Sunday, 5 April 2009

in japanese style





making tea
in the afternoon
white blossoms
scattered by the wind
memories of you

the rain my tears
how could you know
my lonely spring
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24 comments:

  1. Peter6 April 2009 at 03:48

    mesmerizing delicasy.. which reflects your heart and soul..

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  2. Anonymous6 April 2009 at 04:30

    thank you for this peaceful moment

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  3. Shuddho6 April 2009 at 09:03

    Is that really tea?? it's so green it looks like spinach. Oram I tooliteral minded for your subtleities

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  4. Emese6 April 2009 at 17:37

    Frumoase culori, si nu numai! :)

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  5. Anonymous6 April 2009 at 18:22

    Tout en douceur!!! J'aime!

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  6. Roxana6 April 2009 at 22:37

    peter, i am touched...

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  7. Roxana6 April 2009 at 22:38

    you're welcome, anonymous. i was indeed in need of some peace.

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  8. Roxana6 April 2009 at 22:45

    zuma, of course it's spinach that i try to sell as tea :-P

    nonono, i'm afraid it's not my subtlety but that of the japanese: of course it is tea, that's why it is called 'green tea', and here you have it in the most concentrated form, the powder (matcha) that it is used for the tea ceremony. but to be totally true to the facts, i should add that this is only the case of japanese tea, because chinese green tea is more kind of yellow (and of course the green tea that is sold in those bags all over the world is not green either, so of course i understand your astonishment).
    most foreigners don't like it, at least when they try it for the first time (they complain that it has a fishy/seaweed taste), and especially those oriental ones which are used to drink black tea with sugar. my iranian friend was horrified :-)

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  9. Shuddho6 April 2009 at 23:05

    of course I guessed it was green tea, silly....only i've never seen any so virulently green before (being not such an expert on things japanese as some people ;-)). In India and sri lanka, we have famous makers of green tea, but they are almost brown - the orange Pekoe from darjeeling for example (darker than even the chinese variety, though they taste quite similar). I'm sure the taste of this tea will take some getting used to - I don't fancy seaweed first thing in the morning thankyouverrymuch!

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  10. Roxana6 April 2009 at 23:47

    zuma :-P

    i know you have good makers of green tea, even ecological farms. but orange pekoe is not green, it's a kind of medium grade black tea, i think. perhaps you have never tasted real green tea? you should give it a try, really.

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  11. Roxana6 April 2009 at 23:47

    multumesc, draga mea emese.

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  12. Roxana6 April 2009 at 23:47

    quel beau mot de la langue francaise, omami: douceur! j'aime tant...

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  13. Shuddho7 April 2009 at 09:53

    It's a little more complicated than that. Darjeeling tea is traditionally "black" but the best flowery pekoes are only partially oxidised (somewhat like "oolong" in china). In India(exept chinese and japanese resturants), oolong is commercially marketed as 'green tea' or 'darjeeling green', as totally unoxidized green tea does not suit the Indian palate much. tea is not naturally "green" or "black" see -(i mean per commercialusage- it IS naturally all 'green', being leaves...), it depends on how much oxidation is done to it - which in turn depends on how the flavor of the type of tea in question is best retained.
    So the flowery orange pekoe I have says "green" on the label...it is ofcourse "oolong" but it tastes like green tea,not black

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  14. mansuetude7 April 2009 at 19:13

    the bowl is sensual, beautiful.

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  15. Roxana7 April 2009 at 19:24

    it is one of my preferred bowls, mansuetude. i'll show it in more pictures soon.

    thank you...

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  16. Roxana7 April 2009 at 19:29

    zuma, i didn't know about this indian approach to tea. in the international system only the unoxidised teas are considered to be 'green'. so orange pekoe would be the partially oxidised type, i see now - like oolong, yes. still, even for oolong, the taste is completely different from the green tea. and even chinese green tea is not at all similar to the japanese one. but fabulous, i remember the longjing that i received once as a gift (practically impossible to find it here).

