NEW TeaDay 9/11/12 Improve TEA Enjoyment?

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Are you fully content with your tea enjoyment in its totality, entirety, wholeness, or is there something you either feel you need to or want to change in order to improve your enjoyment?

Yes, completely and utterly
2
11%
Maybe need a change
7
39%
No, I feel certain change(s) would enhance my experience
9
50%
Uncertain
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 18

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Sep 11th, '12, 00:27
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NEW TeaDay 9/11/12 Improve TEA Enjoyment?

by Chip » Sep 11th, '12, 00:27

Welcome everyone to another NEW TeaDay. I hope you will share it with all of us. Shall we brew and share what is in our cups today, and maybe some photos too?

Today's TeaPoll and discussion topic, contentment. We obviously are all TeaLovers and very serious about our TEAS. I want to know, are you fully content with your tea enjoyment in its totality, entirety, wholeness, or is there something you either feel you need to or want to change in order to improve your enjoyment? Please share the details with us.

I am as always looking forward to sharing TeaDay with everyone, bottoms up!

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Sep 11th, '12, 01:44
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Re: NEW TeaDay 9/11/12 Improve TEA Enjoyment?

by SilentChaos » Sep 11th, '12, 01:44

I would really welcome a small space of peace and quiet to brew and enjoy me teas. :roll: Starting TeaDay with some 88nights.

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Sep 11th, '12, 10:14
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Re: NEW TeaDay 9/11/12 Improve TEA Enjoyment?

by TIM » Sep 11th, '12, 10:14

Remembering... never forget.

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Sep 12th, '12, 13:56
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Re: NEW TeaDay 9/11/12 Improve TEA Enjoyment?

by FlyedPiper » Sep 12th, '12, 13:56

While a Japanese style tea teahouse complete with tatami mats and hearth would increase my "tea experience", I'm pretty happy with my ability to try most kinds of teas that I want and the ability to brew them in the appropriate vessels...

Regular old sencha for me today... :mrgreen:

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Sep 12th, '12, 15:10
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Re: NEW TeaDay 9/11/12 Improve TEA Enjoyment?

by Jspigs » Sep 12th, '12, 15:10

More tea :D. Also a quiet tea/meditation room would be nice.

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Sep 12th, '12, 20:13
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Re: NEW TeaDay 9/11/12 Improve TEA Enjoyment?

by Lerxst2112 » Sep 12th, '12, 20:13

I'm pretty happy with the conditions that I have at present. It's usually quiet and peaceful. The cat is usually curled up nearby. I have decent-sized patio doors that the tea table is by, with a west facing window - so usually a good deal of sun around the time I brew. Only thing I wish: that my kettle had a sturdy handle. It was like they expended all their effort into making a great kettle, and then slap-dashed a handle together!

Have a couple more sessions of the 2012 JGY, and then time to open another Ye Sheng hongcha for the "office" tea.

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Sep 12th, '12, 21:03
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Re: NEW TeaDay 9/11/12 Improve TEA Enjoyment?

by debunix » Sep 12th, '12, 21:03

I hope to improve my tea enjoyment with a combination of teawares and a new setting for my tea.

I want to set up a tea-station in the dining room and I've been thinking that the covered deck might be a great place for tatami mats and a little tea table....

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Re: NEW TeaDay 9/11/12 Improve TEA Enjoyment?

by Tadpole » Sep 13th, '12, 14:26

Theoretically I could enjoy TRANSCENDENTAL TEA in any setting, with almost any equipment, assuming filtered water and a reliable heat source are available. With this in mind, a rough scale of scenarios of possible tea enjoyment, in order of preference:

1) An exquisite, heavenly palace of sound and light, of an etheric paradise, gloriously ablaze in gold and violet flames in every hall. In the  magnificent company of Batman, the X-Men, Ghandi, Ascended Masters, King Kong, David Ross, Olympian Gods, non-PMSing Goddesses, angelic beings clothed in light, the life force of stars, a chupacabra, and civil demons. Seated at mile-long, conscious, bio-interactive tables that sing and play games with you. Teas are the rarest, most highly aromatic treasures in the Universe. Served in divine tea ware of ecstatic liquid light, graced with esoteric symbols--wrought in pure gold forms precisely 12 atoms thick--exalting Life and Oneness. THIS is a tea party.

