When I was in Japan, I had several brief encounters with the Japanese tea ceremony – sitting with my friends as they practiced before their lesson, attending the new year’s tea ceremony at Tenjin’s chikagai, and a one-off tea ceremony lesson during my finishing course. So when I changed upon Making Tea, Making Japan, I… Read More Making Tea, Making Japan by Kristin Surak
I’ve been doing some research on the health benefits of teas and tisanes for my job and I just realised that… there’s quite a lot of woo in tea. By ‘woo’, I mean people are making incredible health claims about tea. It’s actually not so bad for actual tea aka the tea made from the… Read More Is there too much woo in tea?
A friend went to Taiwan and got me this as a gift! This tea is a Red Jade Black tea and according to the description on the website, it’s made using the No. 18 cultivar, which itself is a cross between camellia sinensis var. assamica and the native Taiwanese tea plant. By the way, I’m still trying… Read More Red Jade Black Tea by Leaffree (自由葉)
It’s June! Although it feels like the year just started to me. Anyway,I thought I’d do a little update on how things are mental-health and writing-wise, but first, I want to share about a podcast episode I listened to this week: Joanna Penn’s podcast this past week was an interview with Michaelbrent Collins and it… Read More Mid-Year Stocktake
I stumbled upon a tea find at the most recent Dayre tea party: These are blends from Typical Teas, a new tea brand by one of our Dayre Tea Party members!! Isn’t that amazing? And they were really kind and let me take away three packets to try (which I promptly shared with my office… Read More Dragon Dreams, Saigon Supreme, and Sandman’s Stardust by Typical Tea SG
Carrying on my plan to read more about tea, I started on For All the Tea in China, a book that deals with a very specific part of tea’s history: how tea and the knowledge of tea processing left China and made its way into the world. While the subtitle says “how England stole the… Read More For All the Tea in China by Sarah Rose
This post starts with an admission of failure. In an effort to try and drink up as many teas as possible, I’ve been limiting the number of teas that I’ve opened and just focusing on them. And since I pretty much drink those few teas until they’re finished [1], I’ve just been using clips such… Read More Tea 101: Storing Tea
As much as I try not to judge books and teas by their cover, I am definitely a sucker for teas with nice packaging. I almost always bought the Lupicia tins because I loved the design, and I definitely decided to try Blue Rabbit in a Hole because of the tin. According to its description,… Read More Chai Dim’s Blue Rabbit in a Hole
Early this month, I went for a tea tasting course at Parchmen Academy of Coffee and Tea. I’d previously gone for their Theanine! Tea Pairing workshop in April and I felt that it was very instructive, so I decided to sign up for their full day course. This is actually the second iteration of their… Read More Tea Tasting Course (Foundation) at Parchmen Academy of Coffee and Tea
I just had to borrow this one when I saw it because I love Jane Austen and tea (as evidenced by the fact that I went to the Jane Austen Center in Bath and bought their tea). Tea with Jane Austen is about tea (and food) in Jane Austen’s time, which is quite focused compared… Read More Tea With Jane Austen by Kim Wilson
