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Post by guzhenglover on Oct 2, 2006 4:15:29 GMT
Hi all! Just wondering if there's any lover and/or collectors of Chinese teapots and/or tea accessories out there...?
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Post by Si on Oct 2, 2006 8:28:31 GMT
Well I love chinese tea and drin it every day and have alot of teapots too, as well as books. But i would not call may felf a expert as (just like the gu qin) most of the serious books are in chinese.
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Post by Charlie Huang on Oct 2, 2006 10:54:31 GMT
I have a few teapots and accessories, but no one special comes to my house for me to justify a full on tea ceremony...
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Post by Si on Oct 2, 2006 22:12:24 GMT
In China people just put a few leaves in a cup and add water!
I dont know how they can do this because you have to wait ages for the tea to sink down to the bottom of the cup before you can drink, otherwise you get a mouth full off tea leaves, then the tea is too strong to drink. Its very annoying! I would call it the opposite of a tea ceremony! Tea torture!
So I am the only person in my office that uses a Yixing tea pot and brews the tea correctly. ( but being at work i often forget and the tea brews for like 10 mins -- way too long)
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Post by Charlie Huang on Oct 2, 2006 23:15:43 GMT
TBH, I drink English tea more often.
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Post by calden on Oct 3, 2006 1:07:42 GMT
In Qingdao we used to have our tall teacups complete with lids. We'd throw a few leaves and some kaishui in together and sip away. The darker the better until it got too bitter, then we'd throw it out.
Brings back incredibly fond memories. Along with shopping at the market, getting kaishui down in the boiler room, buying bings for lunch at the school food counter, getting shuijiao at the corner store, watching kids in the park catch dragonflies for their grandpa's birds....oh my, I'm getting way nostalgic.
Carlos
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Post by guzhenglover on Oct 3, 2006 4:09:06 GMT
Well for me my love affair with tea began pretty much since birth as my grandparents had tea farms in Taiwan. Though we emigrated when I was little, my love for Chinese tea never wavered. I love tea of all sorts - including western teas - but to me Chinese tea is still my favourite. But no matter what the tea, to me the main thing is quality. One can have the average Chinese tea and live with that just as likely as one may have the luxury of premium western tea.
As you tea lovers know, there are huge regional differences in terms of the appreciation of Chinese tea even in China and Chinese-speaking lands. People in certain regions love certain kinds of teas. And then there are also those who have now opted to go for coffee or western tea more than Chinese tea, for various reasons. The so-called Chinese tea ceremony, if such a thing really still exists, also differs from region to region. I consider myself fortunate to have had exposure to the Hokkien way of tea appreciation, with green teas and Oolong that Taiwan and the southern regions of China are famous for. I must admit that the only kind of tea whose taste I am still finding myself having to acquire is Pu'er - albeit that I have some really excellent Pu'er teas in my collection. I will acquire the Pu'er taste one day, i am sure. In the meantime, I am perfectly content with my green tea and Oolong knowing that these are really good for one's health, being lightly fermented or half fermented.
I can't help but say a few more words about how I think we should drink Chinese tea in our daily lives. Well, I'll just let people know how I do it. Basically I believe it's still possible to have good Chinese tea at work and/or even when one's really busy. My colleagues and I love our tea. Some of us have those two-in-one cups (made of porcelain or clay, of course!) which lets you brew the tea and drink from it without having to worry about tea leaves being everywhere. That's esp. handy if you have a hotwater urn at work, in which case you could just top the cup up. I've also got a complete yet simple tea set at work (basically it's just 4 cups and a teapot) for guests in my office. I don't tend to have a problem with the timing as I only prepare the tea when I want to drink it, which is within 5-10 minutes after I put the hot water in the cup anyway. I have been able to serve beautiful Chinese tea no matter how busy things get (and boy things can really go mad in the workplace, as I am sure all you busy people know!). One thing though: to me good Chinese tea can only be brewed in porcelain or china teapots (and OK, maybe just tentatively, glass teapots...). But you are right, I have indeed noticed that some people don't seem to have a clue how to make a good cuppa, and often the reason is simply that they've never been taught it properly as tea drinking wasn't part of their regional culture etc. (and I am saying this not because I am a tea drinking expert as I don't profess to be one...).
Back to the topic: does anyone know of websites specifically dedicated to Chinese tea/Chinese tea ceremony/accessories, etc.? It might be interesting to see whether we tea lovers could put some kind of a list together.
