My first Petr Novak pieces!

Look! How wondrous!

Very exciting day indeed, I have reserved the most gorgeous Yunomi and a small Shibo set for one.
Mr. Novak put his wares up for sale online today and they are going fast. I am very fortunate to have been sitting at my computer when the email came in saying they were available to view and reserve right now.
Enjoy the pics.

Houji Genmaicha from Den's Tea.

I love Den's Tea, they are less than thirty miles away from me, teas get shipped fast, the packaging is always good, there are always little samples, and I have even called on the telly to ask Den's advice on occasion over the years! I hold Japanese teas is great esteem and feel quite often like I am not worthy of them, they are often so easily ruined, at least to my palate. Den, I believe likes to 'brew 'em strong' but I have learned to take a lighter hand with the teas I buy from him, and with the addition a couple years ago of a kyusu and a yazumashi, I tend to get it just right almost every time. This evening with my meal I will be opening a new package of one of my favorites a roasted Genmaicha. The brown rice and Bancha leaves are in such nice contrast to one another, and the balance on this tea is always superb. I admit to enjoying Den's organic Genmaicha with Matcha even more, but have just run out, and this is almost as good, and very affordable. Den's is also my only source thus far for my Matcha needs, this is where I really allow myself to splurge, using the best grade I can afford, even if it is 'just' for lattes!

A chocolate tea with a Chambre De Sucre sugar stick, a dollop of almond milk in this gorgeous big Ringware cup equals bliss!

Boredom often brings on bouts of rampant creativity. What may seem the norm to most American tea-drinkers, mixing a black tea with milk and sugar in a big mug, is a huge anathema for me! I won't do it unless it is truly going to be good. And the tea, from the looks of it in the package were of high quality and smelled lovely.
So, Soleil Tea sent me a couple samples, one of them is a not-yet-for-sale tea called Chocoholic. As I won't drink anything with flavoring I first made sure that it was indeed without added flavorings, and found it was just bits of organic cocoa so I was ready to try it out.
It was a mild and nice tea, but not really a Gongfu type tea so I quickly pulled out a fun and delicious item, a 'Diamond Sugar Stirrer' from Chambre De Sucre, a four inch demitasse stick with a lovely bit of high-quality sugar attached to the end.

I added a dollap of Trader Joe's Almond milk, and put the whole hot mess of wonderful in my new giant Yunomi mug from RingWare Pottery.

Together these items; tea, sugar stick and 'mug' create a singular experience that goes perfectly with a day of sitting home, bored on a Friday afternoon,  as so I offer deep bows of gratitude to those who made it possible for me to, once again, slack-off and do nothing but enjoy the fruits of anothers labors!

Qianjiazhai? Did I spell that right? In any case a nice 2015 Sheng brick sample comes my way.

Reading the tiny writing on this little sample with my old eyes was no easy task but I think I got it right! Whatever it is called, it is delicious. It is a wonderfully Portland-like morning here in usually sunny Southern California, misty, quiet aside from the wild parrots outside the back door who dont mind a bit of the weather coming their way, and neither do I! It seemed a good time to try a new tea, so I grabbed this sample of a sheng from Verdant and put the Bonavita on to boil.

A little over 5 grams in the packet was perfect, at least so I think for a 120ml gaiwan.

Tried not to drink the rinse but I had just come in from Sprouts Market and was chilled and it smelled sweet so I drank it. nothing wrong with that rinse, yum! The following steeps, of which I have now had four are nice with strong mineral flavor but sweet and very palpable at the same time. Aftertaste is nice as well, the mineral flavor lingers on the back of my tongue in a way that fits the day.
I might be temped to buy some of this and age half, drink the other half right away!

#27 Red equals Existential Angst.

Smacha's #27 Red makes me want to re-think my whole life. It brings on an existential angst that is not at all subtle and really too dreary to go into. But to sum it up, it goes something like this;
I've got so many teas, the fact that this one just sat for a couple months and I only grabbed it by happenstance when I realized I had a 'jar opening' (also known as 'an empty canning jar') and could therefore try something new, the fact that I have so many of these experiences awaiting me and I might die at any moment, makes me freak the heck out.

It's so good that it panicked me. How many other amazing teas are just sitting there in their sealed packets containing tea delights I might never get to? Really, shouldn't I just open up EVERYTHING and try it ALL? Like, right away?

Smacha's #27 Red is a terrific session of tea. I had no idea. Why did I wait so long?
The website says to use 7-9 grams, in a Yixing or their wonderful auto-infuser but since I was using my 100ml hohin I used only four grams of this dark red rolled balled tea. Scent out of the bag? Lip-smacking and eye-opening. And the taste from the first steep is mildly sweet, floral and smooth as can be. And now time to go write this down in my list of things I have to mull over with the Jungian analyst I am lucky enough to have as a friend, god knows I couldn't afford her. Not analysis and tea, I had to choose. I chose tea. Duh. 

This Jin Xuan Hong Cha has a story too. Smacha tells it thus;

 An exclusive creation which starts with leaves from a Taiwanese Oolong variety, fermented like a fine black tea and processed as an Oolong Tea. #27 Red is robust, sweet and fresh, with a fruity fragrance and a lingering floral finish. This unique creation combines the best of fine black teas with traditional Taiwanese oolongs.

Yunomi. But do I know you?

