DOWNY 

It ‘s pleasant. Since some people know that I’m fascinating by drinking tea, sometimes they give me a specimen of a tea that they have at home and don’t know what to do with it. 
Yesterday I was surprised by a friend who came with a vacuum packed tea that her husband got straight from China. All text on the packaging was in Chinese. So it doesn’t help us further. Today I thought, don’t think too much, just open and try it. 

Surprisingly, it was an Oolong. The smell and the careful rolled tealeaves were hopeful. So I took a gaiwan and brewed the tea. After preheating the gaiwan and fill it with the leaves, the flavour awoke under the lid. 
What a taste! I started gently, so I took water of 85°C. But hindsight, it may even a little warmer. The taste of this oolong is very fresh, fruity and downy. I was pouring the tea up to five times and when I had more time, it would have been more. 

While my garden is playing with sun and ice, I cherish the warmth of a good cup of tea

 

 

Photo’s, gaiwan, plate and teacup (stoneware with slib decoration): Iris Weichler

JADE

In Japanese teaceremony  Chanoyu, the ceramic tea caddy or cha-ire is a very important utensil

It ‘s a small ceramic jar with a lid and contains the fine powder green tea, matcha, which is used for making koicha, thick tea.
During the ceremony matcha will be whisked directly in the tea bowl (chawan) by using a bamboo whisk (chasen), after added water with a temperature between 70°C and 80°C. :  

a cup of foaming liquid jade

Unlike the perfection of all the actions and the movements during the ceremony, the used ceramic items breathe the philosophy of the Japanese aesthetic view wabi

It’s the aesthetic principle that beauty can be find in simple and unfinished objects
It’s an indefinable beauty that waits patiently to be discovered

Give me a cup of tea and I will colour the emptiness of these grey days

Photo’s and Cha- ire (stoneware, black glazed with red accents): Iris Weichler