A misty, rainy fall morning and I open with a quote from one of the oldest books on tea, the Ch’a-Ching (The Classic of Tea) by Lu Yu
“There are a thousand different appearances of tea leaves. Some have creases like the leathern boot of a Tartar horseman, curl like the dewlap of a mighty bullock, unfold like the mist rising out a ravine, gleam like a lake touched by a zephyr, and be wet and soft like fine earth newly swept by rain.”
This morning I am sipping a China black tea called Yunnan Rare Grade. As I talked about in my post on Pu-ehr teas, the tea plants in Yunnan province are actually trees with a bigger, broader leaf. This tea has a lot of golden tips as you can see in the dry leaf photo. Some of the leaf is starting to uncurl when wet but most are still curled up from the rolling process.
A dark, sweet aroma wafts from my cup. I take a sip and my mouth is filled with a spicy earthiness, reminding me of the rich smell of a newly fallen leaf. The Chinese call this a red tea and you can see why. If you enjoy red wine, dark chocolate or even a thick, dark beer, you will like the taste of a Yunnan black tea.
Go Sox!
Art and Tea 
Hi. Your fall photo is beautiful! You stopped by my blog and asked where I got my images for the shrink art pins. Well, I found the day of the dead images by doing a google search for “day of the dead and clip art.” All the other images I have used are from the Dover royalty free clip art collections. Happy Halloween!
Oh that’s a gorgeous photo of the trees! Can you BELIEVE our boys have won the first two games of the world series? I wonder how they’ll fare tonight in Colorado ?!?
Thanks, Frivolitea, for the info about the “Day of the Dead” images. They’re great!
Thanks Acey, I’m so excited about the Sox, especially since they won last night. One more to go!
Thanks to both of you for your kind comments about my fall foliage picture. That’s the view from my window. 🙂
-Karen
I love that quote! Thank you for sharing the lovely photos.
beautiful,beautiful, beautiful musings about tea – and i appreciate your musings about photographing jewelry as well, for all the obvious reasons. HELP! x
Thanks Nina for your kind and generous comments. I am right there with you with my feelings about photographing jewelry. Stay tuned for more experimenting and hopefully helpful dos and don’ts.
-Karen {{{ }}}