Huang Bei Ling Antique Town

Boxing Boxing......I don't know why I keep thinking of "The Boxers" by Morrissey on the Boxing day. I like the Smiths and Morrissey very much, but it is nothing to do with Christmas time.

Today I visited a friend who open a Chinese tea shop in Huang Bei Ling Antique Town. The Antique Town is not far away from town, as the area cannot be reached by subway train, so it is a less famous treasure searching place. Behind the Arch there is a big area for flea market selling all kinds of so and so antique, jade, china, jewellery, paintings, books, even cameras and everything you can imagine.

We didn't spend much time on the market and went straight to my friends' store. It is a rather well know store around the place so quite a number of customers around while we stay there. My friend keep a lot of valuable antique tea cakes and we love to seek if there was a chance to have a taste. Of course we try some of those we cannot afford to pay for, but finally I did buy two tea bricks. The bricks were made in the 90s and they are raw bricks. It taste very sweet and seems like already aging for more then twenty years. They cost me not much (500 HKD) and refresh me some 80s memories.

What happen to the LAST CHRISTMAS?

What happen to the LAST CHRISTMAS?



:P

Chinese Tea Beauty wish you very Merry X'mas.

Hello, Chinese Tea Beauty wish you very Merry X'mas. What are you going to do tonight? Having a crazy party? Sleeping? No matter where u are, what u are doing, just promise to having fun.

I'm going to have a crazy party as well. A tea party. Woo. I'm not sure how many kinds of tea I will taste tonight, but sure it must be extremely amazing.


How can you spend the night without this song!!

China(Shenzhen) International Tea Expo, episode 4, compressed tea making

People are always wonder how tea cake or Tuocha (bowl shape 沱茶 ) compressed tea are made. There are demonstration of making tea in the Expo, catching many ppls attention. Normally they steam the raw tea leaf, then some of them use to make tea cake and some of them make bowl shape compressed tea.

On the tea cake making side, we can see there are four steamers (look like rice cooker), two big tea cake compress stone and several workers.

On the other side, two worker are working on bowl shape tea. Actually I'm not sure what kind of tea they are making, however they said it is a kind of organic tea and can be drink immediately. Many ppl are trying at once, but I do not have much interest. But it is nice to see a live demonstration of making compressed tea. The bowl shape tea weight over 300g and cost 320 dollars.

China(Shenzhen) International Tea Expo, episode 3, TAETEA Group

One of the focus of the tea Expo should be TAETEA Group which located in the middle of the exhibited area. Taetea, regarded as the major brand of Menghai Tea Industry Ltd. , is a kind of quality guarantee for most of the lovers, at least you will not be cheated when you buy tea in Taetea group.

Besides there are many tea trying desk area, ppl also attract by many of the special made tea cake. You can see the price of those product in the picture. Honestly, I am not really interested in those newly made tea, no exception form Taetea. New generation will be attract by the famous name, and the history, but so what? If you say are there any good stuff from Taetea? Yes, honour goes to the first production, dated around 1996 which cost around 3000 to 4000 HKD a piece of tea cake.

China(Shenzhen) International Tea Expo, episode 2, 千兩茶

Needless to say, the picture shows the most expensive tea in the Expo. It cost 68000000 Chinese dollars. The tea produced in 1953, packed as round column with 147cm long and weight around 36kg. In Chinese it called "千兩茶". Originally grown from Hunan Baishaxi, it is a kind of very high quality black tea. Tea dated from the '50 is so rare that some were carefully stored in the Palace Museum in China. I wish I had the chance to taste it.

Now Baishaxi still produce tea, but not as big as "千兩茶". They make it smaller and lighter such as 1/10 as before or even in brick shape so that more ppl can enjoy that. (continue...)

China(Shenzhen) International Tea Expo, episode 1

How can I resist to attend the Tea Expo in China, especially the hosting location was very close to Hong Kong this time. The Expo last 4 days and I went on the third day. You have to pay 2o dollars for entrance fee, which it was free last year. The whole Tea Expo is rather eclectic, whereas there are Tribal Dancing, Chinese painting auction, Chinese Emperor drama show and Tea making demonstration. Of course there are numbers of booths selling various kinds of Chinese tea and tea related products such as Jiangsu tea bottles, cups or even newly designed tea drinking desk.

As a Chinese tea lover, you can find Oolong tea, green tea, black tea, Tieguanyin, Taiwan high mountain tea...etc, and most favourable me Puerh tea, all over the expo. (continue...)

Love live Hong Kong, Long live Hong Kong

We are the champion, my friend. It is amazing that Hong Kong football team defeated Japan in the final game today. Hong Kong football team, had never been any attention in Asia, but surprisingly won the game. Although Japan, South and North Korea all did not show up the strongest player in the games, it doesn't really matter because Hong Kong won finally. This is the very first champion of the HK football team in rather important games. I really love the share some exciting moments.

