Category Archives: Photography

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends! This morning I am pleased to present to you a Japanese green tea that was harvested this year. I’m so glad to see the producers able to sell their tea confidently again after the terrible disaster that gripped their nation in March 2011. This tea is called 88th Night Shincha.

Shincha translates literally to “new tea”. It is the first flush in the springtime. This particular tea was harvested on the 88th day after the spring equinox, which I’ve read is February 4th in Japan. I’ve also read that it’s a traditional saying in Japan that if you drink of the leaves of the 88th day tea, you will enjoy a year of good health. Wonderful news as my allergies are really acting up this week!

If you’d like to read more about tea production in Japan, you can go back to my posts here and here. In October 2010, I spent a whole month exploring Japanese teas.

I steeped the leaves for 2 minutes in 170F water. I find that Japanese green teas are very sensitive to the temperature of the water. Do you? As you can see, the dry leaf looks like grass clipping while the wet leaf reminds me of steamed spinach. Speaking of steaming, this tea was lightly steamed in the first step of production. The steaming halts the oxidation process so the tea remains green.

The tea liquor is the most amazing spring green color. I don’t think my camera fully portrayed the loveliness of the color. A strong vegetal, seagrass aroma drifted from my glass teapot as I poured my first cup.

My first sip filled my mouth with sweetness and an incredibly pronounced vegetal taste of the sea. As I sipped, I detected a light floral quality underneath all of that vegetalness. I enjoyed this tea much better when it cooled.

As I prepared my tea this morning, a cool breeze gusted in the window. We had some rain move in overnight which also swept in some cooler temperatures. Fall is definitely at our doorstep here in New England.

As always, thanks for sharing a cuppa with me!

“There is this mysterious energy that wants us to keep growing.”

~Michelle Cassou, Artist

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends! The tea that I’m drinking this morning is so smooth that I’m already on my second cup in a matter of minutes. Grown at the Nildiya Valley estate in the Matara District of southernmost Sri Lanka, this black tea is the perfect example of an Orange Pekoe, or OP, tea.

Contrary to what the name implies, it is not a flavor but a term used to designate the leaf grade of the tea, in this case, a whole leaf tea. This leaf grading term is typically used in black teas from India and Sri Lanka.

You can see the rolled whole leaf clearly in the photo above of the wet leaf.

I steeped the leaf for 5 minutes in boiling point (212F) water. This tea is so smooth that I think the steeping time could be pushed another minute or two, especially if you’re adding milk.

The fragrance of sweet raisins drifted up from my glass teapot as I poured my first cup.

The dark-amber tea liquor flows like silk over my tongue. As the tea cooled, a hint of fruit was revealed along with a light toasty note.

Summer is hanging on here in New England with warm, humid weather. I’m enjoying it as much as I can because I always find it challenging to give up those warm, lazy, hazy days. Soon it’s time to sharpen those pencils and get to work!

Speaking of getting to work, I just signed up for this online course with the fabulous Susan Lomuto, creator of Daily Art Muse and art curator extraordinaire. Susan will teach us how to create a website to showcase our artwork. With a full-time job and so little free time, I was hesitant at first but then I listened to that small voice inside and took the plunge. This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time – improve and expand my online presence and even start selling my jewelry again. This past year has been quite challenging personally and has led me on a journey of looking at what is really important in my life. I’ve been working hard on letting go of negative experiences of the past and moving forward with my art. I’m looking forward to discovering what the future holds!

As always, thanks for taking the time to visit and share a cup of tea with me. Until next week, dear friends…

“Just don’t give up trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don’t think you can go wrong.”

~Ella Fitzgerald

Summer Earrings

Or more aptly titled – what I made during my summer time off… I found these fabulous glass chili pepper  beads at a bead show a couple of years ago and scooped them right up. Combined with some copper wirework and teal beaded rings, they’re very swingy.

These earrings were created during a fun color mixing session with polymer clay. The discs were made from a sheet using the Stroppel cane, Alice Stroppel’s wonderful technique using cane scraps. The oblong cane slices remind me of pills from a Mario Bros. video game my kids used to play when they were young. Very colorful!

Marbled drops created during another polymer clay playtime session. The agate rounds I found at Munro’s in Michigan last spring and complement the drops very nicely, I think.

More polyclay drops, these ones I created from extrusions. The bead caps were made with my new disc cutter and a tiny spiral stamp. A bit wonky looking but ok with the primitive tribal feel. The copper washers were textured from a brass plate.

