/lit/ - Literature

My best advice is just to read through hella old Cha Dao archives, and just kind of go from there. I think 4chan thinks the actual link is spam but just google Cha Dao. It's not active anymore but it was a great blog. And follow links and read up things they mention.

Also just as a general piece of information, the English are not particularly good at drinking tea, they just drink a lot of it, and there's no particular reason to accord them a status of expertise on it.

>>3880186

How does one become good at drinking tea?

The Book of Tea by Kakuzo is quite good. I read an original copy from my uni's library. It's all about the aesthetics of tea and its place in society.

I've been meaning to read more on the subject.

Awww, am I the only one who finds Orwell incredibly adorable when reading this essay?

>>3880477
Are you English? If not, you may not understand that this is how all of us talk about our tea. It's important.

>>3880278
supposedly Heidegger picked something up from The Book of Tea, or maybe from "teaism," but I don't know

>>3880169
>Lastly, tea — unless one is drinking it in the Russian style — should be drunk without sugar. I know very well that I am in a minority here. But still, how can you call yourself a true tealover if you destroy the flavour of your tea by putting sugar in it? It would be equally reasonable to put in pepper or salt. Tea is meant to be bitter, just as beer is meant to be bitter. If you sweeten it, you are no longer tasting the tea, you are merely tasting the sugar; you could make a very similar drink by dissolving sugar in plain hot water.
This is a very good point; my Ritz Book of Tea (it was a good purchase shhh) says that sugar "vitiates" tea. The Ritz book is very good in my opinion, though it's more of a book of recipes than a formal work on tea. I'd post from it if I had it on me.

Hitchens also wrote an Essay on this.

>>3880539
Thats the only point were I disagree with Orwell. Black tea is best sweet, Arab style. Can't have too much sugar. He is on the ball about making it as strong as possible though.

>>3880552
For me, black tea shouldn't be 'as strong as possible'; its taste flourishes when all is in moderation. Certainly no sugar.

>>3880186
Thank you, looks interesting.

>Also just as a general piece of information, the English are not particularly good at drinking tea, they just drink a lot of it, and there's no particular reason to accord them a status of expertise on it.
I used to drink a lot of oriental green teas, mostly sencha, but lately I've been enamoured with Western/English style teas. Well, I drink them without milk or sugar, but there is something particularly soothing and cosy about the taste and feel and aesthetics of it.

>>3880278
>>3880539
>>3880543
Will look into those as well, thanks.

>>3880552
Russian and Turkish style are almost the same and I believe the Arabs make it as such as well (making a concentrate and diluting to your taste) so I think you're actually agreeing with him.

I'm intrigued with the samovar as far as Russian tea goes, and the sweetening with jam.

what a faggot

this nigger frowns upon the practice of dulcification yet adds milk to his tea

what a fucking pleb

>unless one is drinking it in the Russian style

what the fuck is that even supposed to mean you mad faggot

>>3880620
I say, sir! Your monocle seems to have dropped from your orbital bone.

>>3880169
>drinking tea with milk or sugar at all

>>3880620
You drink it while squatting and shooting yourself up with krokodil.

>>3880632

>>3880580
If you don't like tea that's fine. I won't judge you.

>>3880629
It's originally a pleb practice because they had low quality shredded tea and the tannins were too much too handle so they added some milk to take the edge off. Mongols do this as well but they add salt as well. Tibetans are the most hardcore deranged, they boil the water with the leafs in it for half a day and mix it with yak butter and salt. I don't even.

>>3880609
I don't know much about Russian style, but Arabs drink it in extremely sweet shots.

The Story of Tea: A Cultural History and Drinking Guide
Tea: History, Terroirs, Varieties

>>3880656
Don't they filter that stuff through sugar cubes or jam?

>>3880662
Yeah its completely different. I was just making the point that black tea is great sweet.

>>3880662
I believe they used to drink it with a sugar cube between their teeth to be frugal but generally they just mix it in the cup.

i bet /lit/ doesn't even use loose leaf

>>3880713
I've never used anything but loose leaf.

>>3880649
And now all tea, unless you go to a specialist shop, is shit tier. Oh well, such is life.

>>3880729
You can order high quality tea online.

>>3880729
Actually accessibility, diversity and pricing of great teas has never been greater than now ever.

Wow, all this pontificating over a bourgeois pastime.

Good lord this shit is the worst.

>>3880975
It's only bourgeois in the West.

>>3880975
Tea is one of the most inexpensive 'luxuries' you can buy. You might as well say drinking beer or coffee is bourgeois while you're at it.

>>3880598
>tea aesthetics

Please stop. This is barely acceptable when Asians do it.

>>3881078
Why? You don't think ritual can be relaxing?

>>3880975
I believe they a word for it
its called "leisure"

>>3880713

>implying

I just put in an order from o-cha, so I'll have some top quality loose leaf sencha within a few days.

>>3881090
OK. If all these fags in history can write about tea of all things, then I'm going to write a sustained exploration of the aesthetics of toilet paper.

You totally can't criticize it for being culturally parochial wankery, it's leisure!

>>3881715
"Bogwad: Toilet Paper and its "Roll" in History"

>>3881750

>>3880169
Funny that a man so renowned for for discussing the nature of totalitarianism would consider himself such an authority on one of the staples of society.

>>3880975
Tea is the cheapest drink in the world except water.

>>3881005
That Darjeeling shit is expensive.

>>3882651
Decent Darjeeling loose leaf: €3.20 for 100 grams. 2 grams a cup. €3.20/50=0.064 a cup.

Hardly expensive.

>>3881823
Discussing tea is totalitarian. I get you. I feel dat.

like my post if you only drink water w/ the occasional soda

>>3880649
Ah! Yeah I was wondering why anyone would add to a tea and remove from the tea its unique flavor and distinct taste.

>>3883697
Also, putting the milk in first if for plebs since they originally did it because their inferior cups couldn't handle the sudden heat from the tea whereas the upper class with their delicious bone china could put the tea in first and add the milk later, thereby better regulating dosage.

>>3880278
I second this OP
and
>>3880539
Is right about Heidegger, im currently doing a research paper on the relationship between Being and Time and The Book of Tea.

Granted its more about the relationship between early Heidegger and Zen/Dao, but apparently Heidegger was introduced into Eastern Philosophy through Kakuzo's illegitimate son and one of his students, so The Book of Tea may hold more importance than other texts.