Loverly Fiorentina

I did not wake up at the midnight to watch the final match Liverpool play in the Champion League (They out anyway). It is not out of imagination that they were defeated by Fiorentina, again. Although Aquilani join as the lead, Torres came back, the six sense told me they won't win. I think there must be a dramatic change in the team. It is not necessary talking about changing of players, but the team spirit. I wish there was a magic stick, please inject more power to them.

On the contrast, I never no like Fiorentina, because of the beautiful Italy city and the awesome purple soccer jersey. I even bought some of them as my jersey collection. Actually I know nothing about Fiorentina's play, except the famous Mutu. As a team leader, he play a very important role, like Gerrard in Liverpool, is to pump up the spirit of the whole team. He he failed a drugs test for cocaine in 2004 and was a troubleman on contract with Chelsea. Hopefully, he will never do stupid things again and bring us some entertaining football.

How many Chinese tea lovers are there in Hong Kong?

As a Chinese tea lover, I'm not sure how many people have the same hobby like me. Around these days, I suddenly want to know the answer. The first thing I target to is to find out how many Chinese tea are there in Hong Kong. Of course, I cannot have the very precise statics. But I'm a walking person who like to search around the street, for window shopping. I just find there are quite number of tea shops around. No matter they are located in big shopping mall, decorated with very modern style, or some shops just around corners.

It is amazing to know there are at least 4 tea shops in the Kowloon City (a place famous for the pre-1997 Hong Kong Kai Tak Airport). One of them do have a very long history, the other one is my friend's friends shop, and one of them should be operated by Taiwan people.

Besides, I started to search how many Hong Kong discussion forum are there talking about Chinese tea culture. Actually there are quite a number of them which I overlooked. I really glad to know about that. It is very interesting and valuable to look at the post, and I'm really want to join them.

A few days later, there are a China(Shenzhen) International Tea Expo hold at the Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center. I would love to attend that and share something to all the tea lovers, may on the forum as well.

East Asian Games 2009, Volleyball

You may know that Hong Kong is hosting the East Asian Games 2009 at the mean time. The game create not much noise in the world, and even in Hong Kong. People dont expect world class athletes will join the game. Hong Kong never pay much to support sports, so, the tickets for many events do not sell well.

I'm not a very sporty person (I do like watching football). However, it is nothing to loose to buy two tickets, each one cost only $50 HKD, and spend a lovely afternoon and night with valleyball team players. We do not know which country team will show up in the game while we got the tickets. However, when we know we have the chance to watch the China women volleyball team, it increase my attention a lot.

We watched three matches today. The first match was Japan Vs Korea, men. It was more exciting than expected, as two team's strength were very close. Each team head two games and needed to play the final game. Japan won finally.

The second match was very interesting. Hong Kong Vs Guam, women. As Hong Kong people, we certainly support Hong Kong. When we looked at Guam, they really look like armature. I did not think Hong Kong play well, but they beat Guam 3:0. This game bring a lot of fun indeed.

The big show came the last, that is China Vs Chinese Taipei, women. All audience came to watch China. Every time China score, the stadium move. A very pleasant game, and Chinese Taipei also play well. But if your competitor is China, you were in a very difficult situation. No exception, China won 3:0 and all the big hands from the audience.

How healthy Chinese tea drinking are?

If you are tired of coffee, try Chinese tea. It is not necessary to compare coffee with Chinese tea. All I can say, there are many benefits of drinking Chinese tea. Let's look a the ingredients of tea. There are Catechin, Vitamins, Caffeine, Organic acids and other nutrition ingredients such as magnesium, natrium etc. We can talk about that in more detail later.

Scientist already proof the advantages to human body of drinking tea. The famous legend of 5000 years ago: Shennong, he tasted 72 kinds of herbs, and finally was badly poisoned and laid down under a tree. Suddenly, the wind blew down a leaf into a bowl of water. Shennong drank it and the water served as an antidote and he was cured from the poisoned herbs.

The leaf is just the tea leaves nowadays. So he introduced the tea drinking to Chinese people, that believe to be healthy and treated as medicine. Today, people drink tea to prevent cancer, for better digestion, losing weight. I'm not sure if you can losing weight by drinking coffee.

A Soccer Fans and Zidane with Puerh

I'm a Liverpool Fans. I will not miss any Liverpool match that broadcast in Hong Kong. It is quite disappointed to know they cannot enter into the best 12 team on UEFA champions league this year, and maybe next year, if they cannot keep the position as big 4 in the Premier League. I donno why they play bad (sorry, I need to use the word "bad") this year.

Of course, we understand the missing of Xabi Alonso do affect a lot, however, we find this is not the main reason. I think the who team spirit needed to be upgraded, as Liverpool could still play tough without any players at the last season. For sure, we need F9 recover as soon as possible and Gerrad back to 100% power on attacking.

Last night I saw them won Everton 0:2, honesty speaking, not very convincing. Sorry I keep worrying about the team, and well, actually can do nothing. It is quite a long time Liverpool cannot win any 1st, big or small. To win something is the most important of Benitez. I still support you Benitez.