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  17. eneles8 April 2009 at 15:27

    op is of course not a mittle grade, ftgfop is about the middle, the vintage ftgfop first/second flush would be upper middle class, and starting from sftgfop we get into area of actual tea ;)
    as xi hu long jing goes, you can get it here, about twice cheaper than in hangzhou for some reason

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  18. Roxana8 April 2009 at 15:52

    eneles, we are delighted to hear your expert opinion on this :-) (as i rarely drink black tea, i cannot pretend to be so knowledgeable about it). as far as i understand it, OP is a term used to describe a specific type of leaf used to make black tea. i think that as a generic name OP implies 'middle grade', but maybe on your scale this doesn't even exist :-), so you prefer to start counting from the flowery type, which is in fact already a higher grade, not middle.

    i wonder about zuma says, that it is used din india to describe partially oxidised teas, since everything i read about it states that it is used only for black teas. maybe what the indians call 'green' in regard to pekoe doesn't refer to the level of oxidising - as zuma assumes - but to the quality of the leaves used, that is: only the leaf buds.

    thank you for that link.

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  19. Shuddho8 April 2009 at 16:35

    I used the term the orange pekoe as a generic term - as all them trade distinctions come from the same kind of tealeaf; and calling it middle grade would only refer to certain,you've guessed it - middle grade orange pekoes(the trade 'OP'). the quality keeps improving depending on which flush it is picked at(the first flush is the best,followed by the second, and the monsoon pickings most plebian) and also how high the leaves are - the flowery pekoes are only the top 2 - 3 very young leaves. Some grades cost the earth (and that in West Bengal, the state where darjeeling actually is- cos my parents ship it me one only exchange of hands from the estates) so orange pekoe is not always 'middle grade'.


    When i mentioned orange pekoe in context of 'green tea', I was not talking about the quality of leaf. fact is that all tea leaves can be used to produce black tea(by total oxidation),oolong (partial oxidation) and green tea (minimalor no oxidation). It all depends upon the manufacturer's choice with those leaves. So it is with flowery pekoe as well. The darjeeling tea you know so well in the west is usually a black tea made from orange pekoe, but you could very well use the same to produce green tea as well. I have with me at present two packets from Glenburn estate - both definitely green; one orange pekoe (slightly stronger, less flavour) and one flowery orange pekoe (more exclusive,subtler flavors). Both are very much green tea in taste (though they dont look as green as spinach).
    No, we Indians don't call tea green or black depending on the type of leaf used (since as pointed above, any leaf can be used to produce either black or green tea), but solely on the level of oxidation. So if Glenburn's doesn't oxidize their flowery pekoe,it becomes the green tea packet I'm gonna drink in a while;-).
    Do mail me mailing address,sothatI can send you some- It's from my own Bengal, after all....(though these days there are some separatist movements...)

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  20. Roxana8 April 2009 at 17:05

    omg this tea discussion will become endless - not that i mind this, after all, what could be more rejoicing than talking about it while i prepare more tea pictures - and some poems to go with them, because: of what use might all this tea knowledge be if we don't go back to poetry and enjoying the tea in silence (or with friends)?


    meanwhile, send me those Bengali packs, Zuma :-) i'll be forever grateful :-)

    and of course, thank you so much for taking the time to write so carefully about indian teas! however i am still puzzled by the fact that OP can be found in the non-oxidation form, i 've searched on the internet and all that I read points to the fact that it is about oxidized leaves. so indians are truly one of a kind in this respect - well not only in this respect :-))

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  21. eneles8 April 2009 at 18:20

    in a way, knowledge is essential. I only learned about long jing due to a random stop on a random gas station in zhenzhiang. I would have used my own tea, but I overslept and had to buy some - it is true coincidence. However, if I knew that monks from hangzhou area traveled to japan and started planting tea, which eventually became sencha I would figure out that hangzhou tea might be similar or, in many cases, superiour (not to mie prefecture, no). similarly, till last year I thought that ftgfop 1st flush is the top of the line - yet set of coincidences brought me to discovery that the good tea comes with the letter "s". Moreover, there seems to be a connection between percieved taste of tea and its action on your mind.
    but as you say, to know is one thing...

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  22. Roxana8 April 2009 at 18:30

    eneles, I agree :-) 'in a way, knowledge is essential' :-)
    but when it comes to green tea, Uji gyokuro is still the best. it is simply beyond words. and the matcha that i've had at a tea ceremony in Uji is also unforgettable.

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  23. eneles9 April 2009 at 14:30

    that maybe cos you don't know about the existance of shincha gyokuro ;)

    it should be, uji matcha is the most expencive tea here, retailing at 2000/kg

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  24. S.15 April 2009 at 05:41

    Oh, such a gigantic gift you have !

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