Winter Winter Moon
My holiseason present came today. It’s a yixing teapot from the Chinese Teashop based in Vancouver, British Columbia. That brings my collection to three: one for black and pu’er teas, one green and oolong teas and one for white teas. Eventually I’ll have a yixing teapot for each of the varieties of tea, but it takes a while to get there since they’re not cheap.
My gong fu cha chops have increased over the last few weeks and sitting above me and to my right are these teas: Master Han’s Looseleaf 2004 Shu Pu’er, spring harvest Laoshan green, Phoenix Mountain dancong oolong, Wuyi mountain big red robe, Qilan Wuyi oolong, Silver Needle.
This tea journey I’m on now is another ancientrail, a side path from an interest in Asian art and culture. It allows me to have a bit of Asian culture right here, on a regular basis.
With gong fu cha I infuse tea leaves for times ranging from 4 seconds to the very longest 25 seconds, pouring hot water over the teapot while the tea infuses, a different temperature for each variety of tea. This requires a teapot and my Zojirushi. The Zojirushi holds three plus liters of water at 175 degrees. It’s perfect for white and green teas. The teapot gets water to the 205-208 degree temperatures best for the oolongs, blacks and pu’ers.
There’s a good deal of puttering with it, fussing and that’s all part of drinking tea. It takes me, at least for a minute or two, into a world of long ago and far away. When I return I have about half a cup of tea, which lasts a good while since I drink it out of my Chinese teacups, smaller and shallower and wider than the tea cups we use.
Having added it to my working day gives uniqueness to the beverages I drink and links me to a worldwide culture of tea drinkers. It’s a hobby, I guess.