Or perhaps some of you have other interesting, tea-related tales to share with us all? I've enjoyed some thoughts from you fellow tea lovers already!
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Post by Si on Oct 3, 2006 11:28:18 GMT
Oh my fav is taiwan oolong. But sad to say - i have been told the tastes around shanghai are only for very low fermented oolong which i now find very bland. Its almost like green tea. They dont even know what is Shui Xian Oolong, which as you will know is a very famous and old brand of heavy fermanted oolong from Fujian.
I prefer the mid and heavy fermented oolongs especially the taiwan ones.
I'am afraid that if you want to know about regional tea styles you will have to speak to old people, I think without a doubt I know more about Chinese tea than the average person in China.
Yeah those ceramic pots that you mantioned are very good.
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Post by guzhenglover on Oct 4, 2006 3:28:11 GMT
I agree with you, syburn, and so it's perhaps for that reason that I don't tend to like a lot of teas from China (but I say this with a few important exceptions in mind). My favourite oolong is premium DongDing oolong tea. I think that this kind of tea is something you kind of get addicted to - and if you are finding yourself drinking increasingly stronger tea, then I think that's one sure sign!
Oh I must say that I distinguish between teapots made of ceramic from those made of porcelain and clay. Porcelain is a lot more fine than ceremic, which is what I love for brewing green or oolong teas. I tend to use ceramic clay or even glass or pewter for the strongest teas, such as pu'er and western teas. But glazed china teapots and tea cups are generally ideal I find for the lighter/mild teas. And who could go pass those Yixing tea sets, as syburn mentioned earlier?
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Post by Si on Oct 4, 2006 7:50:13 GMT
What they have told me in China, is that you use glass or ceramic tea pot for green tea. And clay (yixing) tea pots for oolong.
Puer is (for me ) tricky to brew, because if you leave it a bit too long then its very very very strong. Its the same for heavy fermented oolongs too. You have to brewed it very fast.
I have often wondered what qualities make a premium tea. Because the higher grades of tea are NOT CHEAP! I admit that I dont have too much trust in what the tea shops sometimes sell as top grade. As the tea of different grades can look the same, its very hard to know if you are getting what you pay for.
Do you have any ideas on this guzhenglover ?
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Post by guzhenglover on Oct 4, 2006 8:28:16 GMT
Well I don't have too much faith in what some tea merchants sell as top grade, either, and indeed it's easy to pay too much for a tea. But it is also true that genuine premium tea are costly, since this kind of tea really is a labour of TLC and lots of hard labour. I don't know if you've been to a tea plantation but, boy, it's really hard work (and I mean tea plantations everywhere). Of course the technology has advanced these days and it's possible that the machine rather than human hands picks the tea. But then it wouldn't be top grade tea if it was machine harvested (not that this alone is the only indicator of premium tea, but it certainly is one of the important factors).
I think that the best thing is to study the tea that you are thinking of buying before you commit any money to it. Never buy tea if you can't actually sample it. To make sure the tea is to your liking - i.e. your cup of tea, literally - check the packing and/or how the tea has been harvested/delivered/stored/handled, study the tea leaves (whether the leaves are as they should be for the kind of tea it is), smell the aroma (prior to brewing and afterwards), observe the colour of the tea (again, beforehand and afterwards), taste the tea, and how the tea leaves present themselves having been brewed. These are just some of the things to look out for, though. Listen to the merchant's "story" (as many will claim that their tea is the best in the world and so it's worth digging out the money, etc.), but then also allow plenty of room for your own analysis of the tea. These are just some of the things that I do, anyway. If I buy tea, I tend to go to someone that I know that I can trust, etc (from a word of month, etc.). Once you've done the homework, it may then be worth it buying the tea you think you like.
I went to a tea demo just two days ago and they were trying to teach me to appreciate pu'er tea. Ok, I did give in in the end and bought some tea, but this was after taking quite a lot of her time and effort and my carefully checking the tea, including some of the processes mentioned above, which took several brews (in fact, I think she made six brews as she was trying to show me the kind of pu'er that she was selling). And I really felt that I quite liked the tea, even though pu'er's still not my favourite. And the main thing is that I don't think I was pushed into buying and I didn't decide to buy because of her tactics.
