Hi friends! This is a post that I’ve been wanting to write for quite a while, and even though I don’t think I’ll ever have it done to the level I want (there’s just so much information that I can’t find with my limited resources), this is what I can best do at the moment.… Read More UniversiTEA: Milk Tea & Colonialism in Asia
It’s been a while since I wrote a universiTEA post and today, I want to explore (keyword: explore, not answer) the question: can crazing in teaware ever be a good thing? What is Crazing? For the uninitiated, crazing (or crackling) refers to the network of fine lines that develop in teaware. These are very fine… Read More UniversiTEA: Can Crazing Ever be Good?
Hello friends! It’s probably not surprising to you that I’ve been talking to some of my coursemates about tea. Add a class on business ethics to this and I was like “I NEED to write a post about sustainable and ethical tea.” So first question: Is there a difference between sustainable’ and ethical tea? Short… Read More UniversiTEA: What is Ethical/Sustainable Tea?
Since I had the opportunity to try two new types of Benifuuki (ベニふうき/紅富貴/sometimes written Benifūki) tea, I thought it would be fun (and hopefully educational) to do a deep dive into this cultivar. What is the Benifuuki Cultivar? Developed by the National Institute of Vegetable and Tea Science (野菜茶業研究所), the Benifuuki cultivar is a cross… Read More UniversiTEA: A Deep Dive into the Benifuuki tea cultivar
Good news: I thought I procrastinated on this for a year, but I only took half a year to read this! Honestly, it should have taken much less time, given that the subject matter is lighter than my other Japanese books, but I pretty much just left the book alone until quarantine, where I finished… Read More Reading in Japanese: The History of England’s Teacups by Cha Tea (英国ティーカップの歴史)
You might have heard of modern day tea competitions like the Global Tea Championships, Australian Tea Masters, or perhaps Great Taste Awards (okay that may be stretching it), where either teas or tea professionals are judged. But do you know that tea competitions have a very long history? I’ve been reading about the competitions in… Read More UniversiTEA: The History of Tea Competitions
I’d wager that almost everyone has heard (and maybe tried) of milk tea. You may even be in the habit of adding a splash of milk and a spoonful of sugar in your tea. But how did these habits come about, given that tea in China is drunk straight? In The Tale of Tea, George… Read More UniversiTEA: Why do we drink tea with milk and sugar?
There are many things to study when it comes to tea. Even if we’re just looking at tea history, we can choose to focus on tea in China, tea in Japan, tea in England, tea in America, tea in India, etc. I’m still looking for books on the history of tea in various countries, but… Read More UniversiTEA: 3 Books to learn about Tea in the UK (and America!)
While I’m taking a brief break from The Tale of Tea by George van Driem to reread the other books about tea I own, I wanted to share something that I’ve learnt from what I read so far! One thing that I’ve read a couple of times[1] is that it was Robert Fortune’s 1843 trip… Read More UniversiTEA: The History of the term ‘Camellia Sinensis’