The Leaf, Issue 3...and tea with a friend

The third issue of The Leaf is online, and it contains an article I wrote about the anthropological field study Brian Kirbis conducted on Bulang Shan and the presentation and tasting at UC Berkeley that premiered his research here in the States.

I invited a friend over for tea on my only free evening this week--an increasingly uncommon phenomenon. Tea drinker, Thelemite, and type A individual, he hikes and mountain climbs on alternate weekends, works full time, is starting a business, does yoga daily, and otherwise stuffs his schedule to overfull. Understandbly, last night was the first time we met in over six months.

Menu:

1. Yongpin Hao Yiwu Mao Cha from Puerhshop
2. "Monkey-Picked" Oolong from Chado
3. Light-to-Medium-roasted San Lin Xi oolong
4. 1996 Muzha Tie Guan Yin from Hou De Asian Art
5. 70s/80s Guang Yun Gong

Too long had passed since I shared tea in a lengthy, tea-focused evening.

More later...?

Absence

I'm not posting much lately here. Life has kept me busy: I'm studying to suffer the GMAT and anticipate having more time for posts when the exam is finished, at least until I start school applications.

Also, ceramics classes have absorbed many of my free hours, quickly becoming a new passion: this much word vomit hasn't spewed out of my mouth onto friends and family since tea first became an interest. I can only thank them for putting up with the boring rantings of a novice potter. Tonight, I trim my first successfully thrown pieces, which include a chawan, a teacup, and three bowls of different shapes. I'll post pictures when they're finished. I don't anticipate them coming out very good. In ceramics as in tea, practice produces aesthetics.

These past few weeks, my teapots have brewed mostly sheng and shu pu'er and dancong. My dancong brewing noticeably improves each time, becoming more and more second nature. These improvements appear to enhance my brewing of all teas. For example, two shu teas once written off as mediocre now taste quite good, even when I'm not paying them so much attention.

More later. If you stopped by and read this post, tell me what you're drinking lately. :)