As a Soccer fans, the following news is very interesting. The news said our soccer hero Zidane, wooo, he came to Hong Kong and bought some Puerh. Please note that it is not Oolong (usually foreign ppl bought green tea because of the green tea's aroma). That means Zidane, a French, really a fans of Chinese tea, and do understand how to appreciate the taste of good tea, Puerh.

Chinese tea cake and Rostropovich

This is a wonderful Saturday morning. Though it is late November, the weather is not too cold or too hot. It is the best moment to have a tea gathering. I just ring my friend who also love Chinese tea ans see if they also have the same idea. Well, the feedback is perfect. My friends, a couple, just received a Puerh tea cake, that cost about 300 USD and would like to share with me. Wow, it is more then happy to me. Expensive tea cake do not necessary mean good stuff. Let's drink and judge.

That's 3 o'clock afternoon. I prepared all the tea set and wait my friends and their Puerh to come. Usually, the best combination having a Chinese tea gathering is three people.

They arrived at 3:15. Nothing much to say as today's focus is the Chinese tea cake. It is a typical Seven Sons Raw Tea Cake, but aging from the eighties. It is getting less and less Raw Tea Cake from the eighties and that;s why the price is getting higher and higher.

Forget about the price. We open the cake as usually and cut the first 100g into the bottle. The tea colour is deep and bright and give me a very warm feeling. After the third infusion (we usually do not drink the first three infusion), we taste it quite seriously. First of all, we smell the tea fragrance. Light and thick, very unusual Puerh character. It taste mellow and mild, which is unexpected. I thought it will be more smooth. However it get a bit malty, quite enjoyable for me personally. My friends of course feel really satisfy with their new (Old) tea cake. We talk, drink, and taste, and forget about the past of time.

Our accompany of this tea gather is Rostropovich. While he is playing the Bach's Cello suite, we are having fun with the 300USD tea cake. I am sure I will have a lovely dream tonight.

Muse, Mika, Green Day, the Killers

By the end of 2009 and early 2010, there are number of band coming to Hong Kong having concerts. Muse (the best band in the universe?) was one of my favourite band, when the time they issue "Origin of Symmetry ". Those tensions in couple of songs really hit me. They came for concert 2 years ago and I was one of the audience. Very good, but not impressing. I properly will not pay to listen to Muse again. "Feeling Good", all time favourite.

Mika, the new talent. He successfully gripe the attention around the world this days. But I'm not used to stand for his male or female performance.



About Green Day, this long time band. Well known by the best selling "American Idiot", is a extra and extra ordinary rock band amount the rock band in the world. What can I say about them? I can remember nothing. Please no more Green Day.

I do vote for the Killers. A US band who can turn to very UK sound, playing cathy rock and recently some electronic element with the song Human, really fantastic. I really look forward for their live performance.

Post-Morden Chinese tea Beauty

Some years ago, I was a design student in a University. If the internet industry was as popular as today, the hottest search word within the design community must be "Post-Modernism". As the follower of Modernism, Post-Modernism request more fun, personality, colour, share of interest, human touch and sense of humour. In the early 80's, Post-Modernism penetrated into various cultural field, context, fine art, music, architecture etc. One of the most outstanding example is the HSBC headquarter located in Central area in Hong Kong, designed by Norman Foster.

Some ppl do not like this building. They said it look like a monster, or too much similar to a factory rather then a commercial bank. The building became talk of the town not only in Hong Kong but around the world. That's the interesting point of Post-Modern culture. We need some topics and fun. No matter the building is a factory or transformer, it still a trade mark of Hong Kong. If you look around in the city you live, there are lots of detail you may overlook. Just pay more attention, humour or fun is all around.

I love Chinese tea, because there are human touch and memories. Good Chinese tea need aging. Usually, the older, the better. While the tea leave is getting aging, memories is increasing as well. So when you are enjoying a cup of Chinese tea, you are not only tasting a drink, on top of that, the memory and a taste of history.

I like music and I like Tea

I like music. I am going to attend a concert in January 2010. They are the Killers. Day and Age is one of the best CD published in 2009. The Killers, become my all-time favourite. As a Hong Kong PPL, listening to western music is minority. But who cares, as a music lover, I like all kinds of good music.

I like Tea. Or in a more accurate way, Chinese Tea. Drinking Chinese Tea is part of the life of Hong Kong ppl, as well as all Chinese around the world. In fact, there are thousands of history of drinking tea in China. Some say Tea is originally found in China many many years ago, and some say it is India. It doesn't matter. I do believe Chinese Tea is good to our health, pleasure to our body, amazing flavour, a gentlemen lifestyle and a ancient art.

It is little linkage with music and Chinese Tea. I will not listen to heavy rock or dance when I drink Chinese Tea in a serious way. On the other hand, I don't mind I serve with Chinese Tea when I listen to the Killers.

What kinds of Chiese Tea taste the best? It is a tricky question. Similar to the question of "Which kinds of music is the best?" No model answer. But we may ask "What kinds of Chinese Tea you like most?" I will say Pu-erh is my favourite.