Tea Arts 茶藝

Last week we had teachers, Riccardo, and his classmates come and played the guqin and it was like stepping back thousand years or so,, back then music was held at a high social status. This string instrument can poduce a multitude of sounds. this is a writing from our friend Riccardo, --You know in ancient China, the appreciation of the incense, tea, fine art,music and literature all together formed an complete elite culture, but today it was cut into diffrent fields which looked totally with no relationship between them. It's really pitiful! I hope our guqin society can go to you tea society again and establish along termco-oparaton to restore the subtle elite culture in ancient China.We also have another guqin society in my school: I am the Director of it. We has some kind of concert called 雅集( we invite everyone who love the qin, but do not sell the tickets) around the end of every semester.Hope someday we can play for you all!Best,Riccardo Yeh,,,, Taipei DEC 2006 ---icetea

I was looking up orchids and found this great piece of info...I can't vouche for all the info, if is a nice bit of work. the following is from the site http://www.pineridgeorchids.com/ """Barbara and I have become hopelessly enthralled with Chinese, Taiwanese, and Japanese teas over the last 10 years or so. I will attempt to give you some background information and some of our experiences with enjoying cha in the following. All true teas as we know them (in contrast to flower and herbal infusions) are from the leaves of a Magnolia-related evergreen tree – Camellia sinensis. The tea trees are grown in tropical and sub-tropical areas, but the best leaves are from trees grown in higher elevations up to 9,000 feet (2,740 meters) where the leaves will grow more slowly and produce a richer flavor. The many different styles and tastes of tea – white, green, oolong, black, and the pu-ehrs – are the direct result of the regional variety of tea bush or tree, the local envir...