A River Walk Inn » Teapot Madness

Teapot Gallery

admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 23:27:11 +0000

About Teapot Madness

admin — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 01:54:43 +0000

Welcome to Teapot Madness
I have collected vintage china since I was a high school student but in recent years I have indulged my fascination with teapots in a big way. They have long since outgrown shelves and reside in every room of our bed and breakfast. Although admittedly excessive, I like to think it is tastefully done. Think “still life with teapots”. It also provides endless material for jokes by my husband and friends. Normally quite willing to feel guilty about any number of things, I have very little remorse regarding my excesses in this particular area. There are worse and more costly obsessions.

I buy whatever appeals to me but most of my pots are English, American, or Japanese from the 1930s-1940s. I could own just about any Hall ever made, and love pre-WWII Japan ceramics. I have a number of English pots, mostly Arthur Wood and would happily buy just about any English Deco piece.

Having always enjoyed good loose leaf tea, teapot madness has also led to my pursuing a study of tea. As a result, I have become much more discerning about the tea I drink and offer to our guests and friends. We buy our tea wholesale from a number of sources and sell a good selection of high quality greens, blacks, and a few rooibos blends. Tea tastings, which we do several times a year are open to the public and we do private teas by appointment.

Here are a few of our most popular blends:

Cherry Rose Green
Buckingham Palace
Vienna Opera Ball
Orange Blossom Oolong
Organic Earl Grey
Rooibos Provance

Each of the above teas (and many others) is available for $6/100 gm package. Our Dragon Tears, a very high grade hand rolled green tea flavored with jasmine blossoms is by far the most wonderful jasmine I have ever had and is available for $8.50/50 gm package. All of our teas may be mail ordered by emailing us at innkeeper@ariverwalkinn.com. A shipping fee of $3 for the first package and $1 for each additional package in the order will be added to the above prices.

A complete list of our teas and tea accessories is available upon request. Also feel free to email me if you want to chat about teapots or would like to know what teapots I currently have available for sale.

Tea Quotations

admin — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 03:43:09 +0000

“All well-regulated families set apart an hour every morning for tea and bread and butter.”
Joseph Addison

“Tea is a work of art.”
Kakuzo Okakura

“What better way to suggest friendliness-and to create it- than with a cup of tea?”
J. Grayson Luttrell

“Every good cause gains strength, and fervour, and determination when it is heated over a cup of tea!”
James Hurnard

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.”
Henry James

“There is always a great deal of poetry and fine sentiment in a chest of tea.”
Daniel Johns

“There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be much diminished by a nice cup of tea.”
Bernard Paul Heroux

“Come along inside and you’ll see if tea and buns can make the world a better place.”
Kenneth Grahame

“When I drink tea I am conscious of peace. The cool breath of Heaven rises in my sleeves and blows my cares away.”
Lo Tueng

