This day, 6 August, in 1946, Chairman Mao Zedong first proposed the “middle ground” theory when he met with American journalist, Anna Louise Strong, in reference to...
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,...
Of course it’s not reasonable to expect commemoration or contemplation.
The “Great War” was concluded more than a century ago. How can I expect “the eleventh day of the eleventh month” to resonate somewhere so far away from where the Armistice was signed?
Yes, China was the non-European nation which committed most men to that war, with real casualties and real costs. It’s a story that needs telling, one which may one day receive more airing. But those events are too far away to claim such as exclusive calendar slot in...
Suntory’s bottled “Black Oolong Tea” is an institution, as well loved in China as in its native Japan. And here it is, refrigerated and available for purchase, in the UK.
Always the stingy skinflint, I resent paying three times the price when the main ingredient, water, is on tap and essentially free. But here it is. Nice to know.
I buy a packet of oolong leaves instead. This is an Asian supermarket in Cardiff. These stores are easier to find than ever, thanks to the steady stream of Chinese students...
The first thing that hits is how inefficient this whole game is. It isn’t quite May as we climb the mountain. Picking only began on 31st March. And already the season is over. Not a basket or wicker hat to be seen.
And it isn’t that these tea bushes have stopped producing; glossy, thick leaves are growing abundantly. If fact, what work we see is the two-man job of sawing off the top 40% or so of the bush along each terrace. Baseball bats are worn for the less-romantic (but...
