyone's always going on and on and on about that. But of course, I also want to focus on whatever cool things I can find out about Pu-erh or Purple tea. Maybe tomorrow.

May Puer Tea Appreciation Club of Seattle Meeting!

Today was the month of May's monthly PTACOS meeting! We met at the awesome Phoenix Tea shop in Burien, WA and it was lots of fun! This also means I'm home for summer vacation now! Yay!

We tried a lot of extremely delicious Puerhs. Cinnabar wrote them all down, but I don't have the intention of making this a tea review blog, so I'm not going to go into great detail about that. There were a large number of us drinking today it seemed, and we had a whole bunch of great and crazy conversations that I'm sure we'll all burst out laughing about as we randomly remember the crazier tidbits later. I really love these kinds of get togethers and think that there should be more joys in life like this. While talking I learned about several different cultural and art events happening in the area, about other artists in the area, spas, and of course just a lot of interesting story telling about one thing or another. Delicious tea and interesting people and conversation, what more could one ask for? These meetings are the best and really make me want to be the Tea Hostess for my dorm again next year and have similar weekly meetings.

Then of course afterwards I finally did a bit of tea and teaware shopping that I'd been dying to do! Hehehe! I scored a GORGEOUS kyusu set from Kutani by someone named 栄峰 (not too sure yet how to pronounce this name). I'll put up a picture of it tomorrow. It's really lovely with pictures of camellias and ducks on it. As a set, it came with one cup with a lid. I am extremely happy to finally own a kyusu! Finally I can brew Japanese green tea in a Japanese pot instead of feeling sacrilegious by doing it in a Chinese one. Hahaha. And it's a larger pot, so I'll be able to do larger tea servings! Woo-hoo!

In addition to that I finally bought a nice puerh tea pick, a fine mesh strainer to pour through, and some very nice smelling rooibos chai tea. Like I mentioned before, pictures soon! I meant to get some purple tea too, but somehow I completely forgot!! Super sadness, but I'll just order it fresh in September if I don't manage to get over there again before leaving for school again.

Tomorrow the hunt is on for some possible cups, some possible green tea, and some possible fun things. WITH A FRIEND! Ahhh, exciting times!

*eyetwitch*

Just finished my last final about 4 hours ago. Not allowed to talk about it until after the last final tomorrow morning for the entire school. So I'll just leave that at that.

Will you forgive me for being absent for so long?

I had to pack my stuff the other day. My poor sweet German baby is in storage. So guess how I had to made tea the other day?

Yes.

I have sunk to the lowest of the low.

I actually boiled water in mason jars in the microwave.

Yes.

Yes, I did.

And these weren't just regular mason jars.

Nope. These were old spaghetti sauce jars.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Yes. I am indeed a poor, poor college student indeed.

I can't wait till I get back and get a real water boiling thing and my big tea pots and infuser mugs. <3 But I will sorely miss my baby in the meantime.

And I also made the last of my Gyokuro today. I know, it's been miraculous how long I've stretched it out for. It was really at the end. But it made it one last brew, and then it was gone. And guess how I made it? Yes, in a plastic bottle with cold tap water. Hahahahaha. Oh my goodness. Whoever said making tea was hard? Hahahahaha.