These earring components were created from a polymer clay sheet that was painted with alcohol ink, sprinkled with mica powder and then run through my pasta machine when everything dried. They remind me of raku pottery. A glass blossom dangles from a delicate sterling chain.

These polyclay components were created using Randee Ketzel’s Snowflake Jade cane tutorial. I just love the depth achieved from layering with translucent clay. Swarovski crystal raindrops dangle from the delicate sterling chain.

More Snowflake Jade components paired with Swarovski opaque white crystal beads and sterling silver wire.

These earrings were created to go with my “Spacetime” necklace I have yet to introduce to you.

I recently purchased some of Christi Friesen’s Swellegant metal patinas and colorants and started my experimentation with some 16-gauge copper wire spirals. The next 4 earring pairs were created with those spiral dangles.

I think the blue-green patina looks so yummy on the copper! Here we have African opal and turquoise heishi.

Some Czech glass beads and turquoise heishi.

Some gorgeous enameled copper spiral shell beads by Maryann Carroll along with turquoise heishi.

As always, thanks for stopping by!

Saturday Morning Tea

Good morning, dear tea friends! Another week has gone by and now it’s September already. While I love the hot, sunny days of summer, I always look forward to the flame of colors that autumn sweeps in. In anticipation of those cooler days ahead, I’m enjoying a cup of a thick, rich China black tea, called Chingwo Congou Super Grade.

This tea is a popular style from Fujian province in southern China. I have read that most Chingwo (Ching Wo) teas are grown from a cultivar called Da Baicha. The mountainous area of northern Fujian provides a perfect climate for this particular cultivar. I’ve also read that while Keemun teas are considered the “Burgundies”, Chingwo teas are named the “Clarets”.

The long, beautifully intact leaves look like accordion pleated silk.

I steeped the leaves for 5 minutes in boiling point (212F) water. The dark copper tea liquor has a warm, fragrant aroma of toast with a hint of cocoa.

The tea is super smooth and mellow with notes of red wine and a suggestion of dark chocolate. I bet you could steep the leaves for much longer than 5 minutes. A great tea to leave steeping while you go do something else.

As always, thanks for popping by and sharing a cuppa with me. I’m going to start sharing my creative work again. I have been making pieces this summer, just haven’t had any time to photograph them! Soon, soon… I leave you with a wonderful quote by Eleanor Roosevelt. Have a great week!

You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” You must do the thing you think you cannot do.  ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Saturday Morning Tea

Hello, my dear tea friends! Today started out with more camera problems, this time with the batteries. It’s not my month for smooth camera operations, is it? Anyway, I managed to get my camera to work after a half hour of charging a battery which appeared to be fully charged. I’ll have to investigate further later. Now it’s time for a cup of tea!

This week’s tea looks like a white tea and even tastes like one, however, it is a black tea, specifically a second flush Darjeeling from the Margaret’s Hope estate called “White Delight”.

As you can see from the photo above, the lovely, variegated-colored leaf is enormous. I steeped the leaves for my normal 3 minutes in boiling point (212F) water but I think this tea could stand a longer steep time. It’s incredibly smooth with none of the characteristic Darjeeling “bite”.

You can read more about the well-respected Margaret’s Hope estate in my post here.

I tried to capture a full leaf set so you can see what is meant by a “fine plucking”, two leaves and a bud. The bud is the brand new growth and, as you can see above, there are 2 little bud leaves there. Think of when you pinch a plant to encourage branching. I do this with my coleus plants. Pinch the tip and 2 branches will grow where there was once one.

The color of the tea liquor is amazing, a deep golden yellow with a tinge of peachy-pink, like the blush of a ripe fruit.

The fragrant aroma smells of apricots which carries into the flavor, along with hints of melon and muscatel. The muscatel is the only hint that this is a second flush Darjeeling. The rest of the flavor notes speak to me of high-quality white tea. I have been told that the estate Manager decided to name it “White Delight” because it is so reminiscent of a white tea.

Sometimes I recommend a second flush Darjeeling for those who like to put milk in their Darjeeling cuppa. This would not be a tea for that. Even though it’s bursting with flavor, it’s just too mild for anything beyond a drop of honey.

The sky looks like a soft gray blanket today and rain has been falling softly on and off all morning. It’s a great day to curl up inside with a good book and a pot of tea.

As always, thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week!

“The only noise now was the rain, pattering softly with the magnificent indifference of nature for the tangled passions of humans.”

~Sherwood Smith