Good Japanese tea. It isn't easy to make. I find it far harder than with Chinese teas. A little too much tea leaf, or the water too hot? Ruinous, bitter, and sad. My tastes in Japanese teas tend to be pretty high end, so the cups I use must be carefully thought out.
Different cups change the tastes of the fragile, light teas and with Tencha, and especially a very good Tencha (which, for those of you who don't know is the tea Matcha is made from,) it is no time to experiment and play around. Tencha drinking for me is a serious business. I will play around with all kinds of parameters with my Oolongs, my Dong Dings, my reds and blacks, but not with the Japanese stuff!
That being said, I now find myself doing exactly that. Not only with my yearly allotment of premium Tencha but also with Gyukuro and other various Japanese greens. This does not include Matcha, as I have a chassen bowl for that which I drink out of.
(I've had my matcha skills down for over ten years I am proud to say.)
Yunomi cups are my cups of choice for I want to empty my whole Takaname 'kyuso'( Japanese teapot) into one cup. The white Hagi cup can't take it all, the Takaname is 400ml but the new Yunomi from Ringware Pottery is the perfect size. But the taste is totally different from each cup. Or not. Maybe it isn't totally different, maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I am crazy and the brews are different. OK, I'm crazy, I think that's been established prior to this.
I have one more Yunomi on the way I cannot wait to explore with, from potter David Holden in Ireland using a clay native to his area of 'Dingle.' I hope to also eventually own a Petr Novak cup and prior to that one from Three Trees Pottery to add to this discussion I am having.
So Yunomi. But do I want to be known? Do I perhaps want to just drink my Japanese tea in the relative safety of the very glazed basic Sencha cups to be found everywhere from World Market to Pier 1 to the local thrift shop?
I don't know-me.
Do you? Do Yunomi?
More to come as the experts in tea culture are consulted and further deliberations are made. This is actually rather fun!

A gorgeously verdant Gyokuro Uji from Zen Tea!

So very glad to be getting back into Japanese teas. Took a rather long-ish break, and it was only when the weather began to get beautiful which in my mind means heavy clouds, dead leaves, sun piercing through rain clouds, streaks of light coming through the Acacia trees, that is when I start to want a big Yunomi mug of Japanese teas. Matcha has arrived from Japan, the best I could afford, the best Tencha I've ever had has come into my possession and now I am just sitting back, enjoying a standard at its best, Zen Tea's Gyokuro Uji Superior.

I brew it in my kyuso using maybe the equivalent of a teaspoon at a low temperature of 180f and under. Quick steeps, I empty the kyuso entirely into a large cup and warm my hands with it. Such a change from tiny Gongfu cups, and very much needed on cold mornings like this one!
I love this company. Trustworthy, lovely tea-ware as well as teas and run by honest and fast people who aim to please!

Eco-Cha Dong Ding Oolong Fall 2015

One of the better Dong Dings I have had since I began my tea journey and one I intend on buying and hopefully having as a daily drinker. Smooth, warm, full-bodied, it has a lot of very pleasing and different notes coming through even in a single steep! Roasted, but not overly so, nutty, a little fruit, and a great long lasting after-taste.

Brewing parameters for this is always 4.5 grams in a 120ml gaiwan at 205f temperature.
It is so good. That's all I got for you today, Dear Readers, too busy doing nothing while mourning our Bowie. The tea and the sadness and the appreciation and this warmth in my chest all come together to make this day a perfect one, even in its singular sorrowful ambience.

Raising my cup to David Bowie with this comforting Laoshan black that came in the mail just an hour after I heard that he had left us.

Big Bowie fan. BIG, as in, if it weren't for Bowie I might have never listened to anything that wasn't very angry political anti-authority hard-core punk. Bowie kept me, even in my street punk years, from falling too far down any one specific rabbit hole. I needed a warren and Bowie was part of that system of tunnels I could lose myself in. I always stopped on Hollywood Boulevard( I lived in an abandoned building off Hollywood and Argyle) to look at a huge poster of him that always hung in shop window. Bowie in an embroidered Elizabethan dress laid out upon a divan, long hair flowing. How could I like him and still like the Dead Kennedy's? I don't know, but I did and that ability to appreciate fully more than one thing at a time was helpful for me in those years when total immersion into the punk culture could have eaten me alive and spit back out absolute nothingness. Vonnegut helped too. Burrow hole number three.
Ok, but this is not really about Bowie or me so I move on.
So, I'm sad, (oops, back to me apparently) and I do what I do when I am sad, I drink tea and hit the thrift shops at 9am, before the other riff-raff bargain hunters beat me to it.
I find the usual stuff, new items to put on my tea table, a cheap blue and white teapot shaped like a fish that can never, ever be used, and is in fact, exceedingly hideous I am just now noticing glancing at it sitting next to my keyboard. $3.99 I paid for this? Well, I did get the senior discount. That was another first today, they gave me a senior discount at the thrift shop. This fucking world, man, it breaks your heart in so many little ways in the course of just a couple of hours.
Coming home with my little stash of goodies I found in the mail-box a little package from Verdant Tea with Laoshan Black in it.

I had forgotten I ordered it, but have been waiting for a gaiwan from them, so this was a nice surprise.
I've been neglecting black teas lately and in my rather black mood, the timing was and still is right. Last nights wonderful experience with Soleil's black tea, 'Van Dyke' got me primed.

I like this tea a lot. Tiny little tea leaves, sprightly and springy to the touch after wet, the brew in the cup is like a mixture of a soft black gongfu and an Oriental Beauty, which you know is my favorite tea ever.

I spent 30 minutes sitting in my yard drinking multiple steeps of this. Four grams in a 120ml gaiwan, water temp just under 200. Worked for me!

I am still sad but that's part of the deal, right? I get the good stuff, like tea and family, warm socks right out of the dryer and In-and-Out Burgers and I have to deal with the crap as well, the No-More-Bowie in the world kind-

of crap, the skin lesions, the back-ache, the aging in less than graceful ways.
And that's cool. I can dig that. Just happy to be here, sharing tea. With you.