An apology if needed.

I really hope I didn't offend anyone by describing a tea as being colored like urine. That was the only thing I could think of with the same pale yellow transparency. Something sure cut of the discussion when so many people who responded wanted clarification as to how the tea was brewed and was the yellow bright or dark. I have some Wuyi coming from Imperial Tea Court and a few more Oolongs that I haven't tried. Over the last thirty years I have done everything I can think of short of going to China to find this tea! The way things are going I might find myself over there on business in the next few years.

WEL

Reply to
lubarsky
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Don't worry about it. I certainly wasn't offended. I might add that if you think this might offend those who read this newsgroup, you probably haven't been reading it very long!

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

I was offended and nearly upchucked. Now I can't drink tea without thinking of drinking pee.

Reply to
Zarky Zork

I am not in the least offended by your analogy, but as any urologist of yesteryear can tell you, urine varies greatly in color and taste. To make your analogy meaningful, you need to go much further. The straw color of a snow patched meadow is one of my favorites, but of course it's equally unhelpful. Anyway, the pee analogy is as good as any. Hope you're not offended by my criticism.

Michael

Reply to
mplant

I thought you meant you drink a lot of pee. To each their own.

Jim

lubarsky wrote:

Reply to
Space Cowboy

Well, no, I don't think we're offended, just that.... something else came up and we really have nothing else to offer you, in terms of which tea it might've been anyway.

I still think it could be a lighter fired Wuyi...

MarshalN

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Reply to
MarshalN

That's not offensive. Now, if you had said it TASTED like urine, that would be offensive. For one thing, people would want to know how you knew.

Apple juice, maybe? Part of the problem with your analogy, though, is that urine has a very wide range of colors, so it won't really help people get an idea of what it's like.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

You should try kombucha, then.

--scott

Reply to
Scott Dorsey

My guess is apple juice is too dark.

MarshalN

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Reply to
MarshalN

I think what you all should do is to use a color key to identify color. The printing and graphics design industry has been using it to identify color for a long time, why not us?

Just do a google search on color key. This is one of the websites offering color key:

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Alternatively, people can buy color key from a print shop. It looks like a fan when you open it up. (Think 'Jotun' paint machine at Ace Hardware.) It has all the number codings and fancy names on it.

In case some of you don't know, this handy color key is used to standardize color perception in printing. For example, we are staring at a color and we found out what color it is on the color key. We take a picture of that object and try to put it in our magazine. If the correctness of color is that important to us, we need to make sure what we have on screen is what we have on the color key by using software such as Photoshop (picture color is always off.) Lastly, the printer technician will need to do visual comparison with a color key as well so that the final printout looks exactly like the original.

Hee

MarshalN wrote:

Reply to
Hee
[Hee on color keys and pee]

Hi Hee, Yes, a color key makes good sense, but there goes poetry down the old drain, if you follow my meaning. Michael

Reply to
mplant
[Hee on color keys and pee]

Hi Hee, Yes, a color key makes good sense, but there goes poetry down the old drain, if you follow my meaning. Michael

Reply to
mplant

Where is Sasha when we need him?

(Referring to an [in]famous post of a few years back which I wish I had saved.)

Rick.

Reply to
Richard Chappell

Plus ever try to match a fleck of paint to a color key?

Jim

snipped-for-privacy@pipel> [Hee on color keys and pee]

Reply to
Space Cowboy

It's a good idea, for people who want to be able to specify color more objectively. If I may, a few suggestions and warnings:

  1. The web site mentioned lists screen colors for emissive displays (like a computer monitor). For a number of physical and cognitive reasons, such cannot readily be mapped onto the color of a light-absorbing physical object like tea. One key is the notation RGB, which applies to additive colors (mixed lights). You need subtractive colors (often listed as CMY, CMYK) for this. Google it if interested.
  2. There are several standard sets of these, available at little or no cost. Probably the two most common in the US are Pantone and Munsell. Pantone is a standardized way of mixing standard printing inks to match a wide range of colors, though tending more to strong tones (technically, high saturation) than appropriate for tea. The Munsell "chips" are likewise available in fan-out strips, have a very simple and intuitive color-naming system, and usefully divide the needed color range. I was surprised to find a septic engineer using Munsell chips to describe the subtle colors of different layers of sand in my percolation-test pits. Free color chips at paint stores aren't very useful, since they have arbitrary, proprietary names.
  3. In comparing tea with color chips, the illuminant is important. Color can change dramatically under different lights, an extreme example being the gem alexandrite going from red to green. (Google "metamerism" for more.) For reasons having to do with the shape of absorption curves, this is less of a problem with tea than with synthetically dyed clothes, e.g., but it would still be best to match only under clear northern light or some other smooth-spectrum standard.
  4. Brewed-tea color terminology is often pretty sloppy. In describing Pu-erhs, for example, people often confuse "depth of color" with transparency - they are linked, but a nearly colorless brew can be nearly opaque if it scatters a lot, and a perfectly "clear" solution can appear quite opaque due to pure absorption. Similarly, the apparent color of dry leaf can depend a lot of how sharp ("specular") or broad ("diffuse") the light source is, especially for shiny (waxy or wet) leaves.

More if anyone wants it, perhaps off-group. (I used to work in a color lab and give talks on color theory to artists and engineers.) Personally, I'm with Michael - for those not in the business, how much precision is needed?

-DM

Reply to
DogMa

Richard Chappell4586bfab$0$3078$ snipped-for-privacy@spool.cs.wisc.edu12/18/06

11: snipped-for-privacy@stat.wisc.edu

This is where Google comes in handy. Let us search the meadows and sniff the air for wild stallions. Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

Excuse me?

I am always here, just silent (I know, I know, it seem unnatural :)))))))) But I am going through the hardest time in my life (too much excitement of anticipation and promise and high-profile allies but almost nothing in terms of action for too long) and that descends on me in a form of mild stupor.

Sasha.

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

Also, when it comes to the shades of yellow there is a wonderful language to describe them that was developed at the biggest amber deposit in the world in former Eastern Prussia not far away from Koenigsberg (Kaliningrad after it was annexed in 1945) - a small town of "Yantarnoe". Unfortunately its in Russian and therefore of very little use on this forum. But I remember vividly descriptions like "beer piss", "dull bloody piss" and "cream in piss not stirred" Also there was a "tea amber" that would be used only for very dull watery reddish yellow variety that was of the lowest quality and they developed a technology that would produce small leaf-like internal cracks with high reflectivity (naturally) by very carefully heating the amber in special conditions that at the time was a secret (although everything was a secret in Russia at that time). The funniest was the way they called very rare (I have never seen it outside Yantarnoe) blue amber - "gay piss" - because "blue" in Russian is a "gay color" and used to describe things and people gay.

Sasha.

"Richard Chappell" wrote in message news:4586bfab$0$3078$ snipped-for-privacy@spool.cs.wisc.edu...

Reply to
Alex Chaihorsky

That's fascinating, Lao Tongzhi!

/Lew

Reply to
Lewis Perin

Sasha, thanks for expanding and elucidating the piss analogies. So much to learn, and so little time. Michael

Reply to
Michael Plant

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