Im in downtown yesterday soaking up the Christmas atmosphere. I visit some old haunts. I checked out the tea books at one of the largest independent bookstores in the US. Its been awhile since Ive seen what is new in print. I was impressed with The Story of Tea A Cultural History and Drinking Guide by Mary Lou and Robert J Heiss. Its a couple who buy and sell tea. I enjoyed the pictures of actual tea processing which they shot themselves. There is one with big stones that is used to compress puer. They mentioned that Java is the third species of tea next to China and India. Ill say it again I can taste the lava. I would have bought it but the binding was separating probably from people perusing like me. There were several other books on tea that looked interesting but I ran out of time in the afternoon. Not really a haunt is a little deli marketplace which I know has been around since 1970 when I first visited. I had some time to kill before the Gala Ball later in the evening so I stopped buy and ordered something off the blackboard called Cambric tea. I never heard of it before so I looked it up on the Internet just to check. In this case it was a piece of rock sugar with half tea and half steamed milk in one of those big mouth coffee cups that weigh a ton. I got the ROT teabag du jour but thought at the table their LS would have been perfect. The Gala Ball had an urn of hot water and a tea caddy of scented teabags. When am I going to learn to bring my tea blossoms or puer.
Jim