Tea in the Beginning (2007)

lcy.net

29 points·B1FF_PSUVM··3 comments

Tea is a very broad and interesting subject. Even if you ignore culture/history and just look at what you can buy today, and drink.. it's more than you can reach over. Climate/environment/elevation, species/cultivars, harvest time, processing method, age/storage method, and countless other factors play in.. You'll go broke trying to taste it all.

Babelcarp Chinese Tea Lexicon [0] is very useful if you are exploring tea culture. I will also throw in Baisao [1] as worth a read - if Zen monk turned tea seller sounds like your kind of thing.

[0] http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baisao

Not to mention tea pots and cups. There's an almost endless variety of materials, shapes, sizes, glazes, finishes, decorations etc.

My personal favourite tea pot is a traditional chinese blue clay pot. And a potter friend made me a set of wonderful and unique tea cups with a raku finish.

I love writing code, but goodness me am I ever passionate about tea.

> Not to mention tea pots and cups.

Oh absolutely, and let's not forget the middle between leaves and teaware: brewing technique. It's incredibly wide, ranging from decorative chaxi to "obviously bullshit" mid-air hand gestures to straight up science (heat retention, fermentation, etc).

> but goodness me am I ever passionate about tea.

It's a great hobby. However, my advice to beginners is always to keep the passion and dreams in check when it comes to purchasing decisions. If you think software marketing is bad and full of buzzwords ... don't try tea.

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