Yesterday I was lucky to help Shiuwen ( www.floatingleaves.com ) at an art opening of her friend and regular customer Bev Byrnes (bevbyrnes.com). The opening was at Bev's studio located in one of the buildings at G. Magnuson Park.
Monday, October 27, 2014
Saturday, October 25, 2014
SMACHA Ancient Red Tea and Pastries
From now on Ill try to update my blog more often, posting pictures from various tasting events I'm attending. That was the plan originally, but I couldn't keep it up until recently.
Today's post is about my visit to SMACHA ( www.smacha.com ) tea bar yesterday. The specific reason for the trip was compressed ancient arbor red tea which I heard is coming in the recent container from China. Unfortunately, the container is delayed till November 9th, so right now there is only sampling available.
Today's post is about my visit to SMACHA ( www.smacha.com ) tea bar yesterday. The specific reason for the trip was compressed ancient arbor red tea which I heard is coming in the recent container from China. Unfortunately, the container is delayed till November 9th, so right now there is only sampling available.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Visit to Crimson Lotus
Today I had a great tea time at Crimson Lotus Tea ( crimsonlotustea.com ) headquarters. Probably the best in last few months.Tried several ripe puers and one compressed red tea; I'm quiet positive that King County has a very strong puerh player on local tea scene now.
Very nice stable and clean quality of tea, medium price range (usually I'm a terrible cheapskate, but today I bought a 250g brick; don't know what "tea connoisseurs" would think about it - I love it). If you are into puerh, you definitely need to visit Crimson Lotus for a tasting.
Very nice stable and clean quality of tea, medium price range (usually I'm a terrible cheapskate, but today I bought a 250g brick; don't know what "tea connoisseurs" would think about it - I love it). If you are into puerh, you definitely need to visit Crimson Lotus for a tasting.
Hope to see them at local tea events more often!
Sunday, October 12, 2014
More Vendors of NW Tea Festival
Ok, this separate post will be designated to cover more vendors which had their booths at the NW Tea Festival this year. As I mentioned before, there were lots of new faces.
First, of all, acknowledgement to some of the sponsors of NW Tea Festival I didn't mention before!
Thank you all for supporting our event this year!
(Clockwise) Tea Time Magazine (www.teatimemagazine.com), Choice Tea (www.choiceorganicteas.com), Harney & Sons (www.harney.com), Perennial Tea Room (perennialtearoom.com)
Saturday, October 11, 2014
NorthWest Tea Festival 2014
Last Weekend (October 4th and 5th) Seattle had an annual happening which brought together tea lover from all over the King County and even from other states located further than Oregon. NorthWest Tea Festival, just like three years before that, was a hit. In this post I'll share pictures I took during it and will try to highlight the most fun and dynamic parts of the event.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Lindee Hoshikawa at Stage Door Cafe
This past Tuesday we had a rare event here in Seattle area - Lindee Hoshikawa
was performing at the Stage Door Cafe from 7 to 9pm.
The evening was not crowded, but the audience was solid and came there for a purpose - listen to Lindee singing. I could only wish she would come to this side of the lake more often.
Thursday, August 7, 2014
Gold Leaf and Mezzotint by Katsunori Hamanishi
Today at Azuma Gallery ( www.azumagallery.com ) was happening a master class/demonstration by Mr. Katsunori Hamanishi, one of the most renown contemporary Japanese print makers. Mr. Hamanishi was showing his technique of mezzotint print with application of a gold leaf.
The whole process was performed from scratch (except for engraving of the metal matrix) with in-detail explanation by the artist.
The whole process was performed from scratch (except for engraving of the metal matrix) with in-detail explanation by the artist.
( www.k-hama24.com )
Sunday, July 27, 2014
Floating Teahouse by Yuri Kinoshita
Past Friday and Saturday (July 25-26) the number of teahouses in Seattle area was temporarily increased by one. The "one" was the Floating Teahouse art project brought by local artist Yuri Kinoshita.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
CHARAKU TEA TASTING
Last Sunday I've been lucky to attend the Japanese tea tasting event hosted at Floating Leaves Tea shop.
