Sunday, September 9, 2007

Weekly Mandarin: 6

6th Edition: Cha

cha-cha-cha. No. I haven't started ballroom dancing again yet. But I did get a very elaborate tea-tasting during a visit to the local tea farms. So this week's word is “cha” for tea.

Of course, here there are so many kinds of tea. And usually I just drink whatever I get handed. But during my tea tasting, I got to eat some wonderful (and addictive) tea-roasted peanuts and I tried 4 varieties of tea. Personally, I seem to be a weak-tea drinker who doesn't care too much about the scent of the tea but hates an aftertaste, so ended up with a lovely green tea (which, I was told, is so called because it is not roasted like many other teas). It was really quite an experience!

This is me with the sniffing cup. There was one short-squat cup for sipping from and one tall cup for sniffing out of. The sniffing was fun but really didn't make or break the tea, in my mind.

As a bonus, I can also recognize the character for cha, which I believe is supposed to look like a leaf. But to me, it looks more like a little tea house... whatever gets me through my menu.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

have you tried chinese white tea ? if haven't please try it. It is good for your health.

Nomad0921 said...

From my childhood (I know, I need hieroglyphics to go THAT far back in history) a lovely chrysanthemum tea - Grandma probably spiked it with sugar to cover the sedatives she put in it. I suspect that given the pride the Taiwanese have in their tea it was quite the experience!