Thursday 21 May 2009

My future Tea corner

Dear my loving readers,

To add color to the tea drinking area, both Chinese paintings or Chinese Calligraphy are normally used to decorate the area. This is vital to create a tranquilly of environment.

To give you a real feel of it, below I have attached several such paintings for your viewing. These are the paintings I am thinking to use for my future tea corner.



To follow my previous post on my present tea corner, please click at the title of the post. You may take a quick tour at the tea corner I currently having.

I am planning to create a new area for my tea corner segregate from my dining hall. This corner will be solely used for tea preparation ceremony and entertaining my guests purposes. This ares will solely display all my tea stuff and its utensil, which currently scatter every where in my house. That is the reason I need to consolidate them at one place - really promote this healthy culture and at the same time having fun of it.


Below are some of rosewood furniture I have in mind to use to decorate my tea corner. Alternatively I may use rustic log table.





With all the above furniture and display cabinet, I will then be able to consolidate all of my personal tea pots and related utensils into one place.

Please forward me some other ideas or plans you have for my consideration. Thank you in advance and look forward to hearing from you,


James Oh

Thursday 14 May 2009

My Great Appreciation for the Award

Dear my loving readers,

I write this post to record my appreciation for awards given by Linda of Psyche Connections. I too love getting awards! Big thanks to Linda.

Below are the reasons as to why I love blogging:-

1. given me an incredible opportunity to "meet" such creative and talented people. As you may aware that I have many hobbies and interests - I love the diversity and I have and am learning an incredible amount about, from people.......Thank you for sharing your thoughts and your ideas and the heart of who you are through your blogs.

2. share our talents, knowledge, interests, creative works, experience so as to strengthen our friendships.

3. To impart our specialists knowledge for the betterment of the world.

4. To share the beauty of our arts and culture so as to enhance mutual understanding and color to our lives.

5. To encourage, inspire and motivate each other so as everyone can achieve greater success in whatsoever they endavour.


A gift for every reader....Please take this one away with you...The One Lovely Blog Award..... Thank you for enriching my life with your blog!


Thank you Linda!
Please check out Linda's lovely award that I received recently. It has a vintage feel that I really enjoy and I am looking forward to posting it today.

I love reading Linda's blog. I find inspiration there every time I go. Check out her writing and here thoughts about life and spirit. Just click the title of the post to make access to her blog.

Cheers and have a lovely day,

James

Friday 1 May 2009

HOW TO BREW A GOOD PU'ER TEA

Dear our valued visitors,

Drinking Pu'er tea is more than an art. It has been part of the Chinese culture for more than a thousand years. Due to its long historical record, there are several versions of preparing good Pu'er teas amongst its passionate drinkers.

For those who have very hectic daily lives and intent to slow down. Then they may consider tea drinking their hobbies. Tea drinking may not only nurture individual patience, but also working towards balance and healthy life.

To brew a good Pu'er tea, you also need to pay attention in details. Everything counts - water, tea base, utensil.

WATER
It is one of the key deciding components in brewing good quality of the teas. Spring water is preferred because it tastes comparatively much better and convenient than other type of water.

Spring water may be safer than your drinking water. Bottled water or spring water is definitely the drink of choice especially if you live in a neighbor with lousy and unsafe tap or well water. Tap or well water could be contaminated with high levels of chemicals (lead, arsenic and benzene), micro bacteria (bacteria, viruses and parasites), and hazardous materials (glass chips and metal fragments). Imagine drinking all of those disgusting inhabitants every day. Yuck!

That's why in the ancient time, the people at that time very much preferred to collect the stream water at the mountain top because it is less contaminated. They also prefer to have tea at the place where they can find tranquility - well balance with natural beautiful scenery with birds song, sound of waterfall coupled with cozy breeze blew beyond words. You can only use your imagination to do the work.

Please take note the contaminated water will affect the taste of the tea. This is because the tea leaves find will not be dissolved well into it comparative to clean stream water. Stream water is also much softer comparative to other type of water especially those with highly contaminated.

It is advisable to heat up the water about 80-95 degree, when you begin to see the bubble rising from the bottom of the kettle. Now, you know why I recommended you to use glass kettle in the first place. Once you see lots of bubbles rising from the bottom of the kettle - well indicate that the water is over boiled. As a result, the water become comparatively harder.

When you pour the over boiled water to another tea pot with the Pu'er tea, you will realize that the tea leaves will not be able to dissolve well comparatively with the former. Naturally, it will affect not only the aroma, but its taste as well.

KETTLE HEATER
Because you are using the glass kettle, therefore you have to use the conventional mode instead of electrical heater, which is more convenient and easily available. One good side is that it will nurture your patience because it more tedious. After all this is the beauty of having such a hobby.

UTENSILS
There are a lot to deal with this topic. Therefore, I opt to discuss further in my forthcoming posts.

Thanks and trust you enjoy reading it.

See you again,

James Oh