teakkurim

16 adar II 5782 i am excited that my relationship to qi continues to evolve ( past posts on qi ). just with any practice or activity, the more i relate to chaqi, the more i gain. this does not hold to the isolated activity of ‘gong fu cha.’ the more we experience life, the more we can relate the world we are encountering and it’s generative lessons to any practice and vice versa. the more i consciously interact with chaqi, the more i learn to interact with qi in my other encounters. qi is not a one way street. yes, a tea has qi, but we as the tea drinkers can change how the qi interacts with us. one aspect of this is the classic example of how your mood can alter your experience. if i am having a grumpy day and feeling rushed and stressed out, i may interpret the tea as ‘energizing.’ but if i am calm, relaxed, and intentional when drinking my tea, i might feel the tea as more calming and not energizing at all. but here’s where the kicker comes in ‘hey, teakkurim, if one’s mood is what ...

21 adar 1 5782 a discussion that has been happening on discord lately (and im sure many times before i joined the server) is about judging a tea based on how well it will age and how well it will be 10+ years from now. classically, puer was only considered puer when it was at least 20-30 years old. and although i am not into strict fixed definitions, i recognize the reason for this distinction/delineation. 90%-99% of the 'puer' i drink (and same for many others in the west) is 'semi aged puer.' why do i only drink semi aged puer and not the 'real stuff'? well dear reader, i would if i could. trust and believe. although the semi aged tea i drink is very good, they do not yet have that markedly aged taste or feel yet. there is a certain something that truly old/aged cakes have that is distinct. i will happily write more on this subject once i have more of those teas (wistful sigh) most of this 'real puer' is very expensive these days. all the more so in ...

5 adar 1 5782 i am starting to settle into my tea habits. i have gained a good sense of what i want to drink and when. ive also started to gain a sense of how i want my tea budget to look. both of these things are a couple of the main goals for me on this blog. i now know that too much sheng is rough on my stomach. this is especially true for younger shengs. i don’t want sheng to be a daily drinker for me (maybe an aged huangpian or something decent and affordable and aged that works well for cow drinking. when i first started my puer journey i was hoping to ride the wave of the shouletariate and to have shou be my go to daily drinker while saving my budget for more fancy teas to be reserved for the better quality aged sheng. this hope was momentarily derailed by an experience with a fancy shou wrecking my stomach. but after drinking a lot of tea, and then drinking some more tea, i am back on the road to settling into that goal and being happy with it. i will write a future post about ...

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...

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 ...

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...

  29 tishrei 5782 (new year now)   oh, hey there! been a long time hasn’t it? i wasn’t kidding when i said i wouldn’t be posting here much during the summer. but the summer is now over and the season is changing. now the winds are getting windier, the rains rainier, the clouds cloudier, and sundown comes sooner and sooner each day. this is the time of year when i sit inside more and need my inside hobbies to occupy my time. all of which brings me back to this blog. i have a good deal to write about since ive last been here. im sure youre just dyiiiiiing to know what ive been up to. well, here, ill tell you. i made use of all the good sunshine we got out here over the summer. i did not camp as much as i wanted to to but i did spend a lot of time outside. i went for walks, sat outside, watched trees, listened to birds, squinted at bugs, and drank lots of tea. firstly, it is confirmed, i do not like drinking young sheng. i keep trying it and keep coming back to the same ...