A friend of mine just came back from a visit to China. He had with him the coolest tea drinking decanter/glass thingy. It was a like a single serving thermos, all glass with a metal strainer built into the top. Pop off the metal strainer, pour in your hot water and tea leaves, put the strainer back in place and then screw on a lid. After setting long enough just drink right from decanter/glass.
Anyone see such things about on the net and can point me to a link or two? Would appreciate any comments.
It's great for multi-infusion teas. I use water below 140 degrees F because there's a longer steep since the tea leaves aren't removed before drinking.
I use mine with water cooled to below room temperature. This gives green tea a chance to slowly infuse as I travel. I just refill it now and again as I move about. It's a great summer travel thing. Mine has a painting on the glass wall, and phoney diamonds embedded into the guilded pastic top. It's perfectly ugly in a perfect sort of way.
Thanks folks ... this is very much the idea of what I was looking for.
With the one referenced in the link, being a plastic based container, does that detract from the look and feel of it over a glass container? Does the bottle show scratches? The one I saw originally from China was glass.
I really doubt that it was glass unless it was double-walled. Some of the plastics they use are very dense and look and feel almost like glass. The single-walled are almost exclusively plastic, only WangZi double -walled are tempered glass (and they are expensive too). Double-walled have quite a gap between the walls so you can easily see the "internal glass" "hanging" there. I say that because if you ask for double-walled and the vendor does not have it he will nod-nod-nod and offer you one with thick walls which may look like it is double-walled but it ain't. Beware! Again the trick is to look at the bottom part - the double -walled is also double-walled on the bottom and it looks like there is another glass hanging in the air inside. The only factory that I am aware of that makes true double-walled is Wan Zi (Wan = King Zi = Son).
I know this 'cause I have several and I broke several too. :)
Yes, your right! The one I was looking at from China was indeed doubled walled. I'm sorry I forgot to make that clear in my original description. I know it was double walled because I was looking at it closely, inside and from bottom.
Did you like you glass version better than a plastic variety?
I liked the double-walled glass version very much. It did keep the brew hot for quite a time. I got it in Beijing. After I broke it (dropped on the hard floor) I wanted a replacement, but all my attempts to buy it in the US failed. :( Also you can't but them at a street corner, I bought mine in a gift shop inside Beijing International Hotel (the one with rotating restaurant on the top). It was 80 Yuan. They also have a hologram on the top that is dark normally and "develops" into an image of a deer when the liquid is hot. Nice since you can't tell by just touching the outer wall. Kitschy, though.. (as almost everything there)
Funny, I'm so used to plastic for water bottles, travel mugs, and the like that I never thought about it. I do use a glass mug so...yes, it's different, but not as cheap-feeling as my travel mug and certainly not as plasticy as my water bottle. The tea traveler's got more heft to it and...and...well, I just like it better.
Since it's plastic, I s'pose it will if I get rough with it. I got mine about 7 months ago and haven't knocked it around or banged it against anything much so it still looks good.
Sorry, I don't know of any Chinese glass tea travelers, just this one.
I like the feel and weight of glass. But, on the other hand, I broke three of these, so there *is* a trade off. Truthfully, I don't think the plastic would be a problem at all. What are the prices of these things nowadays?
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Hey, I thought were talking about the double walled sort. I wouldn't go for the single walled. They don't make it. But, if they are plastic, they'll make it longer than my doubled walled type, which, as I mentioned previously, I have a graveyard full of.
Sasha, what about the Dostoyevski translation question? Did you read the New Yorker article on this? As a yout, I read the Garnett translations, and thought D's prose was pretty smooth, but it turns out, according to the article, that the style I was actually enjoying was Victorian and Garnett. I'm trying to find top flight translations of his novels.
I'm not Sasha, I'm Michael. I got mine in a Chinese "department store" in New York City called "The Great Wall" on Canal Street just off the corner of Broadway. Sasha, what about it?
BTW, I see I have quite a string of posts this morning on rfdt. This, by the grace of God and for the weal of the tea drinking world, will be the last.
I bought the plastic "Best Chinese THERMOS Tea Pot Teapot in China" on eBay 7-8 months ago for $9.99 from the vendor (Yellow Mountain) mentioned up-thread, and I've found it to be a perfectly handy alternative brewing device. Although I'm usually reluctant to use plastic containers for tea, this one tolerates high temps very well without imparting any plastic-y tastes to the liquor. No drips or leaks, either -- as long as the top is screwed on properly.
I'm not Sasha, I can't read Russian, and I haven't seen the New Yorker article you're referring to, but I've been a Dostoevsky aficionada for 40+ years and can highly recommend the translation team of Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Their English-language texts are splendid, and although Constance Garnett's work is reliably solid, the Pevear-Volokhonsky renditions are beautifully literary in their own right/write. The duo has also produced an excellent translation of (among other works) Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita," in case you're interested.
Yes, thanks muchly, I'm very interested. Curiously, the author of the article wrote that the Garnett translations clean up much of the rough edge that Dostoyevski purposely placed into the prose, the mouths of his narrators, while the Pevear-Volokhonsky versions maintain the rougher spirit of the original. So, it's interesting to hear you refer to their translations as beautifully literary. Did Dostoyevski drink tea? That is the question. Why? That being the second question. Because without that question *somebody* is sure to call us on irelevance and send us packing to Dostoyevski.net. But, we'll refuse to go, right?
I'm about to embark on some Stone Orchard Scented Luk On (Liu An?) supplied to a friend of mine by another friend of ours. So, here goes nothing.
To me, "beautifully literary" doesn't in any way imply smooth or cleaned up text, but rather refers to the translators' ability to render the English-language prose in an artful (as well as faithful) style. And it's the "rougher spirit" (I'd describe it as "unmediated spirit") that I so appreciate in the Pevear-Volokhonsky translations.
Did Dostoyevski drink tea? That is the question.
Yes, he did, and his characters drank tea, as well. In fact, in "Notes from Underground" the narrator says something like, "The world can go to hell as long as I can always have my tea," a sentiment I'm sure many of us share.
Why? That being the second question.
Because he was a man of profound complexity and obviously good taste.
I'm enjoying an aged bao zhong myself. I hope your nothing was something.
I shall get my hands on "The Possessed" and "The Idiot" in their translation for a leisurely rereading. Thanks, I appreciate your astute comments.
Later for the nothing-something. Now, about that "aged" Bao Zhong: I would have thought we have here a bit of a contradiction in terms. To me -- I know there are other species -- a Bao Zhong ought to be only slightly oxidized, be emerald green in dry and wet leaf, have a lovely mouth feel, and carry the delicacy of melon or cucumber flowers. The finish should be long and smooth and refreshing. Could it be that "aged Bao Zhong" is the "invention" of a vendor who forgot to take it out of storage, and didn't want to chuck it? More seriously, I'd never heard of aged Bao Zhong. I have however heard of Bao Zhongs oxidized at or even over 50%. I think little of them.
I can see where excellent Bao Zhong is difficult to produce, given the narrow window of its delicate melon flower fragrance and taste; I can also therefore see how "they" would want us to adapt the dregs and left overs of their failed productions. (I need an attitude adjustment, I know.)
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