One of the things that I learnt about pu'er is that, given the heaviness of the tea (whatever I mean by heaviness...), it only takes a short time before each brew is ready for consumption i.e. serve the tea shortly after putting water in the teapot. Then the tea won't be too strong. This should allow you to brew the pu'er at least 6 times, I was told. I would say, though, that this isn't entirely what you'd do to control the strength of heavily fermented oolongs. As oolong's more delicate, you need to think about the right water temperature, brewing time, amount of tea leaves, etc. It's not just about brewing fast.
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Post by calden on Oct 4, 2006 13:21:37 GMT
Buying tea story...
While living in Qingdao in 1986, my wife and I, while exploring our local neighborhood, fell upon a tea shop. Although we both spoke Chinese fairly okay - enough to get around - there were still some things about the culture that eluded us. We walked in, gazed wonderingly at the solid wall of tea selections, and proceeded to ask for some small amounts of local green tea and black tea.
You need to understand that I studied Chinese at Princeton, and my wife studied at Georgetown. We met each other at a second-year summer Chinese class at Berkeley, and Janine additionally lived in Taipei for a year as a graduate student. We had been trained in pretty standard and educated Mandarin. In Qingdao they not only spoke the local Shandong dialect, they also spoke what they THOUGHT was Mandarin, but the Qingdao-ese seeped through and did funny things to the Mandarin vowels.
So, in our VERY BEST Mandarin, we proceeded to ask for some green tea and black tea. By now we had drawn a real crowd, as we did every time we went out to shop and opened our mouths. ("Oh, look, Fang! Foreigners! OH my God, they are buying something! Oh Heavens, they're trying to speak Chinese!!! Must go look!!") The poor counter girl was, mouth agape, not handling this incursion of big-nosed foreigners into her shop, much less the crowd that was now filling up the small store. She seemed paralyzed by my request, so I repeated it again, "Wo xiang mai cha. Qing gei wo yi ban jin lu cha, yi ban jin hei cha..." But no response. She started sweating, wringing her hands, knowing she was supposed to do something... So I pointed to the teas that I wanted to buy, and suddenly another woman at the counter started laughing... "Ta yao mai de shi zhege HONG cha ba!" I had no idea that what we called black tea was simply RED tea in translation. The tension immediately released, the whole store full of observers cracked up with laughter, and we suddenly were no longer strange-looking foreigners who couldn't speak properly, but became local residents who offered a smile and wave each time we went by. Immediate best friends.
Ah, China... I've got a lifetime of memories from one year there. A lot of them involve bai jiu!
Carlos
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Post by Si on Oct 4, 2006 22:39:41 GMT
One thing about light oolongs (which are popular in Shanghai so i am forced to drink these) is that they all look the same (ish) and smell similar so I find it hard to select based on the look. They always let you look and smell the leaves in the shops, as if that is a sure way to say yes thats top quality. So i normally just buy around the 80rmb per 50g price range which i have decided seems to be of good enough quality without being to expensive.
But as you say - if you entre a better tea shop and they brew you the leaves you can often see that some leaves are ripped and broken but other price ranges (higher) are perfect ovals with no damage to the leaf.
And about the shangdong story - nowadays most better shops in SH seem to have at least one person that can speak english. But i realy should ask my chinese teacher to help me learn such words as fermentation, harvest etc so i can learn more about the teas in chinese.
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Post by calden on Oct 4, 2006 23:54:38 GMT
One reason we so loved living in Qingdao at that time is that we were two of 11 foreigners living in that city of 1.5 million at that time. It had not been exposed to foreigners as had Beijing and Shanghai, so it was almost like living a decade earlier. We got a real authentic hit on China that is harder and harder to come by. Every day was an adventure, and especially so because with our Chinese we were able to get around and do lots of normal, everyday things that eluded lots of other foreign teachers who relied heavily upon their school's waiban for social interaction. Hell, we even got in a little bit of trouble with the Gong An Ju, which involved a train trip from Beijing and butter.
Carlos
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Post by guzhenglover on Oct 5, 2006 7:29:45 GMT
I've always wondered what it's really like China, having never been there before. So it's always interesting to hear stories from people such as yourselves. I have two friends who are fluent in Chinese and who've had first-hand experience living in China. One is a German woman in her mid 50s who first went to China as an exchange student in the 1970s. She actually spent 7 years (!!!) in Shenyang and her Chinese, while clear and fluent, has a definite Shenyang "lilt" in it. Anyway she too has fond memories of China in those days, even though apparently she'd had to live through those extremely cold winters without a heater in the room and the only thing that protected her from the severe temperature outside was the scraps of (news)paper that she'd collected and pasted on the windows and the walls (incredible, but that's what she tells me!).
