This day, 26 August, in 1960, the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan signed the Sino-Afghanistan Treaty...
I’ve spent more money than necessary, wasted too many grumpy gulps than necessary on a tea which usually fails to reward. I’ve thought altogether too much about it.
And, as well as trying to understand my problem, there’s another reason to chase the mercurial charm of “biluochun” (碧螺).
Back in the winter of 2015, I drank a cup which stunned me. It came at the end of a long tour featuring some great teas. But it somehow capped the whole experience. Like fresh peas and gooseberries was the biluochun that day.
http://thenanjinger.com/magazine/strainer/meat-is-murder-im-going-to-need-a-toothpick-with-that/
It’s...
Does tea itself contribute stress?The answer here is: surely, yes.If so, then what’s the remedy?Why, clearly, it’s a cup of tea.
Hard-liquor drinkers sometimes make that face; the one that isn’t just pleasure. Children must see this wincing face when watching, say, Westerns, and wonder why grown men would voluntarily drink something so painful-tasting, again and again.
Perhaps children intuit the social aspect of the deal; the difficult drink must be imbibed because the situation demands it.
Perhaps children recognise the celluloid sour mash as a necessary medicine. Children surely know the...
You’re not completely sure how you got home last night. You’re worried what you might have said to those friends you were with. You just cannot find that cash which you keep in your wallet for emergencies.
Strainer cannot help you with any of these problems.
You’re listless. Every movement requires double the effort. There’s a headache on the horizon.
Now we’re talking. It’s about time this column got around to hangover strategies. And I’m sure you won’t be surprised to see tea playing a role in the recommendations here.
Sweat it out?
Actually,...
You don’t need to come to Asia to encounter bamboo; it’s there on the steering wheel of the E-Type Jaguar, on umbrella handles, there on that corporal punishment device once kept behind teachers’ desks.
Even edible bamboo was a concept familiar to me before I arrived here; bamboo shoots in tins were part of my English mother’s cooking in the 1980s. But, as with many things we already know about China, we’re not prepared for the abundance or the variety.
The bamboo shoots that appear in Chinese dishes in the real...
