the path less taken

My bottle of Ardbeg 10 has gotten a bit less smoky with time, though, so your mileage may vary.

funnily enough, there is a tea store that specialises in lapsang called... Lapsang Store

lapsangstore.com

"where'd you get this lapsang? it's really nice!"

"oh, you know, the lapsang store"

I really like Postcard's boxes.

Postcard Tea's Original Lapsang. It's out of stock online currently. It had nice enough longevity, and a pleasant profile. I think I did get a Longan note, in a way somewhat reminiscent of how smoke evolves into fruit (but the fruit is already there in this tea) in some whisky. I quite enjoyed it.

the smoke itself is remarkably deeply integrated with the tea, being present in the final steeps. the liquor of this tea is about as smokey as Ardbeg 10. if you drink whisky, you may understand this is quite a remarkable feat.

i love the variability in what one considers to be light smoke, because the "lightly smoked" lapsang i have repulses most people from the mere aroma of having the bag open. what is your strongly smoked lapsang? would it kill a dragon, let alone a man?

nvm thats a stem there

neat uneven oxidation on that 3rd pic, some kinda dancong?

Though even fully slipcast works from this period are cool - it was not a fully developed technology at the time, so if this was slipcast, it is a very, very impressive piece nonetheless

This one is pretty high end - most decoration from this period was either machined or was slipcast separate to the body. Given there's no clear seam that I saw and no visible shrinkage in the decor, this one was probably carved by hand!

I've written about this period - it's a 1750-60s Staffordshire pot, and is when Yixing imitation pots in England were widely produced. All pots from this era tend to be 'Chinoiserie', even the undecorated ones!

Right? I was really hopeful that no one else was going to get it, but I thought it'd go for 350 or something if someone did

antiques can get expensive!

comforting to know i was never actually competing for this item

Staffordshire redware teapot, globe form with geometric and architectural decoration

was bidding on a teapot today, estimated £40-60 by the auctioneer. tapped out pretty early on, someone placed a max bid i couldnt beat. checked back later, after the auction ended. hammer price?

£3700

these id guides tend to carry other information about the plants, such as their season. i have used this approach to learn about some ferns in my area, but i mostly focus on other plants

i have been learning to forage recently. there are no people near me to teach me this, so I've been learning to ID plants by taking pictures of them at multiple angles, using google lens and then comparing the actual plant against id guides for the names lens gives me

its nice to be able to get the experience of drinking olive oil without actually drinking oil

a white teacup on a wooden tea tray next to a glass teapot full of green leaves

tried an interesting tisane late last night - olive leaf. early steeps have a slightly oily coating texture and the experience is overall like drinking olive oil (spicy, herbal, bitter, etc in the same way) without the consistency of actual oil

#tea #teasky

2006 Bingdao Lao Zhai Ancient Tree Puerh This tea was a small production by one of our good tea friends in Kunming. He has been in business since the 90's and in the puerh boom in the mid-2000's was making large quantities of ancient tree te...

essenceoftea.com/products/200...

That is actually cheaper than some of the teas I have just as a special occasional sample. Huh. No way to tell if it's legitimate, though

I wonder if that menthol effect is what you get in Bingdao - never will be able to afford any though!

I don't drink tea after 5:30pm so never tea after dinner for me!

A white teacup filled with brown liquid on a rattan coaster, next to a red clay teapot on a wooden stand

Also tried EoT's 03 Jingmai and their 04 Xiang Yun Hao the other day. Both were quite strange, with the Jingmai being discordant and having a distinct menthol cooling effect and the XYH having a very thick brothy texture and a grain note. Need more sessions to dial in

#tea #gongfucha #puerh

The difference is 1 gram and a different teapot, and slightly more attentive brewing today

It's pretty interesting how much and how little a pot (and your brewing) can make a difference on your tea. Today's session with EoT's 05 Duoteli is a nice and clean liubao with some interesting notes, while yesterday's tasted like carrot cake and was incredibly vegetal

Currently drinking Postcard Tea's Classic Tieguanyin, which has revived my interest in Anxi oolong, which I have generally found to be too green or fragrant in processing to be enjoyable. This one has no such flaws, and an aroma that fills the room without tasting like perfume.

Cool pot, is that one of EoT's?

Mushishi is why I own a cast iron wheel medicine grinder

The soundtrack of the anime is one of the things that really does it for me

Great series

no picture today but EoT's 1999 light ferment shou is real nice. quite clean tasting, thick. no bitterness or astringency, even when overbrewed. has a few lower grade leaves. will let it settle a bit longer but it's already quite promising. good candidate for getting an entire brick