The teas and knowledge were powered by Tatsuo Tomeoka - the owner of the CHARAKU tea shop
Monday, December 30, 2013
Yoheyy Nishio Live Painting, Lindee Hoshikawa Live Music
Yesterday I was really lucky to be at the live painting session (or should it be called a performance?) of Yohei Nishio at the Cafe Cesura, Bellevue.
The part which made this event stand out from a row of a similar art events around the city was that Yohei was painting Lindee Hoshikawa... while Lindee was singing.
.
The part which made this event stand out from a row of a similar art events around the city was that Yohei was painting Lindee Hoshikawa... while Lindee was singing.
Thursday, December 26, 2013
Bourbon Chrismas thoughts.
One of the projects of this year I wanted to write about long time ago was the experiment of infusing tea with hard liqour.
It is uncertain whose idea it was, as I heard it from Shiuwen Tai (http://www.floatingleaves.com), but she refused to take credit for inspiring this project, so I'm assuming that that was a Canadian Santa Claus sitting at her teashop at that time who invisibly slipped in this idea into the conversation during one of the tea club meetings.
For the project I purchased an old cask (seemingly unused, although in a quiet bad condition), seasoned it with straight bourbon and put in the roasted Iron Godess oolong, generously donated by Shiuwen.
As to the present moment it seems that the tea absorbed alot of bourbon flavor, probably even a bit too much, which makes me think of using black tea instead of oolong next time. Puerh for this project seems a bit too tricky because none knows how the bacteria cultures will react to the leftover moisture in the barrel. Also, using of the black (red) tea would decrease the level of disappointment of some people who think that adding alcohol to tea is messing up the tea antioxidants and nutrition; there is a tendency that people into tea tolerate additions/infusions,flavorings to red tea much better than to any other tea variety.
Planning to taste the tea around Chinese New Year, hopefully it will dry to the stable point at that time.
It is uncertain whose idea it was, as I heard it from Shiuwen Tai (http://www.floatingleaves.com), but she refused to take credit for inspiring this project, so I'm assuming that that was a Canadian Santa Claus sitting at her teashop at that time who invisibly slipped in this idea into the conversation during one of the tea club meetings.
For the project I purchased an old cask (seemingly unused, although in a quiet bad condition), seasoned it with straight bourbon and put in the roasted Iron Godess oolong, generously donated by Shiuwen.
As to the present moment it seems that the tea absorbed alot of bourbon flavor, probably even a bit too much, which makes me think of using black tea instead of oolong next time. Puerh for this project seems a bit too tricky because none knows how the bacteria cultures will react to the leftover moisture in the barrel. Also, using of the black (red) tea would decrease the level of disappointment of some people who think that adding alcohol to tea is messing up the tea antioxidants and nutrition; there is a tendency that people into tea tolerate additions/infusions,flavorings to red tea much better than to any other tea variety.
Planning to taste the tea around Chinese New Year, hopefully it will dry to the stable point at that time.
Saturday, November 2, 2013
SteamCon V 2013 Seattle
I got a little late with this post - the SteamCon V was this last weekend October 26-27th, but still. A quick review of the event with some pictures of those people who made it possible to happen both as staff and as attendees.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Northwest Tea Festival 2013
It seems like a good start-up for this blog to have a report from the NW Tea Festival as its first post.
The event seemed to be busier than last year, or maybe it's because I was working in crowd control and actually saw that line of people, at first, outside, and then inside by the ticket booth.
On Saturday people were coming as early as 9am and standing there waiting for us to open doors in order to get tickets for tastings and events happening at the Festival.
Sunday morning was not as busy as Saturday - people started to form a line around 9:30-9:45am but it was nearly as instantaneously crowded as on Saturday.
The event seemed to be busier than last year, or maybe it's because I was working in crowd control and actually saw that line of people, at first, outside, and then inside by the ticket booth.
On Saturday people were coming as early as 9am and standing there waiting for us to open doors in order to get tickets for tastings and events happening at the Festival.
Sunday morning was not as busy as Saturday - people started to form a line around 9:30-9:45am but it was nearly as instantaneously crowded as on Saturday.
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