"In tea, a pure jade-green color is considered the finest."
from Cha Sin Jeon- A Chronicle of the Spirit of Tea, a copy of Zhang Poyuan Chalu recorded by Cho Ui, translated in Korea Tea Classics
Those who do not have a copy of Korean Tea Classics do please follow along and participate by referencing a different English translation available here from The Leaf.
This tea classic will be covered one section a week which will go on for 24 weeks. Feel free to jump in with your commentary at anytime.
Peace
4 comments:
Reading this Section made me feel like brewing matcha. Oh, well, I am going to buy a yokan today and then enjoy a bowl of matcha!
Incidentally, here is the result of perfect mastery:
http://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/marukyu-koyamaen-aoarashi-matcha.html
Julien ELIE,
This comment spurred one to pick up a new can of matcha. Have been without matcha for a few weeks now, longer than anytime in recent memory.
The local shop, Jagasilk, just received a shipment stone ground last week.
Peace
All,
Notes on Section 12,
"A pure jade color is considered the finest" suggests that perfect tea is like jade. Jade shares many properties with green tea. It has a cool thermal nature, helps detox the body, and is a symbol of purity, health, and harmony. In this way the colour of tea should reflect the colour of jade.
The symbolic meaning and explanations of the colours unsuitable for tea are discussed in the comment section of section 3- Discerning the Quality of Tea http://mattchasblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/korean-tea-classics-book-club-cha-sin_19.html
"Froth like white snow appearing in the cup is a sign of tea's quality." The white colour is closely connected to qi and to heaven. In ancient times the froth was thought to be the true essence of tea- where the qi was captured. So quite naturally, white froth was desired.
Peace
I know the comments in the last section made clear that this book is focusing entirely on green tea. But I feel in this section we should also emphasize that the tea preparation in the time when this book was written was quite different than today's even for green tea.
To agree with Julien this does make me wish for matcha, in part because matcha is possibly the closest in tea preparation compared to what this section talks about.
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