TeaDay, Where are you? March 7, 2015

[JRS22]

I'm on the east coast of North America in Hoboken, NJ. When I moved here I was part of an exodus from NYC (Manhattan is just across the river). Now my little city is mostly populated by my son's generation and I fit in (demographically) with the new wave of empty-nesters coming from the suburbs.

The sun is shining, the snow banks are melting, and I'm going to nurse my cold with Japanese Greens. My Seong-il gaiwan is out for delivery, so I'll initiate that with some Korean greens.

[Mrs. Chip]

[quote="JRS22" ]
The sun is shining, the snow banks are melting, and I'm going to nurse my cold with Japanese Greens. My Seong-il gaiwan is out for delivery, so I'll initiate that with some Korean greens.[/quote]

Hope you are feeling better soon. Chip and I are still recovering from 'fun' winter ailments. Japanese greens are our "fix-all"

Enjoy your new gaiwan when it arrives. We are awaiting Japanese greens, the last order before Shincha!

[Mrs. Chip]

Late start to our TeaDay, getting ready for the first brew of the day, sencha from Uji. Believe it or not Chip purchased this from Wegmans when we were in need of Japanese greens.

[debunix]

Now enjoying some Asatsuyu sencha from O-Cha, after a teaDay that started with some more infusions of a lovely Balhyocha from Morning Crane, enjoyed from a new chawan from Ray Morales.

And looking forward to more of last night's EOT 1993 7452 puerh after the sencha---a nice teaDay at work (still in Los Angeles).

[Chip]

Aoi is back on the menu! Just arrived with some other O-Cha goodies.

Putting away the Wegman's sencha ... hopefully forever.

[Erawiel]

Helsinki, Finland, where (cheap) beer and coffee are the beverages of choice for most. Thankfully, the capital being what it is, we have a few nice tea houses accessible. One of which reminds me of the wand selling store in the first Harry Potter movie..!

I hope it has all the charm of Ollivanders and none of the dust!

All of the charm, and just a bit of the dust. But isn't bad to have your tea exposed to the light like this? (if you're able to see the picture)

[bob]

Today I'm having the last remains of a packet of Kamejirushi gyokuro from O-Cha. Mmmmm, umami!

All of the charm, and just a bit of the dust. But isn't bad to have your tea exposed to the light like this? (if you're able to see the picture)

Yes, it's bad for tea to be exposed to sunlight. Do they sell tea directly out of those glass jars or is the glass just for display and they give you tea from under the counter when you buy it?

[Erawiel]

Bob, nope they dig right in from those jars. The ones with bits of fruits in it taste good still, but if you go for just simple good ol' tea, it's a tad flavorless. Which is a shame... the decorum is adorable, very relaxing to drink a cup there.

[Mrs. Chip]

Looking forward to a sunny day off! Seems like 90 of the last 100 days had some form of precipitation or very cloudy.

We got our shipment from O-Cha and I am anxious to share a day of tea with Chip. Looks like it will be an Aoi day. Enjoy your tea today.

Look for a new TeaDay topic in the next few days.

[MIKE_B]

Scituate harbor, Massachusetts. Just south of Boston. Waiting for these mountains of dirty snow to finally melt and brewing a little packet of old Tieguanyin.

[entropyembrace]

I'm from Edmonton, Alberta and right now we're deep into the spring snowmelt. There's so much water and so much dead plant matter available right now that the microbes are really having a party. The molds are setting off my allergies in a major way and the water company has stepped up the concentration of chloramine in the water right up to the legal limit. So I went from having tap water that's usually really quite good to tap water that's borderline undrinkable. They said putting fruit in the water or brewing tea or coffee with it will neutralize the chloramine but when I brewed some kariagane the swimming pool chlorine taste was still very much evident. So much for teaday...

To try and salvage the situation I'm using some icecubes that were made before the spring runoff really got going to make cold brew

[debunix]

I'm at one of my satellite offices where the water makes thick green scale in the tea kettle. In my primary office in Los Angeles, I get fine white flakes.

I don't think I want to know why these scales are green.

Fortunately the tea still is good: today we had Aoi sencha, the first (smoky) infusions of the 2007 Silver Dayi sheng were quite popular with the rest of the office. I discovered that one of the new additions to the staff in this little outpost likes tea, "black with milk, British-style." Tomorrow I need to make sure we get a nice green oolong into the mix--without any green flakes in the tea.

[entropyembrace]

I don't think I want to know why these scales are green.

.

Sounds like copper. My espresso machine with a brass boiler gets slightly green scale in it.

[kiwi303]

I thought copper too reading that.

I miss the farm water, comes out of a hole in the bank up behind the house, COLD clean mountain spring water... no additives, no chemicals, nothing but fresh water and minerals.
Oh, and the occasional wasp that lands for a drink and gets sucked into the pipe, usually have to clean the tap nozzle mesh every couple of months to clear out the leaves and beetle bodies, just part of life in the mountains.

Here in town for work is just so-so lightly chorinated aquifer water pumped up from down below to the civic storage.



It's a coffee day for me today, Tomorrow will likely be a LiuAnGuaPian day, 500gm arrived in the mail today along with a 100gm tuo of shou puerh. Changtai Yi Chang Hao from 2005, so should be drinkable.

[Silvarine]

I'm from Italy and I often travel to Cork, Ireland.
When I'm in Italy I continue with my tea journey discovering new teas, and when I'm in Cork I only drink Barry's tea, just because!