it occurs to me this morning how crucial the drinking vessel can and should be to the tea experience. for example, i cannot drink ANY tea out of a mug. to drink a delicate green from so gross a construction would seem to be a bad thing. i've been drinking a lot of oolong lately, and for that i use a small, un- finished red-clay cup made in india. it adds immeasurably. for greens i have a small japan-made cup, like a little tea-bowl. these encourage sipping and savoring.
i'd be interested to know if the cup you use adds to your overall tea experience..........p*
Yes, I use a corningware mug- lighter than the pottery mugs I use for my early morning coffee, yet holding enough for me not to run out in the middle of something crucial. I have a couple of small Japan made cups, holding 5 ounces, that I occasionally use for greens and whites, but usually I keep them in the back of the second shelf behind the measuring cups. It is important to me to keep my tea mugs and coffee mugs separate. Toci
Depends on the tea for me...I have mugs I drink my blacks out of with milk and sugar, the usual, but for greens I've been using large clear glasses (I drink a lot of tea if I drink it...right now I guess I'm the opposite of gung fu concious). I have used a wine goblet for greens too, but I can't decide if this helps or not. Also I have a smallish ceramic cup, sort of like the smelling cup in a tea tasting set (taller than wide etc) that does help with the scent.
I am curious to find out (and when I get other types of goblets I'll see ) whether the idea of a particular wine goblet for a particular type of spirit carries over to tea. For instance, would a goblet made for red wines and designed to show their tannins to the best effect, be good for a heavily oxidized oolong? On the other hand, tea tasters have been doing it for ages and chances are they know best as to what vessels show the tea best.
First of all, I want to acknowledge that drinking from different vessels, say a guywan or a tasting cup, does affect the experience of drinking tea. I have a set of Russian podstakani that we use for "special occasions." How one consumes the beverage does have an effect.
But, for the most part, we (my wife and I) simply don't care. We use mugs. We use teacups with saucers. We use insulated travel mugs while commuting. We typically drink tea for the flavor and the caffeine, not for the "experience" of drinking it.
Admittedly, this is a rather pedestrian approach - especially in the presence of those who admire and practice Asian ceremonies. But it's life. Neither my wife nor I like coffee. We drink tea because we're craving a hot beverage with caffeine. We love the flavors and we love trying new types - scented, flavored, blended, or otherwise unadulterated.
Ceremony is nice, but I don't have time to dwell on ceremony when I'm working. I just want my tea (and I get a little cranky without it).
Admittedly, that makes me a "tea gourmand" and not a gourmet. But so be it. I'll wear that label proudly.
I do most of my tea drinking from small 2oz. Japanese cups, probably like the one you refer to. I have one at the office that I use with my Zisha Gaiwan to brew and drink green puerh. At home in the evening my wife and I usually drink some Japanese green or an oolong in the same type cups. I agree that it encouraged sipping and savoring. Somehow the tea just seems to taste better from them. Maybe it's because I tend to slurp a bit of air with each sip. Could help bring out the aroma in the taste.
I don't minds mugs for black or some greens such as gunpowder. I must admit to occasionally brewing several steeps of sencha and filling a large travel mug when I'm on the go. I'd like to get a clear glass gaiwan to brew greens and oolongs at home.
You mean a railroad chai cup? Is the idea to have the cup taste of oolong even when you drink water from it?
My favorite cup these days is a tall, thin-walled porcelain cup that rarely gets filled even halfway. There's plenty of room for the vapors to swim around.
I have my morning tea - a very malty assam - with milk - in a heavy glass 18oz beer mug :)
It adds to my overall experience by being easy to handle when I'm half awake, and by being more convenient than two 8oz mugs.
At work it's a tempered glass mug with walls so thin I fear that if it ever breaks it will lop a finger clean off, or at least slice me to ribbons.
It is an integral part of my tea ritual at work. It just wouldn't make any sense any other way.
Other times, it's 6oz glass mugs. Yes, I do see a pattern forming.
I'm considering finding a rocket ship or sputnuk themed podstakannik to complement hours spent reading polish science fiction, since i'm really just a big, grown up nerd anyway.
I'm not advanced enough to distinguish tastes from different drinking vessels, so I just try to follow whatever's recommended.
I use a very thin glass cup for most green teas and oolong, so that I can let the water cool down faster, look at the leaves sink and the hair ("mao") floating in the water.
If I'm brewing with a tea pot, I use a cup that's big enough for all the tea. My green tea pot is 16 oz --> big glass mug, and my Pu-er pot is 7 oz -->my normal porcelain cup.
For teas steeped with a teaball, I use porcelain cup.
When I'm in the mood, I look around cupboards for something fancy.
I'm thinking of getting some little clay cups though.
Now, when traveling.... I don't enjoy using my thermos... the colour changes and the taste is sort of lost. I'm thinking of, instead of putting steeped tea in the thermos, I'll put hot water in it, and bring along tea leaves to brew wherever I am.
Yes, definitely. For black teas, I like the cup that came in a Brown Betty Tea-for-One set or a glass mug. For green teas, I usually use the glass mug if I'm feeling thirsty or a small Asian-style cup for regular sipping. For white tea, it's gotta be an 8 oz bone china mug because the thin wall and turned edge go so well with the delicate color and flavor. For rooibos, it's another tall, 12 oz mug.
I don't think depth gets in the way of seeing the tea, but shallowness prevents the aroma from concentrating in the space over the surface of the liquor.
Heavy thick hand-made clay cups have a dramatic effect on my taste buds. Even water seems tastier in them.
I also have cups that are white, white inside or whitish, if you use them too much, that gives a feeling of being in an old laboratory. It's a pleasure to enjoy a same tea in different color environments. I have a fascination for green tea in black-blue bowls or deep turkish blue, white-blue* and celadon cups. I find macha in white bowls very unappetising.
*in Japanese light blue is mizu-iro and the color of the liquor is sui-shoku but both are written with the same characters, so seeing sui-shoku in mizu-iro is always fun for me.
I guess I don't drink much of the type of tea appropriated for your thin white china cup.
I drink my tea almost exclusively (both at home and at work) from bone china mugs. Upton tea has a nice selection of Roy Kirkham mugs, and I have a nice set of 4 that I got from Smithsonian catalog. They are not at all cheap, but they are worth it to me.
I also have a set of 4 asian tea cups that a friend brought back to me from Japan. These I use occasionally.
I will absolutely NOT drink tea from paper or styrofoam. To me, they ruin the taste.
Sometimes it's ceremony. Sometimes it's a mug. Occasionally it's the mug ceremony. At least you don't use bags. I can't say the same. Now, to look up gourmand and gourmet.
For tea, I use off-white Gung-fu sized cups or Shino glazed saki cups at home when we have no guests.. In the office I use five ounce, white interior, Japanese cylindrical cups or porcelain Gung-fu cups. All depends on mood. For company, I use Gung-fu cups that work with the tea-stuff and the tea. Often I use aroma cups. The mood of the moment has a lot to do with it. At Starbucks, I use a paper cup and a teabag.
Michael
KALLE snipped-for-privacy@t-online.de/3/05 04: snipped-for-privacy@t-online.de
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