teakkurim

  23 tevet 5782 as MarshalN says, changing your water is the cheapest way to improve your tea. i have been avoiding trying to compare water for a few reasons. the first is that i am scared to admit to myself that it makes a big difference. i don’t want water to have such a big impact because IF spring water is tons better, that means there is yet another hurdle to having better tea. my mission for myself, and this blog, is to enjoy tea at a reasonable price and to be accessible to a westerner who doesn’t want to drop a lot of dough on leaves or accoutrements. yes one could easily buy spring water from the gas station but buying bottled water makes me furious (because its wasteful and all the horrible practices of companies who are taking drinking water from poor people so they do not have access to clean water). and if one doesn’t want to buy spring water, where else can you easily get it? how many people live near a natural spring?! ummmm… i do… you do?! then why aren’...

12 tevet 5782 the reason i joined discord was to have a good platform to buy second hand tea. i soon discovered the world of trading tea and find it one of the most enriching parts of being on discord. it supports some of the values i care about most. it encourages sharing, building community, education through first hand drinking experience, and it create solidarity among tea lovers and provides other means of accessing tea besides retailers. if this weren't enough, a big part of the tea community i am finding is honest generosity. not always, but most of the time, when people send me things they always include a little extra something. this is a practice i love and try to do my self. besides some nice added gifts, i have come across some very generous individuals who have sent me small portions of tea that are out of my price range or aren't available for purchase anymore. i am guessing many of these people who are comfortable in their financial stability and have a good supp...

   

1 tevet 5782 i don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the titles of my blog posts have some words that are hard to pronounce. yup, that’s right, they are Hebrew (well, Hebrew words ‘transliterated’ into the English alphabet…). i actually put a good amount of thought into what i want to title these blog posts. the Hebrew words are not the direct translation of the English blog post but they are references to something jewish be it a quote form the tanakh, chasidut, kabbalism, or aggadah. sometimes they’re just puns because i love puns (lots of jews love puns). in my ideal world people would google these words and try to figure out what the references are because they’re pretty clever and offer some nice niche insights into parts of jewish culture. so now that you’ve read this, come on, give it a try. don’t you like a little extra layer of word games and literary references in your tea blogs? feel free comment for hints if you aren’t able to find the connection. xoxo, atzei besamim ...

22 kislev 5782 a while ago , i wrote about what holds my leaves and my water for brewing. but what holds my leaves when they are hibernating between bouts of getting doused with boiling hot water? i live on a travel trailer. i am comfortable, it is warm, but it is still a trailer. in the summer, it can get very hot, and this is when i happily bring my tea inside my trailer to really soak up some heat. but int he winter and rainy times of the year, the trailer can only get so warm sometimes getting into the fifties at night even with my heat on. this means it is not a good place to store my sheng. i live on a five acres property where there is a main house, a tiny house (where my boo lives), a converted school bus (where i used to live), a newly built yurt, and this trailer i bought for myself. so where does my puer live? in my partner’s tiny house. that’s right, we don’t live together, but my tea lives with her. her tiny house, sided with cedar, insulated with wool, and snug ...

  3 kislev 5782 its finally happening. i am writing a post about weed and tea. it’s been a long time coming. ive wanted to write this so long ago but i thought i should have some more ‘respectable’ content on this blog first. it’s the same idea as when you don’t show your true self until the 3rd date date but that is not my style. either you like me now or you don’t. this is what youre gonna get so get used to it. let's get that out of the way quick. there is a lot to talk about regarding this topic and this will probably be the first of multiple posts. the first thing i want to start off with hearkens back to my previous posts . tea is a plant. it has a lot of noticeable affects on our bodies including immediate ones and ones we don’t see right off the bat (ie: naturally occurring vitamins and minerals etc. those phytochemicals affect our blood sugar or glucose levels or other scientific things i don’t understand and produce different reactions or sensations in our bodies). th...

28 cheshvan 5782 i am happy to say i still have plenty to write about for this blog. this includes a backlog of posts ive written that i keep saved on a word document on my laptop. i don’t live with wifi (by choice. yeah… im one of those). after i write something i have to be motivated and in the mood to use my internet time to post it to this blog. in addition to the languishing collection of posts adrift in the word document is a collection of tea notes that i write on scraps of paper and in a composition notebook that i keep next to me as i drink. and yes, i keep the notes in a journal so i can keep my tea time free of screens. its like my blog is caught up in some dysfunctional and inefficient bureaucracy of tea publishing. first, notebook, then word document, then send it to the presses once wifi is within reach and the article has been proof read enough, more or less, and then ‘click.’ still to come in the future is me talking about me beginning my journey into searching for th...

10 cheshvan 5782   since i mentioned it in my last post, i thought i would talk about the naked yiwu from teas we like. this is a well liked and well known tea in the western puer scene. it is made by a Taiwanese boutique brand called Xi Zi Hao (XZH) and it was my first Taiwanese boutique tea. like the love forever, i am not going to have any hot takes or new insights on this tea. off the bat i will say it is a very good tea but for $168/cake plus shipping, i am a touch let down. my one problem with it is that i don’t get many steeps out of it and i wish it had more stamina. i made this point on discord and some people also feel this way, but, the rumor is that the cake is blended rather unevenly and there are some real great spots and some just okay spots. i am still waiting to hit that sweet magic spot. one reason this tea is particularly liked is because the price is a good deal for something coming from XZH. their teas can be quite expensive. one reason it is more afforda...