I stumbled across a post of hobbes some time ago where he explained he kept all of his loose leaves from tea sessions in a container of sorts. I decided that I would start doing the same, and today I had a little tea session with my own mixed batch. My 'mixed batch' contains some ten different teas. Some are blended and others are single estate. There's even a little shu mixed in there which makes things even more interesting.
The results? A thick orange soup that had a little bit of everything going on. It's not the best tea session I've had but it was certainly interesting. I must say it is a fine way to store loose leaves rather than just tossing them in the trash. Seeing as how many more teas are always being added to my collection, my mixed batch will be ever changing. Who knows, perhaps ten years down the road when many of those scraps have aged nicely, I might have a luxurious one of a kind product in my hands. You never know.
So, much like hobbes suggested, next time you're thinking of tossing those little fragments away, store them in a little container instead. You never know what you might end up with.
We do the same thing at The Tea Institute at Penn State, we have a couple separate containers for aged sheng, aged shu, young sheng, young shu, and then one odds and ends for any type of tea. The regular odds and ends one has a wicked cha qi since its probably a mix of some 15-20 different teas (of all classes except puer). In fact the last time I drank this it induced a severe headache.
ReplyDeleteI like this. you could tag that last sentence or so to a lot of things. Don't throw things away that could be contained and made beautiful again. I'm so glad you're my brother. God sure does love you.
ReplyDelete-stuart