A Tea Addict's Journal

Being a young academic means you pretty much have to deal with the nomadic lifestyle, at least until you find a stable job. I have to move again in a few months, and as anybody who’s followed this blog for a while would know, I’ve accumulated a lot of things in the past few years.

So in the interest of lessening the load of things I have to carry, as well as putting some of these items to better use than sitting on my shelves collecting dust, here are some teaware that I’ve dug up so far that I am hoping will find a better home somewhere else.

In the interst of not cluttering up the blog with too many messages, please inquire about prices or ask for more details/pictures by emailing me. My address is marshaln at gmail. The list of items here are

5 cups
1 silver plated kyusu
1 tea caddy
1 tetsubin
1 teapot + yuzamashi
5 chataku (one set)

Most of these I’ve used at one time or another, some rather extensively. They are no longer items that I use for my tea drinking, however, and will probably be more useful to some others. I also have some other cups that I am thinking of parting ways with. If you’re so inclined, shoot me an email too.

I’ve always been a little paranoid about putting all this stuff online. Being an aspiring academic, I don’t like the possibility of somebody taking my work without any sort of attribution. At one point I had my photo album closed off for precisely that reason, although I’ve since decided maybe it’s better to leave it open.

So things like this really has me paranoid. Now I’ve added a little Creative Commons license icon on the bottom right of this page. Not that it has stopped people, but it does, I hope, serve to remind people to respect other people’s work, however publicized it might seem to be.

for the new President-elect.

I’ve been rather busy trying to pretend to write, so things like blogging and, really, drinking tea the usual way, has taken a bit of a back seat.

That doesn’t mean I’m not drinking tea — plenty of it, in fact. I’ve been downing my aged baozhongs in a mug, which has all the benefits of an easy to brew tea that will never get bitter, while having none of the problems of, say, a black that will make my head hurt.

Now all I need is a tea that will make me work faster….

According to sitemeter, this blog has gotten its 70,000 visitor sometime yesterday. Those of you who use RSS, you don’t count 🙂

I guess that’s a large number, since when I first started it was really merely a way for me to keep track of my tea drinking, not expecting more than maybe the average 7 daily readers for your average blog. Over time, it grew into something else. I’ve gotten to know people who I otherwise would never have met. I have also learned more about myself, and my tea drinking.

So, a thank you to all of you who read this daily ramble, and to all those of you whose comments and correspondences make all this more enjoyable.

I neglected to do it last time because I was caught up trying to finish some urgently needed work, but this time around, I have no such excuse.

There is an online magazine out there, if you haven’t heard, about tea. Aaron Fisher puts it out, and it can be found at www.the-leaf.org. Take a look. It is advertising free and has some pretty interesting articles. Don’t read the ones by yours truly though, it’s not very good.

Happy Chinese New Year to all of you — and I hope the coming year will bring you many, many cups of great tea! 🙂