September 30, 2011

Tao Tea Leaf- Spring 2011 Tea Tasteing

Everyone listening and watching Tao prepare the next tea.
 It has been a fair while since June. The tea tasting at Tao's had left me with a large list of teas to get when I could. The tasting landed on the one year aniversary of being with Teaopia and keeping this blog.
Tea Sampling order:
1. White tea:  White Peony
                      Silver Needle
2. Green Tea:  Anji Bai Cha
                       Long Jing
                      Bi Lou Chun
3. Yellow Tea: Jun Shan Yin Shen
4.Oolong Tea: Phoenix Dan Cong (Almond)
5.Black Tea: Golden Needle
6.Pu-er: 2007 White Moon Loose (Sheng)
            Jing Mai (Sheng)
                                                                                    
    The teas I have from this year only consist of Tie Kuwan Yin and the very delightful White Peony. I do have craveings for the smooth lightness of Anji Bai Cha and the warmth of Phoenix Dan Cong (Almond). Haveing tried Phoenix Dan Cong (Honey) it is a nice little change.
     But since the news of the rankings Tao received for some of his teas has made me eager to try this years Da Hong Pao as it received 3rd place in the North American Tea Competition. The rest of his rankings are:
  • Dragonwell (Shi Feng)-First Place
  • Keemun - First Place
  • Imperial Puer (shou) - Second Place
  • Golden Needle - Second Place
  • Da Hong Pao - Third Place
  • Silver Needle - Third Place
The previous year three of his teas were ranked, Keemun Kong Fu, Golden needle and Da Hong Pao.  Their rankings were in sequential order first, second and third place. As I write up this post I am even drinking Tao's White Peony 2011 out of some fine china at my parents place (still need to leave my own tea equipment here). I encourage anyone that visits the Toronto Rosedale area to see Tao. I am eagerly sipping this white tea wondering what the next years batch will be like. ~
My Co-Worker thoroughly enjoying the afternoon with me

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September 27, 2011

Hysteria- Installation and Opening

 Posting this quite late (better late than never), here are the installation and opening images. Top images are by myself and the bottom two are by my significant other. Please pardon my squinting... I can not remember why I was not wearing my glasses that night.





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September 26, 2011

赤壁 (Red Cliff) - Tea Media


         Red Cliff became one of my favorite 2 part movie about 2-3 years ago. I was wandering through a few tea blogs and found out that tea is made (what looks like) Lu Yu Style. Quickly I sought out a copy and watched it, many times. Wikipedia's description is as thus:

Chinese epic war film based on the Battle of Red Cliffs (208-209 AD) and events during the end of the Han Dynasty and immediately prior to the Three Kingdoms period in ancient China. The film was directed by John Woo, and stars Tony Leung, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Zhang Fengyi, Chang Chen, Hu Jun, Lin Chi-ling and Zhao Wei.
 Xiao Qiao is very skilled tea maker. I was quite taken by her calm description of how to brew tea to Ciao Ciao. Stressing the importance of seeing the stages of boil and knowing when it is ready, and not past its prime. Here are some images of her skills, but be sure to check out the full two part movie.!!
Warming up the tea before scraping needed amount

serving the tea
Ciao Ciao tries the tea
Shallow open cups allow the once boiling water cool.
The brew.

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September 23, 2011

絵のお茶 (By me~)

"まっちゃ” Sumei ink,matcha, watercolour on paper

”Steam” Sumei ink, matcha,tea、watercolour on paper

”全部のお茶"India ink on paper (in progress)
More work here~
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September 22, 2011

見ませんか

見ませんかーthis is the focus of the current work I am trying to finish. I have yet to decide where this provocative ( atleast I hope it is~) statement can be put. 見- means to see, eyes etc. ませんか- basically means lets do this. In other words, let's see this. Paired with this very naked portrait it makes for an interesting work. This is the second work I have used Japanese text in. My other work is in my Tea series.
        As this work does not entirely cover the body but rather puts herself out there. This (hopefully) new series is a bit more provocative. Asking, begging etc. A large step away from "Reclaiming the Body" series and reaching towards "Hysteria" in its openness. Can not wait to get on to the second work~
    
