i dont know if this (google groups) works or not but anyway here goes. i started a group i am interested in incense and was wondering if anyone know about it... know this is a tea forum and i dont mean to spam this group but i think that tea and the I word can and in some circles does go together. i put the group here
Curious coincidence as yesterday I went foraging in NYC shops for decent quality Japanese and Tibetan incense, insensed by the prices I was too and especially since I wasn't able to try them out as it were. Turns out my friends in Ecuador like incense but have access only to the worst of it and we all know how horrid, obtrusive and god-awrful Indian incense can be, no offense to nobody here of course. Point: Any idea, Sherdwen, where I can cop some in NYC these days? I want to send it down to Ecuador by mail.
Personally, just as I don't smoke anymore solely so as not to interfere with the smells and tastes of tea, I don't use incense around tea either. Different strokes for different folks, eh?
I'm drinking this morning of a little cake of "Wild Ancient Tea Tree of Jingmai Mountain" from the "Lancang Ancient Tea Corporation Limited Yunnan China." It's leaf is quite dark, specked with lighter, redder, what I take to be buds. The tea liquor quickly blackens to opacity. Taste is soft, cooked, uncomplicated, pleasant all 'round. Lew, Mike, others: What the hell is it? Can't find record of it anywhere, but could be from David Hoffman or from The Tea Gallery. It looks to be a 100 gram cake.
On to your implied question: Sure, bring on the incense talk; we have time to fight over tea trivia, we have time to talk about anything. Besides, as Jim suggests and oft times demonstrates, you can't knock anyone off usenet, although I did once try.
What I see in my Tibetan shops are the incense candles and cradles for keeping the teapot warm. For some reason around here the higher the altitude the more shops. I think the teapot metal cradle for the incense is $50 with the candles running around another $10. Are those English characters on the wrapper? Once again, why do wrappers seem to have more English than one would expect?
I use a brand called "Shoyeido", and it's available in NYC or cheaper, online. Just google for it.
It's a refined Japanese brand and as you might expect, expensive, about $30 a roll. I have many of their scents, Matsu-no-tomo and en-mai being my favorites.
I was a collector of incense before I left for China, but living in China has stifled that habit. The only incense they have here is the stuff they burn at funerals, and it smells like burning paper.
I actually also quit smoking to drink more tea (I sense a potential public service announcement). I have found that this Japanese style incense is much milder, because it doesn't contain any wood. Mine is made by Shoyeido, but I think the brand is Eternal Treasure. I also bought what I think is camphor bark from a local asian store, which accompanies pu-ehr nicely.
I'd certainly be interested in joining. People who know me here are aware that I am Orthodox Christian, and incense is a huge part in our liturgies. I am currently trying to learn how to make Athonite incense for our parish.
1, Yes, indeed agreed. But, there are many styles of Japanese incense available and they all look superficially quite the same. Further, you can't quite tell what they'll produce by way of smell until you actually burn them. I'd say some of the Tibetan ones adjust nicely to Pu'erh as well. BTW, I did get mine. Thanks all for your helpful suggestions.
2, BTW BTW Nico, have you considered starting up some kind of tea review site as we'd mentioned? It would be a boon to tea and humanity, speaking of whom, a guy sitting opposite me on the subway train this morning was wearing a t-shirt that read, "Losing faith in humanity, one person at a time." Talk about your relevant philosophy.
3, I'm drinking of a 1999 "Mini Menghai Beengcha" gotten from David Hoffman's Silk Road Teas around a year ago. It's got that distinctive West Side Highway ashy cigar-smokey aroma, but the taste is sweet and complex enough to please most people. Flower is there, but I'll be having to push for more fruit in later steeps. It's a pleasing and beautiful thing and goes well with Lester Young.
Is it just my imagination, or did the liquor in the cooling down cup offer up a whiff of mint/camphor?
Maybe it'll get some legs here. I mentioned a couple of times recently an episode I was drinking a recent cooked Xiaguan Iron Cake this weekend. I say recent because who knows the year. On TaoBao they're selling 2003 for what looks like the same wrapper blemishes. It just struck me the single overwhelming note was the minty/camphor. Since then, I've revisted all my recent cooked pu and the camphor note is present in each one on a more or less basis with better note at warm drinking temperatures. I thought this curious when it is claimed it is a sign of aging in the greens. I think it is more than a simple arguement it can be added to fake aging when everything is around penny/gram and sold as recent vintage. I hope I have the same 1999 Xiaguan cooked bricks I bought early last year in Chinatown by the kilo (5 x 250) which went through the roof on TaoBao. Again the wrapper blemishes look the same. My price $8 for all. TaoBao $30 just for one. People seem to pay top dollar for items from last century. I'd have to say it isn't my favorite cooked but is the most complex and strongest with definite camphor. I remember thinking when I tasted this initially it smelled and tasted like rubber but it is the strong camphor with other notes. I hope this isn't the same camphor used to kill mice and now banned for such use in the US. I haven't checked but is camphor used to make tires?
Following you as I try to do in all things, I've done a rinse and two steeps on the same bing. I get some lovely sweet must, especially from the emptied cup, but no camphor so far.
As for incense, I think I have been able to discern the smell of the incence before burning it with the Japanese stuff, because there is no wood to distort the smell when it burns. Although one kind I have has a tendency, when the smoke disipates and combines certain other smells, the distinct smell of corndogs emerges...
As to the Wiki idea, my friend, who brings the programming expertise to the table, just started a job at a school in China, so he's really busy. I'm waiting for him to get back to me about it. I may have been a tad hasty in announcing these plans. But I hope we can do it. I will post the moment I get new info. Thanks for your support.
I suppose I'd ask the person in the subway at what point they had faith in humanity? Such a faith comes in many forms. The faith I subscribe to is faith in ones own potential. It's easy to be disapointed by people when you expect something from them. These expectations are more often than not selfish, in my experience. Better, I think, to be grateful for the people who surround you, and for their imperfection, and to take the harder look inward.
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