Thur/Fri TeaDay 7/14-15/11 Bastille Day/International TeaDay

[Chip]

TD continued with Guricha from Xell from OTTI 10 following a cookout on a beautiful evening. This is an ideal "sencha" for this purpose as it is not too fussy.

Currently some SLT ...

Great Tour de France stage on Thursday! Loved seeing Contador suffer and lose time.

[Chip]

International Day on TeaDay turns into International DayS as we carry over yesterday's topic to Friday.

Please share what is in your cup throughout the day. And continue to discuss the topic!

By the way, where are our Aussie friends?

As a bonus, please share what country you would want to visit the most ... keeping the tea aspect out of consideration.

[Xell]

Born in Estonia, but since my family is Russian and i have many relatives in Russia, also spent a lot of time there. But due to some amazing chain of events now i'm living in Japan

... please do tell!!!

What kind of bicycle, road, off road ... brand?

Speaking of bike riding, today is Bastille Day in France and the first real mountain stage in the Pyrenees Mountains of the Tour de France! You can watch it on Versus if you get it.

Why not, i might just tell my happy story It's just i met my future wife by pure accident. While i was at work, there was big delay on updating information from our client, so for a while nothing to do. Was really bored and browsed through Asian related sites, one place caught my attention. That's where i found one interesting person to talk with, it was something like culture exchange chatting at the beginning, but it continued for about a year That's when i thought, why not visit Japan, since it became really interesting and i didn't have vacation for quite some time. Also i wanted to meet that person, not just talk on internet. My sister was also interested in visiting Japan. There were no good offers from travel companies, so i offered that person to be our guide and we could prepare our own route. Well, i certainly didn't expect this turn of events, but meeting in real life changed quite a lot and already during second week we decided to marry I couldn't stay in Japan right away, so we were living in Estonia for about 2 years, then company where i was working started making many changes that i was really not happy with. So my wife told me, why not move to Japan already I regret only one thing, i didn't study Japanese properly back in Estonia, now i'm having problems to catch up
So i'm yet another living evidence, that internet can actually bring people together


As for bicycle, i don't have anything fancy here in Japan. I bought foldable one, Dahon brand. Quality is quite good and comfortable. I'm mostly using it for city and parks.

[Nenugal]

I'm 100% Norwegian and have lived in Norway since I was born; although a couple of great-grandparents left for America when they were young, they came back after a few years. Homesickness I guess...

But then my wife is Indonesian, and among my colleagues and friends are Chinese, Indonesian, Indian, Pakistani, Tunisian, Uzbek, Romanian, German,... So I often end up speaking more English than Norwegian on an average day

And for the second question; I'd love to visit China. Even without considering tea

[solitude]

I was born in Slovakia, but my parents are Hungarian and me too. I am doing my graduate study now in Milano, this should take all together 3years. Probably after I finish I will move to another country, we'll see.

Started the day with kagoshima sencha sea midori from OC. Like usually there will be no tea until I get home at the evening but after I will be overdosed by some sheng and/or oolong, this happens often after a long day without tea.

[hopeofdawn]

Another American here--born in Oregon, grew up in North Dakota, then came back to the Pacific NW to live near Seattle, where my mother's family is, and never regretted it. Every year I love this area more ...

Norwegian on my mother's side (and boy do I look it, yay sunburns), English/German/misc western European on my dad's, but pretty solidly American mutt all around.

This morning--started out the day with a yummy bowl of Yame matcha sansui from Zencha (ordered on the advice of Teachatters, thanks!), and have now switched to Maeda-en's shincha gold--the smell is fabulous, and the taste is wonderfully smooth ....

[rhondabee]

I'm a Heinz 57 American. I have a lot of English (Holt, Smith/Cook families) and some of my earliest ancestors (Holt) came over to the US in the early 1600's. One of my great-great grandmothers on the Smith side was French-Native American/Irish. Then I have the Scot-Irish ancestry (Shaw). That is all on the paternal side. On maternal side of my family, I have Irish again -O'Carney/Mathis (origin?) and Polish/German (Ladendecker/Mann). I enjoy geneology and wish I had more time to do the research.

Today drinking some Shi Zuo Ali Shan from Tea from Taiwan. I just discovered if I use a larger amount than ususual (a couple tea spoons) that it has very nice buttery flavor/mouth feel.

[teaisme]

Moved around a lot, guess I have many homes.

Ahhh Dong Ding! welcome back my old friend it's been a while. You are aging very well

Hum........I would really like to spend a few years traveling africa, then move along up to the middle east, then to india, then up to tibet and mongolia. I could imagine myself retiring in mongolia for a while, a place where things are more simple and people content, always with such bright beaming smiles.

[entropyembrace]

I'm a Heinz 57 American. I have a lot of English (Holt, Smith/Cook families) and some of my earliest ancestors (Holt) came over to the US in the early 1600's. One of my great-great grandmothers on the Smith side was French-Native American/Irish. Then I have the Scot-Irish ancestry (Shaw). That is all on the paternal side. On maternal side of my family, I have Irish again -O'Carney/Mathis (origin?) and Polish/German (Ladendecker/Mann). I enjoy geneology and wish I had more time to do the research.

Today drinking some Shi Zuo Ali Shan from Tea from Taiwan. I just discovered if I use a larger amount than ususual (a couple tea spoons) that it has very nice buttery flavor/mouth feel.

Holt´s in the 1600´s.....I do believe we are cousins

[rhondabee]

I'm a Heinz 57 American. I have a lot of English (Holt, Smith/Cook families) and some of my earliest ancestors (Holt) came over to the US in the early 1600's.

Holt´s in the 1600´s.....I do believe we are cousins

I have some research on the Holts going back to Nicholas & Elizabeth Short Holt who came to America in 1635 on the ship James. Their home was in Andover, MA and an ancestor was still living in the home in the late 1970's. So if you are related to them, then I guess we are cousins )

[entropyembrace]

I'm a Heinz 57 American. I have a lot of English (Holt, Smith/Cook families) and some of my earliest ancestors (Holt) came over to the US in the early 1600's.

Holt´s in the 1600´s.....I do believe we are cousins

I have some research on the Holts going back to Nicholas & Elizabeth Short Holt who came to America in 1635 on the ship James. Their home was in Andover, MA and an ancestor was still living in the home in the late 1970's. So if you are related to them, then I guess we are cousins )

Seems like I got ahead of myself

I talked to my Mom who is the one that´s done a lot of genealogy research and sure enough Holt is important...but we´ve never been able to trace Holt back very far, only to my grandmother´s grandmother in Ontario. We ended up spending some time wading through old census records to try and go back one more generation but still nothing concrete. Maybe if we find they came to Canada from the United States we might have something

[AdamMY]

My mothers side is 100% Latvian ( a little country on the Baltic Sea between Lithuania and Estonia). My dads side is a bit of a mix but there's some German, Irish, and Slovak in there. So basically I am a European mutt living in the U.S. of A.