After I humbly showed off my tea blog to friends, some were curious of my motive. Well, the answer is because I had fun reading other's blogs, and was inspired to share my fun in life too. The unexpected benefit (or, added burden?) is that blogging helps me to focus my thoughts and refine my writing. For example, I try to recall "Since when did I start to drink tea as my daily beverage habit?". If not for this blog, I would not put myself through this mental exercise!
Thinking back, I have been drinking tea as long as I can remember due to the family upbringing. Tea was replaced by diet coke for quite a long years when kids were growing up. Then a report about the acidity of coke brought the scare and I diverted back to tea. However, I didn't pay a lot of attention to the variety or flavor I drank until my visit to Shanghai in 2004. At West Lake tea district, I was fascinated by the tea fields and the toasting process of the Lungjing tea. Then my nephew sent me excellent Anshi Oolong tea with elegant fragrance and nutty flavor. I enjoyed it so much and shared it with my friends at gatherings that I had to ask my nephew for more. Not too long afterwards in 2005, my good friend Liz who was among the lucky tea tasters enlisted me to give a tea talk and demo for her house party and her church's annual Women's Christmas Tea. The preparation of the impending "show-off"s forced me to study, practice, and the rest is history....
In the next few columns, I will write about some consequential happenings after my life with tea. Stay tuned.
