Monday TeaDay 10/18/10 D'oh! TeaStupid?

[Chip]

Good TeaDay to you all! You are invited to share what is in your cup throughout the day.

Over the weekend we discussed tea versus teaware increases over the last year. You can still vote and discuss the weekend's topic.

Today's TeaPoll and discussion topic. D'oh. I drove off today with a filled tea pitcher and Chinese teacup on the roof of the car. Not the first time. But made me think, what "stupid" things have TCers done relating to tea? Please share and HAVE FUN.

I am looking forward to sharing this TeaDay in all its stupidity with everyone. Bottoms down, er up.

[IPT]

I do a lot of stupid tea things, but generally they involve me not buying something when I saw it and then kicking myself for not having done so because I'll never see one again, or the price was just too good. Sometimes I kick myself because I find tea ware that is really cheap, and then I buy too much and then am very poor.

Oh, another stupid thing was allowing my wife to use some of my prized tea ware. She always manages to break it. She has her own pieces now, which need constant replacement.

[Chip]

My first TeaStupid thing(s) was buying 40 ounce teapots as first teaware purchases, yeah, like doing this once was not enough, I had to do it a few times. Never used, well I did use one once and realized this is a "huge" mistake. D'oh!

Oh, and the BIG, no make that REALLLLY HUMUNGOUS mugs for tea, yeah they got a lot of use too. not ...

Theme being, first buys were all huge and completely impractical, nor enjoyable to use.

[entropyembrace]

tea stupids....

I did buy puerh that smelled like cow manure...and that´s after having smelled it. Supposedly that´s what it was supposed to smell like and I didn´t know better then.

Have also lost quite a bit of teware to poor depth perception and clumsiness...dropped a heavy bowl on a yixing while doing dishes...set a teapot on thin air instead of on the table, swept pots off my desk with an overly excited arm-wave...

I think perhaps I suffer from the same problem as IPT´s wife

it makes me reluctant to buy expensive teaware...I was just buying glassware for a while because it´s easy to replace. Finding that pots with lower profiles seem to last longer though that´s no guarantee.

[IPT]

My wife is amazing. She can break tea ware in the most interesting ways. If it wasn't my tea ware, it'd be hysterical! I bought her a cast iron teacup as a joke because she couldn't break it and she dropped it onto my tea tray breaking a bunch of my tea ware.

[entropyembrace]

My wife is amazing. She can break tea ware in the most interesting ways. If it wasn't my tea ware, it'd be hysterical! I bought her a cast iron teacup as a joke because she couldn't break it and she dropped it onto my tea tray breaking a bunch of my tea ware.

I spent a loooooooong time in a tea shop looking at a smallish cast iron pot after the last time I broke a glassware pot...

then I imagined what would happen if I dropped a cast iron pot and decided it wasn´t such a good idea...your wife´s experience confirms that!

[IPT]

Maybe an all cast iron set.

[Leo_Blue]

My TeaStupids... I bought a 24 ounce yixing pot. Not quite a 40 ounce monstrosity like what Chip was talking about, but it's still quite large and I couldn't use it for gongfu brewing if I wanted to... my serving pitcher isn't big enough. I wish I had known how important small teaware was when I first started buying it. I also keep making the mistake of buying tea off supermarket shelves. It's just an all around bad idea and I keep doing it. Maybe it's because I have to know for certain that the tea is no good, otherwise I'll always wonder if I should have bought it or not.
I haven't made many other stupid mistakes with tea or teaware. Though I am just starting with my tea obsession so I'm sure I'll catch up to the rest of you.

[JBaymore]

My wife is amazing. She can break tea ware in the most interesting ways. If it wasn't my tea ware, it'd be hysterical! I bought her a cast iron teacup as a joke because she couldn't break it and she dropped it onto my tea tray breaking a bunch of my tea ware.

I know it is not really funny from your persepctive.... but the picture that scene created in my mind was GREAT! Thanks for the chuckle.

