This Journal is where I record details of my Tea brewing sessions, the ones where I am specifically focusing on my craft, rather than simply brewing a fine beverage. I consider _Brewing_ to be a conscious, creative, crafty act, and to get better at it one has to practice and reflect. I am purposefully constraining the scope of the teas that I drink with this intention, to Sencha Tea and Oolong Tea, with ventures in to Puerh and small batches of whatever catches my fancy. By constraining my practice, I can constrain myself to Aracha (荒茶), and have a chance to look much more closely at terroir and the effects of the changing seasons and the impermanence of it all.

Adding to the Journal

: #+ARROYO_EMACS_MODULE: tea-practice : #+ARROYO_MODULE_WANTS: cce/org_mode_installation.org : #+ARROYO_MODULE_WANTS: cce/dynamic-org-captures.org

Here's a CCE Practice Capture for Tea practice in to this file:

(provide 'cce/tea-practice)
(use-package tea-time
  :custom
  (tea-time-sound "~/org/data/bell.mp3")
  (tea-time-sound-command "mpv %s"))

(with-eval-after-load 'org-capture
  (add-to-list 'org-capture-templates
               '("jt" "Tea Practice" entry
                 (file+olp+datetree "~/org/tea_practice.org" "Practice Log")
                 (file "~/org/cce/captures/tea-practice-template.org")
                 :tree-type week)))

,* %U [[id:80661910-20e3-4a77-9fc8-9e6a04ae6de0][Tea]] Session: %?   :tea:

- Leaves:
- Volume:
- Teaware:
- Water:
- Mood:

,** Tasting Notes

,*** First Infusion

,*** Second Infusion

,*** etc

Practice Log

lately i have just been logging in my Journal and linking back to this page, rather than writing directly in here, but this has an public RSS/Fediverse feed so more concrete thoughts and sessions will be recorded here for syndication.

This log is published to an Atom feed at //thelionsrear.com/tea-journal.xml and published to @lionsrear@notes.whatthefuck.computer on Fediverse.

2024

I've been thinking a lot about Sencha lately.

2024-04-02

Sencha has been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe it's just spring, maybe it's more, I've been drawing myself toward the business of hawking my passion. But it's a tough nut to crack. These teas are delicate and incredible when you hit the mark. The vogue in tea is toward aged and pressed and oxidized teas, beautiful things in their own respects, I'm starting to see how sencha differs somewhat fundamentally from these other teas, and so even folks who are deft with a gaiwan and have impeccable gong-fu don't often experience these teas at their heights in the same way that they could pick up a high quality Chinese green tea.

But when you brew a sencha well, when you hit the mark, it tastes like life, and it makes your mouth water.

People have trouble describing the "umami" or "savory" flavor, but it's the flavor of life. It's the flavor of certain aminmo acids, some of the core building blocks that power our metabolism and well-function. They may not stick around and may not be 100% bioavailable but our body craves it.

It coats your tongue. Then the astringency of the tannins hit. Your mouth feels as if it's drying, but your mouth is also watering from the savory flavor as the sub-conscious machinery of your body rush to collect those building blocks and build with them.

It's brewed with water air-cooled to be the perfect temperature when it hits your mouth to maximize the flavor and minimize the sting of hotter teas. This requires careful work, and I want to understand how to do that work well and to share that sensory experience with others.

(images loaded from another domain for the web since attachments still aren't published [i am working on fixing this!]: //notes.whatthefuck.computer/media/44fe992825b0107a81847cfe0bb8e3b1f1634e19048d8b5fb3b74212980dd28a.jpg //notes.whatthefuck.computer/media/c65d5605ad1beb3daf26a9e73c729b8ad51a9750e1da4abdd87b150d659d6eb3.jpg )

So my buddy James and I got together this morning for tea before he moved to a town a couple hours' drive from my current locale, yet to a different bioregion entirely.

It was a sunny cool spring day, the sort you only ever read about, we Brewed Kyoto Obubu Spring Sun and our 2000 Da Du Gang cake and a similar vintage Liu Bao (more, but not much more, on babelcarp), sat and talked about tea and things about tea, leading to this post. About half the rhododendrons in the garden were blooming, and my allergies still haven't started completely ruining the weather. Really nice time, a perfect spring day.

And on the way home I picked up an incredible gift which I'll write more about next.

2024-W15

2024-04-08 Monday

2024-04-08 Tea Session: Kyoto Obubu Natural Gyokuro at alice's, dog watching

• Leaves: Kyoto Obubu Natural Gyokuro

• Volume: 5g

• Teaware: clay travelware

• Water: junction city well

• Mood: good, high, nice. deep in metta practice for zen.

• 45 seconds at 175F out of electric kettle. high astringency and a nice flavor, lighter umami than id like

• same session trying to see if more umami can be extracted now that the leaves are wet. mostly good, about as much as this tea can handle...

• 60 seconds at 150F cooled water, its 19:25->19:39 to cool it while i groomed the dog with the teaware covered. more flavor intensity with the cooler water, hard to place though. the mouth is watering now, the astringency on point. maybe its 150F tea. maybe its 140F...

the tea has a lot of pectins, that soapy top-ness, the tea doesnt get fully circulated with my stacked teaset. wish i could see the color, but its good. its really good.