The other friend of mine went to Suzhou I think and he too was in China on an exchange programme. He's a lot younger and he was 20 something back in the 1990s. He too had a similar experience as you, calden (he's English-Australian). He suffered from cultural shock in a bad way and still tells me how he has terrible memories of being constantly noticed and/or pointed/gazed at by some Chinese people. This experience has actually put my friend off Chinese language and culture. I don't know what to say to him except that I just think it's a pity. I think how people react to such similar experiences is all pretty individual and depends on one's personality. Personally I think I would feel uncomfortable and even annoyed if I drew a crowd everytime I went out and did something. And even for someone who has a good command of the Chinese language and culture - being Taiwanese-Australian - I also happen to think that it's rude to stare at people making comments etc. the way calden and my friends describe it to me. Certainly there's nothing that I know in the Chinese virtues and/or etiquette to justify this kind of behaviour. But I think that it's really noble of people who can put up with it and still have the situation resolved in a pleasant manner. Maybe we should just remind ourselves that not everyone behaves this way and even those that do may not mean anything bad.
Back to the topic. I think what may be a cultural shock and daughting even for some Chinese or Chinese-speaking people is entering a tea shop (and often, too, a herbalist store). Have you ever noticed that tea shop people often behave in a casual manner and in fact it's not uncommon that 2~4 people seem to be enjoying tea together sitting in the foyer of the shop? This is how it usually is with a tea shop in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, etc. While it's not a bad thing for people to associate an image of calm and tranquility etc. with Chinese tea, is it also some kind of a strategy, I wonder? It would seem to me no matter what the explanation, customers do tend to buy more things if they feel at ease. But I don't want to sound negative about it. Maybe people really do enjoy their tea and find it even more enjoyable when sharing it with friends. Anyway, my point is that there can be many subtle things going on without one necessarily noticing everything that's going on.
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Post by Si on Oct 5, 2006 7:42:53 GMT
Will you be retelling the beijing and butter tale - it sounds interesting.
As for the Gong An - what a pile of utter usless crap they are - all i ever see them doing is stopping poor looking people to see if they can make money out of them, especially the cyclists.
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Post by Si on Oct 5, 2006 8:09:07 GMT
I actualy dont mind the staring. I think its funny and even when stressed in a stuffy train station somewhere I can manage to egnore it. My sisiter who visited me, hates it and cant even eat if someone is looking at her - hahaha a problem in China i think.
People love to stop and be entertained on the streets in China. Whether its a foreigner or a fight! and yes there are alot of street squabbles in China and they are very entertaining - even if I can t understand the shouts and curses.
So why don they have mime artists and buskers?
I would not bother your self too much about chinese culture in terms of the traditions and superstions and festivals. China has lost so much during the Cultural Revelution. If you want to see these Chinese traditions at work you need to go to singapore , hong kong etc. Although they are reintroducing some ideas from other chinese countries.
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Post by calden on Oct 5, 2006 13:39:24 GMT
We became accustomed to being stared at. If it got too wearying we'd just go home - it's a psychological pressure that can be overwhelming. We caused weekly bike accidents - no joke.
One of my favorite stories: We returned home (industrial area of the city - SiFangQu- about a mile or two from the city center) one day on the bus. Late afternoon, as we got closer to our stop which was the terminus of the line, the riders got fewer and fewer. A little girl of about 8 or 9 spottted us sitting in the back of the bus. With very uncharacteristic openess, and to the mortification of her Mom and the other passengers who were trying to melt into the seats, she walked to the back of the bus, stood right in front of us, and said: "Nimen kan de qiguai (you look odd)." She pointed right at my face and said "Nide bizi hen da! (you've got a large nose)" We said: "Duileba! Women shi cong meiguo laide. (You're right! We're Americans.) She said: "Ni zenme shuo zhongwen? Ni buHUI shuo zhongwen!(How do you speak Chinese? You CAN'T speak Chinese!)" Her slurred, slow speech, close-set eyes, and blunt social skills gave away the fact that she was developmentally delayed, and her Mom was trying to subtlely wave her back to her seat, with absolutely no success. This kid was breaking all the rules of rudeness but didn't care. We didn't either. In a few short sentences we made friends with her, and I think left her with an American quarter or something.
