Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Make tea personal and beautiful

This is what my tea friend Toki did. For his wedding, he didn't just buy a puerh cake, but added a personal touch by designing a new wrapper with his and his wife's initials. And he also designed the neifei with his wedding date on the cake.


He actually went to Yunnan and ordered a whole lot of cakes directly from a farmer, selecting high grade leaves and buds! (You won't go through this trouble if the tea is just average.)

In the same spirit, I have made a special handwritten calligraphy for the best raw puerh cake in my selection (the 2003 raw wild Yiwu qizi bing). In ancient China, emperors (and powerful people) would add their seal on the side of a painting or calligraphy as a way to show their appreciation for it. So, if you like your puerh, or if your guests do, you coud all sign the wrapper! Each time you'd open the paper you would remember that day of shared tea friendship...

For loose tea leaves, a nice way to improve on the sealed plastic packaging is to use a fitting ceramic jar (glazed for fresh tea and unglazed for shou cha). Jars are so much more sensual to handle than plastic bags. They are nice to look at on a shelf or next to your teapot during the gongfu cha.

These are some ideas to treat good tea with respect. They can enhance our tea experience and enjoyment. Do you have original ideas that make your tea more personal and beautiful that you wish to share?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Merci (encore une fois) Stéphane pour ce post. Je dirais que "rendre le thé personnel et beau" est la base de tout. Mes propositions ? Finalement tout est dit dans mon blog que je me permets de mentionner ici :
http://emotionsdethe.over-blog.com
(désolé pour cette pub un peu intrusive...)

TeaMasters said...

Pas de problème Lionel! C'est vrai que ton blog est un joli hommage au thé. Que le thé t'inspire des poèmes te permet de mieux exprimer ces émotions ressenties que des notes de dégustation analytiques.
Et puis j'ai aussi aimé ton article sur la chambre de Van Gogh. J'avais tiré des parallèles entre hommes politiques et thés, toi tu es allé plus loin en sondant l'art de la peinture. Bravo et merci pour ton blog!

Anonymous said...

rien que lire ceci donne soif... de thé bien entendu