teakkurim

6 tammuz, 5782 over the past 4 months, my life has been consumed by work and school. it felt like all i was doing was working, reading research articles, and going to classes. thankfully, that is no longer my life. to my exuberant surprise, i dont have school during the summer, yay!!! this means i am going to try and do as much camping as i can. i still have work to think about, but that is manageable. with some normalcy returning to my life, i am trying to rebuild the habits of doing what make me happy. one of those things is writing (and not just blog writing). another of those things is praying which, like exercising, is z hard habit to pick back up after tucking it into the part of my mind labelled "things i will do when im not doing school and work at the same time anymore." speaking of exercise as a metaphor, i am rebuilding my habit of going to the gym. i still did it during classes but not as often as i liked. time to get buff... as if. even as i write this post, this...

5 iyar 5782 i have not been posting regularly on here because...drum roll...i started graduate school. ta dah. i am on my way towards getting a teaching degree. not only that but i am working while doing graduate school, so all of my free time is taken up by homework.  in addition to spending my time on homework, i will probably continue to post even less as...another drum roll...the weather starts to get nicer, yay! that means more time outside, less time indoors, and way less time with screens (no offense computer). more time outdoors means more tea outside. i am blessed enough to live with a patch of woods behind my trailer. i spend a lot of time in those woods; walking around, singing, doing tai qi, praying, and now, drinking tea. i pack up my bag loaded with; drinking vessel, tea, lighter, kindling, wood fired camp stove, and water. then i trudge on down to nestle myself between cedars, ferns, and a tiny lil creek. i love working with fire, tending fires, and cooking with fire...

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 ...

  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...