teakkurim

6 nisan 5781 as i have written about previously, i have a lot of dietary restrictions. bummer. food was a big part of my life. it was my career, it was what inspired me, it was a way that i expressed myself, and it was a way for me to connect to nature and other people. food still is all this for me, but it is something that also brings me a lot of stress these days.   i still love cooking and i  really  love cooking for others, but eating is the hard part. there are only certain foods i can eat and, especially during the winter, what i  can  eat is rarely what i  want  to eat.    that is why tea is so wonderful to me. here is something that maps very well onto the things i love about cooking. like food, tea is richly tied to years of culture including how it is continuing to evolve. similar to how i love the fun and hands on involvement of cooking, i love the act of pouring tea. i also love the aspect of sharing and hospitality that comes wi...

1 nisan 5781 the past couple of weeks my stomach has not been feeling well. it was feeling bloated and i had lots of cramping. there were a couple of days where it was hard for me to eat or drink because my stomach felt so upset. i had no idea what was going on.   i have a lot of health problems and it becomes extra stressful when something is happening in addition to my usual level of discomfort/pain. was it because i had missed a few days of one med that is supposed to prevent the side affects of another med that can cause upset stomachs? was it because i took an NSAID one day for when my body hurt more than normal and the cumulative years of NSAIDs were fucking up my stomach? was it because i had a younger puer and it was too harsh on my body? there’s so many variables it gets hard to figure out what is going on.   after two weeks, my stomach got a little better but not back to my regular level of meh. could it be the puer? i haven’t been drinking anything that young, but i...

24 adar 5781 recently, cwyn wrote a very poignant and well written post on her blog. this post brought out all my personal puer anxieties . cwyn's post is emphasizing that drinking the best puer you can should be your ideal goal. she gave a $200 minimum as a rough estimate for the cost for this category of excellent tea. $200 (the exact number isn’t what’s important) for tea is a lot of money for my income. she also emphasizes that puer is only going to get more expensive (especially because of climate change and how that affects yields). i don’t disagree with her and that’s what stresses me out.   i approach everything through a political lens. i am a political person. me and cwyn come from different places. she is retired after a long successful career. she is using her retirement and the money she’s saved to drink very good tea. i do not have a lot of money and who knows what social security will look like when i retire…   i think about everything in my life in terms of a...

22 adar 5781   i had another 7542 and it was worlds different than the last ones i had . it is all because of storage. the previous ones were aged in Kunming and stored in a very dry environment in the states. this one was ‘dry’ (aka: naturally) stored in hong kong. this one was bitter and had more bite, 2012 is fairly young, and although the PuerhShop 7542’s were lacking in flavor and texture, they were not as bitter because they were older.  the flavor i was getting from the 2012 was very different from the PS ones. this one was on the side of dark, plummy, some coffee tastes vs the PS one was grassier and very minerally.  the 2012 one was also a bit more stimulating. it didn’t give many quality infusions but that may also be a byproduct of its young age i am guessing. these statements are not groundbreaking or earth shattering for me. if you drink puer or read about it, these are some pretty standard statements. so why am i even writing about it? im one of th...

i just finished reading all of M arshaln's   blog. yes, from start to finish. i think it was definitely worth it. his blog is pointed to frequently as a reference and for good reason. he was one of, if not the first, serious blogger to write about puer in english and to gear it towards a western audience. although in the last few years he has written less because of having 2 kids and because, as he says, there is only so much he can say on this matter, having someone write consistently about tea over 15 years not only provides insight but also lessons one can only learn over time.  this is part of the reason i am writing this blog. sure, no one save a couple people i know are reading this, but i like to fantasize that one day, some people will read this in the future and may even choose to read it chronologically form beginning to end. i do have that idea in mind when i am writing. i want this blog to be an enjoyable read and i also want it to be informative. i want it to be a...