Archive for the ‘pondering’ Category

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Abwarten und Tee trinken


2012
04.05

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Posted in German, pondering | 1 Comment »

Did something a bit abnormal yesterday. Not that this’ll surprise many of you. I make a habit of the less-than-normal. It’s my usp (unique selling proposition)…if I have one.

Here’s the thing: I have a teablog. You’re looking at it. I write about tea and tea-related topics. That’s rather straightforward, isn’t it? I tend to think so.

In the past, the only blog I had was a teablog, and I often found myself talking about subjects that at first glance were distantly (if at all) related to tea. It’s still part of the enjoyment I have here. To come up with a topic far, far away from tea, and to somehow find a connection.

But now I have a NonTeablog (lahikmajoe’s general and rather abnormal blog). It’s great fun. I write about a variety of things and it’s a portfolio for when someone wants to see examples of my writing. I’ve made a concerted effort to not let the quality of my teablog deteriorate just because I’m writing over there, as well as other places. For the most part, I think I’ve been successful.

Although it must be said: the topics that earlier were creatively linked to tea normally find themselves on the NonTeablog. It’s sadly a more natural fit.

What was the abnormal thing I did yesterday? Well, a topic that most likely belongs on a teablog was somehow more appropriate over there. You don’t believe me? Take a look for yourself:

wait and drink tea

So I decided to pull it over here. Even the title is screaming out to be shared on a teablog. And I know just the one. This one…the very one you’re reading. Here’s how I described the German idiom that is ’Abwarten und Tee trinken‘:

 

‘Literally it means ‘wait and drink tea‘. Yet as with most idioms, the literal definition is only part of the story. Wait and drink tea is used specifically when adding pressure to negotiations won’t help. When the best thing to do is to do nothing at all. So, you have to wait…and while waiting, why not brew some tea? It’ll at least make the wait a bit more pleasant.’

Not  a bad phrase, is it?

So what am I drinking right now while I wait? When I was at Laifufu Teesalon last weekend, I got this wonderful Taiwanese green tea called Bi Luo Chun (2011). Want to see the leaves? Here they are:

Bi Luo Chun green

How was it? How did it taste? A bit grassy…like a Japanese Sencha. But not too much. Very light, vegetal flavour that was terribly pleasing. Not all green tea will taste as good the second time around, but this Bi Luo Chun was as good if not better.

I know Ya Ya at Tea Trade got some of the same tea, and I’m curious what he has to say about it. The story of this specific tea’s picking and processing was really quite intriguing, but I think Ya Ya understood it better. I’ll leave it to him to explain it (only if he wants, of course).

Here I am savouring the second infusion of this delicious tea directly from Taiwan. I’m waiting and tea drinking. As is my wont.

some very exhausted green tea leaves
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The Prison and the Cult of Tea


2011
12.19

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Posted in health benefits, pondering, tea ceremony, Uncategorized | 14 Comments »

Not sure exactly what I can say about the death of Vaclav Havel, but I do try to keep this blog topical. What on earth does that have to do with tea? Well, I’ll let him explain it in his own words (translated of course-I don’t speak Czech, do you?) Here’s what the late playwright had to say about drinking of the leaf:

‘When I was outside, I didn’t understand the cult of tea that exists in prison, but I wasn’t here long before grasping its significance and succumbing to it myself. . . . Tea, it seems to me, becomes a kind of material symbol of freedom here: (a) it is in effect the only fare that one can prepare oneself, and thus freely: when and how I make it is entirely up to me. In the preparation of it, I realize myself as a free being, as it were, capable of looking after myself. (b) Tea – as a sign of private relaxation, of a brief pause in the midst of the hubbub, of rumination and private contemplation – functions as the external, material attribute of a certain unbridling of the spirit and thus as a companion in moments of focused inner freedom. (c) The world of freedom considered as leisure time is represented by tea in the opposite – in the extroverted and therefore the social – sense: sitting down to a cup of tea here is a substitute for the world of bars, wine rooms, parties, binges, social life, in other words again, something you choose yourself and in which you realize your freedom in social terms. . . . I drink it every day. . . . I look forward to it, and consuming it (which I schedule carefully, so it does not become a formless and random activity) is an extremely important component in my daily ”self-care” program. From ”Letters to Olga.” ‘

(source: The New York Times 8 May 1998 from an article by Michael Scammel called The Prison and the Cult of Tea)
It turns out that this is referenced multiple places on the web, but I found it thanks to Thomas Kaspar, whose a member of the Facebook group ‘Teefreunde‘. He has an intriguing teablog Siam Teas, which if you’re not careful, you might lose an inordinate amount of time perusing.