the dragon sleeps tonight

Sleeping Dragon leaves presteeping

Relatively often, I hear about what a wonderful community we tea bloggers have.  Tea obsessives go to the World Tea Expo or World Tea East and wax poetic about the generosity of the people they meet there.  

Although I've met many tea shop owners here in Germany (and some in England and The United States), most of my experience with the people who populate the world of tea has been here in cyberspace.  I'm not complaining.  Am sure I'll make it to a trade fair at some point.  Until then, I intend to continue taking advantage of the fantastic opportunities to connect with tea drinkers online.

A week or so ago, I read about a tea tasting that Courtney Powers (otherwise known as @ThePurrfectCup) was hosting where she'd be introducing several sorts of green tea.  Jokingly, I said that I wish I could magically transport myself to Upstate New York and try the tea she was talking about.

Like I say, I was kidding.  There was no way I was going to make it the next day to Courtney's little tea shop.  But she offered the next best thing.  She got my address and sent samples of the tea along.  What an unexpected surprise.

I read her recent blogpost (A Green Tea Tasting) with a different perspective, because I knew that soon enough I'd be able to actually taste the tea she was describing.  My plan was to actually brew up each of the teas she served and pretend I was there.  

Alas, it wasn't to be.  I got distracted steeping and resteeping Sleeping Dragon from Adagio Teas, and then ended up writing a tea review about it.  

I'll link to the tea review when it's been published, but suffice it to say I enjoyed this tea. 

Not sure why they bill it as a tea for a green tea novice, but as advertised it wasn't remotely grassy.  

The best part?  Well, the time that I set aside for multiple teas, I spent really focusing on just one.  The last few weeks, I've been drinking tea functionally.  Good tea-no question. But tea on the run.  Tea for the train ride.  A pot for the other musicians and me before a rehearsal.

In this case, I really gave my full attention to each steeping of this Sleeping Dragon.  It was worth every minute.  Even got a little tea drunk in the meantime.  As a result, I think I might even sleep as well as the dragon.

Thanks Courtney.

thinking of an American teaseller

Although being in a little village up in the Bavarian Alps means I'm not personally visiting new teashops, the tea world gets more and more intimate partially due to the web.

Every year I say I'll do my best to make it to next year's World Tea Expo, which is wrapping up in Las Vegas, but things get in the way and I'm left promising myself that it's not the last one. I can always go there for the next one, right?

So here I am enjoying very mercurial mountain weather while browsing tea shop sites (If I can't be there in person, I can go there virtually). I've been meaning to write a glowing review of Upton Tea Imports since I had such a fantastic experience ordering from them back in the spring, but things kept getting in the way.

About that review of Upton Tea Imports? Well here it is. Everything about the ordering process was effortless, and it seemed as if the tea arrived much more quickly than was possible. But there it was. The hyper-critical among you will say, 'They're an tea seller who offers tea online. That's what they do. You order tea from them, and they send it immediately.'

Well, be that as it may. The website was easy to understand, and regardless of what some might consider service to be expected, it seemed above-average to me. I had it sent to my brother's house while I was travelling in the States, and upon my arrival my sister-in-law and I had some wonderful Pu-erh fannings, which I wrote about here: fannings aren't always teadust

With my tea the Upton Tea Quarterly was enclosed. There was a very interesting article about the history of Ceylon Tea. There's something similar, and much more brief, on the Information page of the above-mentioned website, but the in depth article seems to be only in the Quarterly itself. I'd read versions of the story in various places, but it was nice to see it compiled in such detail there on the page.

That's all I have for today. Need to get back out in the mountain air, but I wanted to mention the excellent experience I had. Were I more often in the United States, I'd definitely take advantage of this site/company more often.

Here's a photo of Bayrischzell. It's nearly as far south in Bavaria as you can go before you're in Austria.