Re: Tea! I don't understand it! Please Help!

Which begs the question: Why my interest in finding Japanese-sytle green teas from China when those from Japan already fit the bill? I should be happy in my complacency.

--crymad

Either that or allow for the possibility that your taste may change in ways that might let you appreciate other possibilities in greens, "dirty" or otherwise.

/Lew

Don't get me wrong -- some of the Chinese greens are quite nice; a good Dragonwell can be very enjoyable. Even some of the Vietnamese greens aren't bad. But if you like the uniqueness of the Japanese greens, from what I've tasted so far, it's not going to be easy to find a very similar tea from China.

N.

snipped-for-privacy@corp.supernews.com7/23/03 22: snipped-for-privacy@hotmail.com

On Japanese and Chinese Greens

I think it's an apples and oranges issue. I really like certain styles of Japanese Sencha and I love the better Japanese Gyokuro I've drunk, but I'd be very much surprised to find their styles duplicated or even approached in a Chinese green. Sometimes, however, a bastardization of styles can be just the ticket: I think the best Darjeeling "oolong"I've drunk were extraordinary.

On Teabags

Think what you will, I don't use teabags. I'm sure if you place a high quality tea in a bag and put the bag in the appropriate amount of appropriately heated water, it will yield up a fine tea. But, I'd miss the look of the leaves in the water, which is part of the pleasure of the thing. I'd be loath to hide the beautiful bright green colors of a good gyokuro in a bag. For convenience, I use a Dutch glass strainer cup. (I do have to clean the strainer. Life is tough.)

Anyway, just my four cents.

Michael

Can anyone here make sense of this?

Then so be it. Most all tea-loving Japanese spend their entire lives happily drinking tea from their homeland without ever feeling the need to investigate the offerings of their neighbors. The Chinese are probably the same way. This urge to "broaden one's horizons" seems an American affliction. Must we as tea drinkers insist on boundless variety, 31-derful flavors to choose from?

--crymad

Affliction? I don't feel harmed by it. I don't think the urge to try a variety of tastes is characteristically American, either. And if you drink sencha, gyokuro, hojicha *and* kukicha, you're in danger of succumbing yourself.

We as tea drinkers may do as we please.

/Lew

Troll.

Over the past few years, the Japanese greens have become my true favorites. I still buy the occasional Chinese green.

N.

This is one of the saddest thing I ever read. I hope you don't really mean it. Because, what you call an affliction, this urge to broaden one's horizons, is the main characterisc of the inquiring mind. It has nothing to do with Americans in particular. It's very human. It's the willingness to undertake new ventures and it's called curiosity, inquisitiveness, mental acquisitiveness, enterprise, initiative, an open mind, a free spirit. All signs of the awaken mind. Or in other words, intelligence.

If you forbidden yourself to be amazed by all the possibilities waiting to be discovered, then, in my sense, you are missing the point of living. Life is too vast, diverse, and short to be wasted on an ethnic origin. We don't choose to be born Japanese, American, Caucasian, Asian, or from whatever other origin. So, why add to this by being segregationist with yourself?

Don't be a vegetable. Explore. Be free.

If you have to explain the punch line it's not funny. Obviously nobody has been fired for violating a policy in the employee's manual or too many as I suspect on the public dole.

Jim

Luckily, I haven't read it- since I have him killfiled. I was only able to read what he wrote when he was quoted in another post.

From what I can tell, though, Crymad proved that I was right in calling him an arrogant loon- in the bad sense. I think SC is loony too- and sometimes brilliant. Lunacy is not necessarily a bad thing.

As for genders- my husband was male. Not that it makes a difference, since a female ex-lover of mine is very ill right now. However, as nasty and acid-tonuged as I have ever been in anyone's mind, I have never wished the ultimate horror on anyone- to be left to mourn the person they love the most. I would indeed grieve if anything ever happened to crymad's wife, even though I am not heterosexual, because to lose one's loving spouse is a thing that is beyond any pain known to most humans, with the exception of putting a child in the grave. However, having gone through that, I now know I could survive almost anything. It remains to be seen how crymad will react if this fate befalls him. I sincerely hope that he has a great deal more support than most people get, because it is in that moment that all sexual orientational differences fade into nothingness.

You have gone way too far.

HSH's sexuality has nothing to do with any on=topic discussion here. Ridiculing someone based on their sexuality is completely tasteless.

Respect for one's fellow human being aside (because some will snicker at that notion even though I do not), consider what you are doing. Assuming you or even most people find someone else's practices tasteless, how can it be appropriate to bring them up here?

Even as someone whose life is nothing like's HSH's, I get very concerned when someone goes off in a direction such as you have:

1. It is wrong to intentionally hurt someone else. Period. No exceptions.

1. So you don't like an aspect someone else's personal life? Fine. Don't engage in it; stay away from the topic. Nobody is forcing you to get involved. One doesn't have to look too far in the past to see what can happen when people think it is okay to deride/denegrate a particular group of people based on some characteristic that the general public thinks is odd.

Bottom line: Can it.

Debbie

exceptions.

I couldn't have said it better myself, and now I don't have to. crymad, I implore you...please remove your hateful vendetta from a place where it's neither appropriate nor welcome. I won't contribute to this thread any further, other than to tell HSH that she deserves better than this. I don't understand her lifestyle, but it's certainly not my place to judge and ridicule her. HSH, I'm sorry for the losses you've suffered.

Okay, I'm done.

-- Tee

Lewis snipped-for-privacy@panix1.panix.com7/24/03 18: snipped-for-privacy@panix.com

If the point is to build a fence around experience, than I agree with Lew. But, there is the larger issue of trying every tea in the world vs becoming intimate with a small number, if you will. I remember Hamada, a Japanese potter of note, once saying in answer to a question as to why he used the same simple design on his pots over and over again that it was different every time he painted it, that he was intimate with the design. I sometimes find myself ranging into too broad a field of tea types, spreading myself too thin, as it were. There is definitely something to be said for getting to know a tea really well rather than flitting about. Crymad's point is well taken.

Michael

Julie C.bB1Ua.2284$ snipped-for-privacy@tor-nn1.netcom.ca7/24/03 23: snipped-for-privacy@privacy.net

We Americans broadened our horizons quite literally through earlier centuries by manifesting our destiny to own and control the North American continent and by extension have lots of experiences. To get our land, we stole, maimed, killed, exploited, threatened, and generally engaged in a popularly supported orgy of genecide. I'd like to say we've given it up in the new mellenium, but unfortunately, I can't.

While there is nothing intrinsically wrong that I can see with going into a wine shop or cheese shop or bread shop and having thousands of choices, or having hundreds of TV channels at your fingertips, there is also something to be said for familiarity and depth. You can experience the whole world in a dew drop too. It is indeed an affliction to demand the range of experience and ignore the depth. And I personally think it's not possible to do both.

Segregationist, my foot. It was just a suggestion that we are in danger of bouncing around so much, we lose the possiblity of depth. Or maybe I'm reading into it as much as I'm accusing you of doing.

Oh, baa.

Apples and oranges. Blah, blah. Sorry, just venting. It's a touchy issue for me. Hope we're still friends.

Michael