The story of the butter, the train, and the Gong An Ju (security police) would take too long to retell. It's not that exciting, but rather a great description of the maddening bureacracy that makes the littlest tasks turn into all-day events. Think Keystone Cops meets Jet Li in a Kurosawa movie.
Carlos
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Post by song on Oct 5, 2006 14:57:50 GMT
Hi Calden,
Just want to let you know I enjoyed your stories in China very much. Keep them coming.
Thanks, Sung Wah
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Post by Si on Oct 6, 2006 11:29:26 GMT
yeah - sounds like you had a great time in China!
I think it would have been alot different living in China as a foreigner in that age compared to Shanghai today - which is a modern international city. The changes ad developemnt taking place all around me are collossal. It takes a while to adjust to living in China, especially when my previous home was in Singapore which is a hard city to beat in term of living standards.
My big problem is the traffic, roads, driving standards, and lack of respect for pedestrians. I cant find a suitable word to express my feelings for that topic.........
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Post by calden on Oct 6, 2006 14:10:53 GMT
For those who might be interested... Besides living in China 20 years ago and teaching English then, my wife and I took our kids to visit Japan, Mainland China, and Taiwan five years ago. In fact, we left one week after 9/11, an extremely interesting time for an American to travel the world! With a newly-bought laptop and digital camera, I updated a trip website weekly. Lots of photos and text and observations of an American family traveling in Asia: eaglelake1.org/trip/index.htmCarlos
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Post by Si on Oct 6, 2006 16:24:28 GMT
Yeah - what a great holiday you looked to have had.
I love Hang Zhuo - I think its m favourite place in China - i would love to live there instead of Shanghai.
I also like the train travel in china too.
Brill!
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Post by Si on Oct 22, 2006 11:23:44 GMT
hey guzhenglover
do you know the difference between spring and autumn tea?
in terms of taste and quality
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Post by guzhenglover on Oct 26, 2006 10:33:42 GMT
Well I am sure there are tea experts out there who can answer this better but, here's what I think for the time being. From what I know, the difference between spring, summer and autumn teas is caused by seasonal changes, obviously, which in turn affects the growth and the budding of the tea trees. But that’s only a general description of the difference. Teas are in fact greatly affected by numerous subtle variables such as the climate, type of tea tree, soil, style of cultivation, plantation method, etc. Owing to these variables, the division of the seasons and the effective period of each season may well be different not only from plantation to plantation but even from parts of a plantation to other parts of the same plantation.
Spring teas, esp. early spring teas, are considered the best of the three seasonal teas because they are supposed to be the healthiest and freshest of them all. Fresh (unbrewed) tea leaves have a somewhat weighty appearance and they should look luscious. When the leaves coil up they should be quite tightly bundled. The aroma should be unmistakably fragrant. The back of the tea leaves should be soft but firm. Usually it should be clear from looking at the fresh leaves that there are many new young leaves. When brewed, good spring (green) teas tend to have a gentle green-yellowish texture.
Teas in summer grow slightly faster, but also age more quickly, than spring teas. Summer green tea leaves are somewhat dark(er) in colour and they are loose and tend to be rather leafy. The fragrance has a slightly aged feel. The back of the tea leaves are thinner but firmer than the spring tea. The tea leaves take longer to sink to the bottom of the cup when they are infused, and the aroma takes longer to emit. Summer green teas have less body and can taste a bit bland. The colour of the brewed tea appears greenish, and the leaves at the bottom of the cup have a bronze texture.
Autumn teas have leaves that look even more aged because the level of rainfall after summer is often less than adequate. The size of fresh autumn tea leaves all varies and each leaf tends to be flimsy and small. The smell is milder than the previous seasons. When brewed, the infused tea appears yellow-greenish and again the aroma isn’t very pronounced. The taste of the tea tends to be rather insipid.
That's what I can think of as of now...
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Post by Si on Oct 27, 2006 14:56:50 GMT
wow- selecting tea is an art - just as subtle as selecting an qin (as i seen you are looking into that too).
im currently drinking Wu Yi Yan tea - heavy fermened oolong - but a nice drink and cheap!
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