A Night with White Pheony

4 kinds of tea in 1 day! That is a lot of different infusions for the palate.

Decided to end the day with a light and refreshing brew of White Pheony from Cozy Teahouse. You can see a white fuzz on the tea leaves. When brewed, the white fluff kinda falls off the tea leaves.

A light yellow liquor tasting of freshly cut grass brings one to green pastures surrounded by fields of tea plantations.

No strong after taste lingers in the mouth, making it an ideal way to say goodnight.

Rainy Day

It is a rainy day in Macau. No better excuse to sit at home and drink tea. Started the day with a nice dose of Taiwan High Mountain Oolong and moved on to Pu-er cha.

I was inspired by pictures on the web, so I whipped out my camera, set it to f/1.8 for a thin Depth of Field at let it rip. Arranged some used Oolong Tea Leaves and a cup of freshly brewed Pu-Er.

I like this shot below.

The Duo

Just wanted to photograph the 2 teapots together.

After my renovations, I will probably be able to expand my teapot collection.

Pu-Er Teapot

My second Yixing Teapot is now in my hands. I am very happy with the purchase.

This teapot was crafted by Ms Shen Chai Er who is also the wife of Master Wang Fu Jun. Apparently she dips into her husbands stock of valuable clay to create her teapots.

This teapot is made of Zisha from Huanglong Mt and is considered of good grade clay.

Cozy Teahouse was very nice to offer "seasoning" my teapot so that I can start brewing tea immediatly without going through the tedious process of adding tofu, sugarcane and tealeaves.

Right now the clay is in it's "Virgin" state where the surface is totally matt with no shine and a bit sandy to the hand. I am dedicating this teapot to brewing Pu-Er as the walls are thick which is excellent for those long hot brews and because the colour seasons well with Pu-Er.

Enjoy the pics of this large and heavy Zisha Teapot. It feels and looks so masculine that I absolutely love it. Watch out for Mrs Zhuni in the next installment.

NEW TEA BOAT

So excited!! Cozy managed to get me a new tea boat in exchange for the one that I returned due to the minor cracks on the cover and it only cost about S$18 more than the earlier one.

This new tea boat has more heft and size. I love heavy and solid things, so this tea boat suits me to a T (No pun intended).

With only a single surface, cleaning and maintenance will be fast and easy. Only thing is that there will be a permanent hose attached that runs down to a catch bucket. I will figure out how to make it neater when I bring it back to Singapore.

For now, enjoy the tea boat pic below.

New Tea Tray

My bamboo tea tray was leaking, so it was time to look for a new tea tray. I wanted something bigger as I found the bamboo one too small for all the cups, pitcher and teapot.

Once again, I headed to Cozy Teahouse to look for a nice tea tray.

German took out 2 tea trays available, one made of Bamboo which had a light brown color (MOP 295) and another solid wood (looks like rosewood) tea tray (MOP 450). The wood quality and workmanship of the rosewood tray was much better than the cheaper bamboo tray. It was 2 times heavier than the bamboo one and had a very nice wood scent.

What I like about this new tea tray is that I can just attach a rubber hose to drain out the access water accumulated below after a few tea sessions. It has a rubber plug to stop water from flowing out of the outlet, however a few drops of water did drip out when I did not press it in hard enough. After plugging it properly, 1 drip of water will still appear after 3 hours which is fine but I rather it did not.

I was a bit sad to see 4 "crack" lines on the top cover when scrutinizing the tray. Probably check with Cozy if this is "normal". I am not sure if I am being picky cos my wife is not bothered by it.

Update: After checking with Cozy, they said that they will change a new tea tray for me. I have to admit that they are a trust worthy teahouse. 100% recommend this teahouse to tea lovers.

Xiang Pian

This was a surprise gift from my parent-in-laws. It was packaged in a nice cardboard box. The tea leaves are whole and loose with a nice light fragrance. Most probably hand picked leaves. So quality should be quite ok.

Only a single short rinse to loosen and cleanse the tea leaves. The first brew is nice and flowery with a light amber liquor. I found the tea a bit sweet with a tint of bitterness at the end, the flowery fragrance is exceptionally strong which i found pleasant. This tea is easy on the palate, however to me it does not have enough body and depth.

All in all, an easy drinking tea which even the uninitiated will still enjoy.

Pu-Erh from Hong Yuet Tea

Out of courtesy, I purchased a can of Pe-Erh from Red Moon (Hong Yuet) Teahouse (MOP88 = S$15). The tea has to be rinsed twice and also to "loosen" the tea ball. The liquor is very dark almost opague and smells almost medicinal.

After 2 rinses, the tea is still very strong and has a strong earthy taste, I think it is also rather acidic and bitter and I can feel a strong dryness in mouth after swallowing. After about 5 brews, the tea does loosen up a bit, but it does not go down the throat smoothly.

The spent tea leaves are "minced", there are no whole tea leaves to speak of. Probably the tea leaves were machined picked.

In summary, not worth the money. I rather spend money on grocery and snacks.

Teapot Modelling

Trying my hand at photographing my teapot. Harsh shadows at the bottom can't be helped as I am only using a single flash.

The background is just normal paper. Hopefully with more practice, my pictures will be nicer.