May

9

I have recently started to get into tea. I bought a few yixing pots and I am doing the whole gongfu cha thing.

This is a very interesting area, because tea is even more complex than wine. I am getting used to it, but I just read something which is so funny and serious at the same time, that I would like to share it.

With wine, I am used to strange comparisons. For instance, some wines are described as having a "flintlock" flavor. And they do.

But read this about tea:

Mineral impression makes up bulk of flavor. Mixed with liquor aroma it is highly reminiscent of the taste and smell of the air on a cold foggy summer morning on a beach on Mendocino's coast. I suppose Monterey is similar, but the beaches tend to be a tad coarser sand and the combined smell of cyprus and redwood is a bit more prevalent farther north.

This goes a bit beyond wine addicts descriptions. And this is not snobbery, this is actually sincere and authentic.

Leo Jia replies: 

I concur with Bruno on teas.

I drink tea everyday and have drunk many varieties: black, red, green, white, pu'er, oolong, herbal etc. Yes, one can find a lot of senses from them. One even can find different senses of the same tea at different moments.

Through the experiences with teas, coffee, wines, etc, I realized that one actually can derive sophisticated senses and feelings from just about anything one encounters in life. Be it water (from different streams, different environment/surroundings, different altitudes, and at one's different moods, etc), and likewise, air, earth, color, sound, bread, rice, etc. Very amazing.

But more amazing I think is that the very senses one gets from the things reflects, manifests and realizes one's own life. It is the fact that we can sense about these various things that makes us alive. It is also true to me that how much senses one gets actually indicate how much life one has lived - the more one has been into life, the more one can sense about the things.

With that, I am always curious about what senses I don't get, because what I don't get are what I have not got and hence are unknown to me. I am always joyful at the very moment when I suddenly sense something new, because that means I have just got something more in life.


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2 Comments so far

  1. russell on May 9, 2012 3:35 pm

    English Breakfast Tea (milk and 1 sugar) sided with a Full English Breakfast ! priceless!

  2. Adam K on May 10, 2012 6:38 am

    I’ve noticed quite an explosion of tea stores in the malls I frequent in the last couple years: Teaopia and David’s Tea for example. The latter is popular with the missus for highly scented odd ball flavours like ice cream cake and creme brulee…

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