TeaChat

I'm grumpy.

Every four months or so, I look forward to purchase the next issue of "The Art of Tea" magazine. I just heard that issue #6 was just released, but was unpleasantly surprised to see that the price increased to $15.99 per issue! When you add $5 shipping on top of that... well, I'm no longer going to buy my beloved magazine. Anyone else bummed out by their increase?

You mean "The Art of Tea Vendors" ?

TeaChatters,
I thought I'd share this online tea magazine: http://the-leaf.org/
They have great articles, and it's free!

I picked up the issue on tea from Kyoto Journal. I have to say there are some absolutely beautiful pictures and some really great articles about tea in there. If you're able to find an issue (i think you can look online and buy online) then you should definitely pick it up.

Well, there were a couple good deal on Amazon and I have wanted to start a sort of reference library to keep on hand as I plan for the Tea Museum. I wanted to get books that give broad account of tea and the culture surrounding it and ultimately I chose one that Herb_Master had mentioned, Tea: The Drink that Changed the World, and another called Liquid Jade: The Story of Tea from East to West.

I chose the former because it seemed to include a good deal of the political history which was something I was after. I chose the latter because it is written by a woman named Beatrice Hohenegger who is a gust curator for a tea exhibit to be hosted at UCLA's Fowler museum starting next month. I won't get to see the exhibit, but I was intrigued by what seems to be a book compiled from all her extensive research.

I will let you all know what I think of them when I have had a chance to peruse them!

I think I have a new-found obsession with Japanese tea-ware. Well, maybe not new-found because I took a Japanese art history class. I've been looking around on Amazon, but does anyone here have recommendations for books on Japanese tea-ware? I'm looking for something with history and pretty pictures.

I recently picked up a neat series of bilingual books from Japan.

One of them was this book: 茶の本, or the Book of Tea.

You may already be familiar with the book. It was written in English in 1906 by Okakura Tenshin. This particular book provides the original English as well as a Japanese translation side-by-side. This particular book has a forward (and afterward) by a 15th generation tea master (Sen Soshitsu), descented of Sen Rikyu, who apparently brought the tea ceremony into its real place.

For those interested, there are 7 Chapters:
CH1: The Cup of Humanity
CH2: The Schools of Tea
CH3: Taoism and Zennism
CH4: The Tea-Room
CH5: Art Appreciation
CH6: Flowers
CH7: Tea-Masters

The reason I'm particularly looking forward to reading this version is that the Japanese script is excellent for helping me further my Japanese skills, but it also makes things a bit easier to understand. For example, something as simple as "chanoyu" seems a bit odd at first, but it is much easier to understand when written "茶の湯".

In any case, should be interesting!

Speaking of The Book of Tea, one should read this for some other messages besides just tea in the text:
http://marshaln.xanga.com/716705069/the-book-of-tea/

Maitre_Tea wrote:Speaking of The Book of Tea, one should read this for some other messages besides just tea in the text:
http://marshaln.xanga.com/716705069/the-book-of-tea/

Cool. The tea master in the forward of the book says similar comments about Okakura's work, so at least it's not a secret

Yunnan Sourcing just posted a "yearbook" of Menghai's '05 releases...I wonder if Scott can get his hands on yearbooks from different years or any other companies...but any card-carrying member of the Dayi fan club should pick this one up

http://www.yunnansourcing.com/store/pro ... oduct=1019

Both my books are now available at amazon, and most likely the larger chain bookstores near you:

Tea Wisdom

http://www.amazon.com/Tea-Wisdom-Inspir ... t_ep_dpt_1

The Way of Tea

http://www.amazon.com/Way-Tea-Reflectio ... 80&sr=8-13

Wu De wrote:Both my books are now available at amazon, and most likely the larger chain bookstores near you:

They look very nice! Congratulations!

Hello out there...Just wanted to say that I am new to the tea world and this thread, but it is definately what I was looking for. It seems that there is much more to brewing tea than boiling water. One quick question:

Does the temperture of the water vary for different types of green tea or is it basically the same for all green tea?

Thanks!

It varies by type as well as by your personal preference for different elements of tea flavor that are brought out at different temperatures. In general I'm prefering japanese greens cooler than chinese greens, 160 vs 170F, but YMMV, a lot!