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Darjeeling Jungpana First Flush- Davids Tea

         To start out my weekly tea reviews I picked out my favorite Darjeeling so far (sadly finished it too with this review...).  I originally bought this tea in an attempt to flesh out my taste for Darjeelings, instead it has kept me close to other light Darjeeling (such as Teaopia's Ambootia Darjeeling). At a mere $15.00 for 50g it was well worth trying.  Disappointingly it is "limited time only", thus I am in a search for a new one to replace it or to try.
         The Davids Tea website says this:
Darjeeling Jungpana First Flush
 Like always Davids Tea creates a little story or juicy description for their teas. This one keeps to the origin of the tea and tries to promote the estate. For my review I conducted it at work so that I could ensure the quality of water and temperature, at a latter date I will have the means to check the temperature at home. Below are my basic tools: a simple infuser and a glass mug. I used about two teaspoons to around 14oz of 100 Degree C water. The water at work is filtered four times in the back room and have not had any problems with other teas I have smuggled in.

 After steeping the leaves for three minutes I removed the filter. The leaves were quite green prior to steeping (forgot to take this image) and even more so after. The wet leaves smelled sweet, apple like, grassy and reminded me of fogy mist.
     The tea itself tasted smooth, mild, slightly sweet with a bit of honey and almost toasty. It reminded me a bit of Japanese green teas I have had in the past, or perhaps it was the lingering flavor in my cup from Genmaicha. I had cleaned out the cup thoroughly before hand . I am not entirely sure.  I hope to get a bit more of the tea before their supply runs completely out, again though if anyone has some suggestions I am open to them.


AFTER NOTES: As this is my first review (since Sumatra Highland) I hope to get better at describeing teas as well as prepare for taking the Tea Sommelier Exam (when I get there, wish me luck). I hope to get better at takeing tea photos as well, I recall seeing a toutorial for this and will look it up for the next review. Till then look forward to your next cup of tea!


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September 18, 2011

New work and submission deadlines



Over the next little while I have 2 submission deadlines comming up. The first is for an OCAD University Alimni show next spring and the second is a full proposal for Xspace (OCAD U associated gallery). Slightly overwelming how much needs to be done but do-able.
      If any of you follow my Facebook fan page you are aware of the new work sitting around. Tea infused with a but of a watercolourist feel to them, some small meditations on tea and dao. I hope this medative series continues for quite some time. In addition my knitted series is in the planning stages of a continuation. Alot is going on. Updates may only occur once every two weeks unless there is enough to update earlier. I am organizeing my time for my art and Japanese study. Hopefully what I have learned ends up in my work.
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September 15, 2011

Toronto Tea Reviews

     After alot of contimplateing on the direction of this blog, I feel that I need to do regular tea reviews. These will feature Toronto teas mostly, the odd ones will be from Bowmanville.  Once a week I will post a review, from either the shop or from my own desk (while I study Japanese).   I hope to focus on smaller tea shops just because I love them all so much.
   For the first while I may do more than just one review a week, my tea cupboard is full (over 30 varieties). I am hoping to work out a structure for the reviews today at work. I am very eager to start as I have teas from all over the city. Here is a list of shops I have tea from at this very moment:
     I hope these reviews get new people into all the shops or spark a new love for tea. I started drinking loose leaf after watching too much anime and some health issues which required me to be more aware of my stress levels. Now over 3 years latter, my health is much better and tea has taken over a large portion of my life. In the New Year, 2012 The Year Of the Dragon, I hope to be enrolled in the Tea Sommelier program. I have put this off for too long and next year will be a good year to start this process. Getting to the end my take some time but I am eager to meet new tea friends. 
         On top of all this news, I have joined the Tea Guild of Canada officially. The first meeting is this month and after checking the member list I am glad that I will see many familiar faces.  
    On a quick side note I am hoping to come up with a list of questions I get from customers and have some research posts. This may take some time for me to accumulate a few to look into but this project will be quite interesting. I am not going to leave any question out, simple or as complex as they get. As well my Japanese classes are going very well (began April 5th), I am beginning to find ways to include Japanese into my art (check out Split/Gender). Not just my regular stuff but my tea art as well, stay tuned as these works WILL find their way on to this blog!       


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