tingjunkie wrote:Sounds awesome. Photos please!theredbaron wrote: There endless possibilities for a set up - i use some very old ming or song bowls as a tea boat, and qing blue and white plates of different sizes as a plate/saucer for my cups. I have different vessels i use as a wastewater bucket - the nicest one are village style bowls of rough clay with a green rice glazing which were used here in Thailand until a few decades ago to store fermented fish, made by village crafts men.
I really don't mean to start an argument, but is the placebo effect widely understood in Thailand? I'm not seeing how items which never come in contact with the tea could have any effect on the taste, unless they are changing the temperature or heat retention in the brewing vessel somehow.theredbaron wrote:My tea teacher is very particular about the saucers, plates and tea boats he uses as the material and age of the material can influence the taste of the tea as well (my taste buds are not so far developed, yet when he showed me, and i concentrated, i could taste the difference - very slight though). Consequently - he rejects these bamboo trays.
I am a bit lazy for photos, but lets see, maybe i an get the energy up.
My tea teacher is not in Thailand (which is quite a barren land in terms of tea culture, unfortunately), but a nowadays quite well known teacher from Malaysia.
I only understand that there is a lot more to tea than meets the eye, and a whole lot that i will still have to learn, even more than i will never learn. While there is of course a lot of pseudo-esoteric hogwash about tea, there is also a lot that isn't.
There are many factors that affect the tea, such as water, etc, there is always more to find - like the vessel you brew the water in, the source of the heat, the shape of the cups you use. But on many occasions my teacher has brewed tea, and showed me experiments on how the plate/saucer has an effect on taste, i could taste it. But i could not possibly with any sort of authority repeat these experiments, or without the guidance of my teacher give any sort of qualitative statement on this subject.
There is the difference of someone who has devoted his entire life to studying and teaching tea, and is a well recognized tea master, and someone who just loves tea (=me).