2) With the Mad Hatter. The Johnny Depp incarnation. I would bring poltergeists. Cupcakes from Safeway if I'm in a hurry. Never invite yourself over empty-handed. Miss Manners said so in the newspaper many years ago!

3) Underneath an ancient tree with three bears, by a magic cottage with a unicorn in the barn. Rustic furniture crafted by a maiden, a mother, and a crone, embedded with everlasting flowers and pressed fairies. Tea is steeped in vessels fashioned from rare earth ores harvested by Djinn, cured by the breath of seven dragons, and polished by Golem with diamond sandpaper. Here, refined sugar is beautifying, gluten is anti-aging, and dairy cures every ailment known and unknown to man. Caution: Decline playing hide and seek with the prince. He turns you into a frog. Just sayin. 

4) Reality: What exists now. A quiet studio apartment hidden in a funny neighborhood downhill from a more affluent one, lined with hardwood floors, neat shelves full of books and a collection of cute ceramic gongfu tea ware. Vertically arranged colorful textiles and peacock feathers, gentle gauzy curls of incense in the air, board games, tadpole jokes, bathroom jokes, alien jokes, un-PC jokes, never-ending matcha madeleines. Shared with my resident Gentleman and occasional loved ones. This is all rather good.

5) Urban tea lounge with loose-leaf offerings, maybe gluten-free-dairy-free options. 

6) Questionable stuff a paper cup decorated with advertisements, from a local cafe populated by homework-doers, anonymous characters pretending to work on iPads, and tourists.

7) A concrete alleyway. Overbrewed in a tacky San Francisco souvenir mug with Golden Gate Bridge screen print, on top of a dumpster lid. Malicious pigeon on a ledge above, positioning to aim with his tail end.

8) Desolate warehouse infested with rats and zombies. A two-and-a-half-legged card table propped up by telephone books, with a cracked pleather top, decorated with dried motor oil mixed with radioactive waste, and a 6.5"x9" part of a corner munched by a zombie. Decomposing zombie (yeah, that's what you get for wrecking my table) under a tarp makes a nicer bench than scrap metal. The beans are starting to burn in the aluminum can sitting over the fire.  I am expecting a guest in one hour. Unsure if he is human. No problem. This flame thrower doesn't just boil water. Oooo, butterfly! Wait--it's one of those viscious mutant moths trying to get into my tea leaves. Good, because flame blasted chicken-moth goes great with burned beans and oolong.

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Sep 15th, '12, 12:33
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Re: NEW TeaDay 9/11/12 Improve TEA Enjoyment?

by Xell » Sep 15th, '12, 12:33

Sure still quite far from my goal, at least my goal is not impossible :) I want a small room with only tatami and low desk. Big window and view on japanese style garden, it doesn't need to be big. Currently using about a square meter on desk beside pc.

... and of course teaware, suitable pots and cups for each kind and situation :)

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Sep 15th, '12, 16:09
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Re: NEW TeaDay 9/11/12 Improve TEA Enjoyment?

by JBaymore » Sep 15th, '12, 16:09

I am a happy camper. That does not mean that I do not have more to learn. But I will continue to learn.

Remember that saying.......

"I want happiness."

"I" reflects ego. Get rid of that.

"Want" reflects desire. Get rid of that.

You are left with "happiness".

best,

...............john

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Sep 15th, '12, 16:36
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Re: NEW TeaDay 9/11/12 Improve TEA Enjoyment?

by AdamMY » Sep 15th, '12, 16:36

I am enjoying my tea, but what would be great is to have access to a tea teacher, and mentor, that I can drink tea with in person on a regular basis.

But besides that a little hut in a scenic garden would also be amazing. :mrgreen:

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