My work is greatly influenced from an early time by Onda Yaki (Onda Sarayama.... now pretty much the last remaining sort of Mingei clay production center in Japan .... not that it truly is). I obtained a nice yunomi from them. On about the second use of it, I was washing it in the sink and just clipped the top drinking edge on the metla faucet. CRACK!

Luckily the crack is somewhat superficial, and it does not leak. The crack has stained in with use with tea....... and reminds me of the impermenance of everything and the importance of not only reverence and focus, but the ability to sometimes "let go".

best,

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

[caplady1225]

GM All
the most common stupid thing I do re: tea is spill my first cup on the floor, on the laptop- be so angrry! and thirsty lol

this morning tea basic sencha & herbal blend (fighting throat ache)

[tortoise]

Great idea for a teaday thread and awesome responses. I have a few stories I can recall, but I'm not trying to hard to bring back other memories...just don't want to feel the pain again.

Here are 3 brief ones worth telling; one from me, one from my wife, and one was a tag-team effort worthy of the tea-klutz olympics...

1) I used to rent a basement apartment in Jackson Hole, Wy. My landlords supplied me with a futon and a very nice antique table which I covered with a thick cloth to protect. Everyday, multiple times per day, I drank black tea from my cast iron teapot on that table thinking I didn't need a coaster because the cloth covering was so thick. WRONG. Nearly burned a hole straight through it. When I moved out, it cost me 300 bucks and a TON of derision from the owners.

2) I bought my wife a nice gaiwan for her birthday. She left it on a side table in the living room over night. Next morning, my toddler sees it, and we are kind of not quite awake yet, drinking tea, etc. He picks up the set, coaster, lid and all, and screams with joy. The cup is shaking on the saucer. My wife screams, runs over to him and saves the set...just in time. She scolds herself walking back to the kitchen for leaving it out, then trips on a toy, and smashes the whole thing to pieces.

3) After having a guest over one night for a gong fu session, I rinsed all the tea ware, replaced it on the tea-tray on top of the dryer to air dry. NOTE: When I put the stuff on the dryer, it was not on. My wife comes behind me and turns on the dryer. After about 30 minutes, we hear a huge crash and see tea ware sliding all over the kitchen floor. Luckily -- and I have no idea how -- we only lost two cups and two aroma cups. The yixing survived unscathed! As did the porcelain faircup, and another set of cups!

Thanks for indulging me. This morning, my stand-by sencha which I can barely tolerate anymore...

[Victoria]

2) I bought my wife a nice gaiwan for her birthday. She left it on a side table in the living room over night. Next morning, my toddler sees it, and we are kind of not quite awake yet, drinking tea, etc. He picks up the set, coaster, lid and all, and screams with joy. The cup is shaking on the saucer. My wife screams, runs over to him and saves the set...just in time. She scolds herself walking back to the kitchen for leaving it out, then trips on a toy, and smashes the whole thing to pieces.

That's priceless!! You make a MasterCard commercial.

As for me, I really can't think of anything. There were bad teaware decisions in the beginning, but it's all part of the learning curve.

Foshou Hon Cha from Imperial Teas again this morning. One of my favorite teas from them.

[RaynBeatle]

Well I'm pretty clumsy but I'm surprised to say I haven't stupidly broken any of my tea things. *knock on wood*

[Chip]

... part of the big stage was the purchase of realllly big tetsubins. They make nice shelf decor.

Also early on ... even after reading on vendor sites about not opening lots of teas all at once, figuring this did not apply to me, I opened many many many teas, having easily 100+ open ... most being greens. This is clearly not smart, aka TeaStupid.

My enthusiasm turned to panic as I began to realize that I was not exempt and teas faded. Thus today I am a complete freshness freak and get anxious when open teas begin to pile up.

Live and TeaLearn.

[JBaymore]

Well I'm pretty clumsy but I'm surprised to say I haven't stupidly broken any of my tea things. *knock on wood*

NOW you've done it!