Thursday TeaDay 1/7/11 First teaware?

[jmreeves]

I believe my first tea purchase was probably some sort of tea basket but it has been awhile.

Currently brewing some Genmaicha extra green with matcha between first and second harvest from dens. Boiled 30sec YUM

[TwoPynts]

It was a little white gaiwan set I purchased here through teachat and yes, I still use it.

Drinking 52.teas Ultimage Citrus Spice Black today.

[TubbyCow]

Happy Epiphany everybody! The day we celebrate the Wise Men. I don't know many people who celebrate it, and frankly (frankincensely?), I just use it as an excuse to have a giant treasure hunt. Because having treasure hunts at Easter just isn't enough for me.

First teaware... Some double-wall glass tea cups from Teavana. Half of them broke in transit, and their return policy is so dismal, it wasn't worth sending them back from Canada. I loved them for a few months, but after breaking an entire set of pilsner cups the same style, I gave up on double-wall glass cups.

[laura99]

My first teaware was the perfect teamaker from Tevanna. Received a second one for my birthday a few weeks later for one to bring to work. Even though I have stepped up my teaware a bit since then, I still use both of these. The one at home is only used for my occasional flavored tea or herbals. But at work its still used almost daily for my black teas.

Luckily I found this board before I bought one of their cast iron pots

Thanks for sharing artmon, great story!

[debunix]

A friend and I went to japantown in SF and each bought a teapot set--one ridiculously large teapot and a set of teacups. I still like the look of that first set, but the pot was about 1 quart--ok for a pot of celestial seasonings herb tea to sit around for a while, but it hasn't been used in years. After the first few weeks I only brought it out for company anyway. It might even have gone to goodwill during my last move a few years ago.

Today starting with some Zhangshu Lake Oolong. Out of TGY here at the office but need to finish off some of these odds and ends before I break out more of the best stuff.

[artmom]

Thanks, Chip, for quoting me! And thanks to those who enjoyed reading it. It has been and still is a large part of my life. Yoshi was the one who gave me the little hu hin that was my first piece of Japanese teaware and is my avatar!

[Proinsias]

I think it was a nice little yixing pot in 2006, I'd had other teaware before but I reckon this was the item that kicked off my teaware acquisition disorder. There is a chance it may have been my little porcelain cup as I bought that at around the same time.

I broke it a few months later and bought another identical one from the same place, I use it for shu. Dark brown clay, thick walls, low profile, around 100ml. Can't find a pic of the pot but here's one of the cup:


Just rinsing some of Master Xu's Tong Mu Wuyi Shan red tea for first and last tea of the day, certainly smells good and hopes are high as I've had a few cracking Chinese reds recently.

[entropyembrace]

My first dedicated teaware was a teaball I bought when I was making the transition from teabags to loose leaf tea...it had a little bee on the other end of the chain. I used it several times every day until the hinge rusted and broke then I bought my first teapot.

[Chip]

Interesting memory lane posts!!! Thanks!

Great TD, whew and weee, so nice having sencha in the house again! Began with Oku Midori from TeaGallery and currently Sayama from Umami-Chaya with the Mrs.

Time for 1 more ..........

[Proinsias]

The tong mu is good

[grimbasement]

My first purchase was a Bodum Tea Press... That thing is HUGE like 1 liter. I brewed everything in that Dragonwell, Genmacha, Black teas, flowering teas etc. I still have it and still use it, but now I only use it to bring water from the water filter to my zojirushi water boiler/heater.

[msurads06]

My first teaware was a little silver tea ball i bought to brew the earlgrey de la creme i got at my sister's wedding, only used it about two weeks before getting an infuser basket. I dont even know where the tea ball is any more.

Started out the day with Earlgrey de la creme, then stopped by the Cultured Cup while i was in Dallas and got a cup of marco polo for the drive home. Not something i would buy normally, but not bad.

[Chip]

Thanks for the TeaColor of TeaDay Proinsias! X2!

Next tea, organic Yama No Ocho from Umami-Chaya. Maybe time for one more mini session???

[JRS22]

My very first purchase, as opposed to teaware gifts, was an Adagio IngenuiTea. I loved it and used it until I somehow broke it, probably because I removed the filter every day to wash it out. Those were simple times. By the time it broke I owned an infusion mug, a yixing teapot (a gift that I devote to jasmine because I don't drink oolong), and a Den's kyusu. Now I have a homemade houhin, a tokoname kyusu, and various gaiwans, but I wax nostalgic about that first purchase which came with a green tea sampler.

No tea in the morning - I had to rush out of the house early (9:30 am - how lazy I've become) to get into Manhattan to see a fabulous art exhibit. All the fun made my cold worse, so I nursed it by drinking lots of leftover bits of tea - Bai Hao Yin Zhen, Lu An Gua Pian, Anji Bai Cha and Huo Shan Yellow Sprouting.

[Skippyandjif]

The first teaware I could call my own was actually three cups, which I got at the Goodwill immediately after moving to Maine, back when I was in high school. One of the cups had a realistic painting of a strawberry on it; the other had a cute little cartoon-ish strawberry print; the third had an ukiyo-e print on it. The two strawberry ones I still use, but the ukiyo-e one was broken in transit between my dorm and my mom's house last summer.

Pouchong all day today. I love the stuff.