A Bit of Tea History

admin — Sat, 24 Jan 2004 03:13:30 +0000

Tea is the dried leaf of the plant, Camellia sinensis, an evergreen perennial shrub that grows in a number of subtropic and highland tropic regions of the world. Only the young leaves and buds are picked and then processed in a variety of ways. There are a number of myths about the orgins of tea. One of the most popular is that in about 2737 B.C. the Chinese emperor, Shen Nung was boiling some water to drink, as was apparently his custom, and a tea leaf from a bush nearby fell into his pot. The emperor found the resulting beverage to be both flavorful and stimulating and made it a regular ritual. Who knows? In any event, by the 200 A.D. tea was widely consumed in China. It was first taxed in 780 A.D. and the first text devoted to the subject of tea was written in that same year.
Tea began to be traded in about the 5th century, initially along the Mongolian border. In the 6th century it traveled to Japan with Chinese Buddhist monks where it grew nicely and it quickly became not only the national beverage but an integral part of Zen Buddhist ritual. The first European to experience tea is reported to be a Portuguese missionary. The Portuguese trade route brought tea to Lisbon. From there it traveled to France, Holland and the Baltic countries on Dutch ships. Tea was quite popular in France (until it was replaced by chocolate and coffee) and it is the French who are credited with first adding milk to their tea. It spread from Holland and France to the rest of Europe. The Dutch also traded tea with their settlement in the New World, New Amsterdam (renamed New York by the British), and in fact, when the British arrived it was a well-established habit. The settlers of New Amsterdam drank more tea than all of England!
The John Company was granted exclusive trade rights in the east and later merged with the East India Company. It became the largest trade monopoly in history and was incredibly powerful. The Company brought its first shipment of 140 pounds of tea to England in 1669. Initially, the tea was quite expensive ($100/pound) and enjoyed only by the aristocracy and the most wealthy. Its popularity in England was assured when Charles II became king. Both the monarch and his Portuguese queen were avid tea drinkers and tea eventually replaced ale as the national beverage. Soon after its introduction in England the government began to tax the imported beverage and as imports increased, of course so did tax revenues. The tax, greater than the cost of the tea itself, encouraged smuggling and, in fact, the British drank more contraband than they did taxed tea. The Boston Tea Party, an event familiar to every American was in response to tea taxation. By 1800 the British were importing 24 million pounds of tea annually. Back to the East India Companyâ€¦ Trade with the East was ever so lucrative but the British had little to export. In order to offset their trade deficit they introduced Turkish opium to the Chinese people. Opium use in China up to that point had been primarily medicinal. With 450 million people the potential for profits from an addictive substance were huge and the British pursued it to the point of war. A chest of opium held about 135 pounds of extract. In 1821 the British imported 5,000 chests, by 1837 it had grown to 35,000. The Chinese attempts to eliminate the opium trade resulted in trade restrictions, which, of course, the British were unwilling to accept. They responded by waging the â€œOpium Warsâ€ and the Chinese, without western technology and military expertise lost badly. As part of the resulting treaty, the British gained Hong Kong. Fascinating but also appalling.
Tea was also found growing in Assam, a region of northeast India and as the situation in China became more unstable the British began to focus on Indian tea as an import source. The first Assam tea was imported to England in 1837. Nearby Ceylon, after its coffee crop was decimated by disease was also found to have quite suitable growing conditions.
Tea has continued to be an important trade commodity. Today, India is the largest producer of tea, China the second, and Sri Lanka (Ceylon) is the third. India and Ceylon produce almost entirely black tea, while China and Japan grow more green. Ireland is currently the largest per capita consumer of tea and most everyone drinks more than Americans.

Tea Glossary

admin — Wed, 11 Jun 2003 04:13:52 +0000

Bakey: characteristic due to black tea being over-fired and too much moisture
being removed.

Biscuity: a pleasant aroma often used to describe quality Assams.

Bright: a characteristic associated with good color, generally a sign of a quality tea.

Brisk: denotes a live quality associated with pungency. Also characteristic of a quality tea.

Clouding: may occur when tea is chilled, due to particulates in tea. Not necessarily an indication of the quality of the tea.

Common: a plain, thin liquor with no distinct flavor characteristics.

Dull: refers to the liquidâ€™s color, the opposite of bright. May also denote lack of briskness.

Flat: applies to tea that is no longer fresh-tastes like it sounds.

Full: describes a good combination of color and strength.

Hard: a pungent liquor related to greenness, accompanied by a harsh, bitter quality.

Harsh: describes a tea that has been underwithered, resulting in a rough liquor.

Light: liquor that lacks color and strength. Often the tea will lack body and aroma as well.

Malty: a desirable quality commonly found in Assam teas.

Metallic: a sharp, coppery flavor found in some black teas.

Muscat: a flavor and aroma characteristic of fine Darjeelings, often associated with black currants.

Pungent: a bitter, harsh, or rough characteristic that is felt along the gums rather than tasted on the tongue.

Smoky: a characteristic flavor and aroma of some Chinese teas, especially Lapsang Souchong. Undesirable in other teas.

Stale: faded aroma and dead taste due to excessive age.

Thin: light liquor lacking any desirable characteristics.

Toasty: describes the aroma of a fine Keemun and other highly fired teas.

Weedy: grassy or haylike taste related to underwithering.

Winy: relates to the aging of tea, which normally does not enhance flavor.

Tea Grading
D: dust. Not good in your house or your tea. In tea bags the large surface area
of the particles makes for rapid infusion for a strong darkly colored liquor but not the best taste.

FNGS: fannings. Somewhat larger pieces than dust, same problem.

BOP: broken orange pekoe. Bet you thought orange pekoe was a type of tea. Nope. Refers to much larger pieces of broken leaves, and may be quite good if original leaf was of good quality.

OP: orange pekoe. Whole leaf teas, which may or may not result from the plucking of the second leaf, rather than the first two leaves and the bud. Slower to infuse than broken leaf and may be excellent if other quality factors are present.

FOP: flowery orange pekoe. Indicates the presence of the flower leaf, or first open leaf. Usually a good thing if other quality factors are present.

G: golden. This term may appear before one of the previous designations and refers to presence of yellowish pieces of the leaf bud in sufficient quantity to be easily seen. Another good indicator of quality.

T: tippy. This indicates a substantial presence of the whole leaf bud, which may be greenish, black, silver or golden depending on the origin of the tea, processing technique, etc.

The above grading terms refer to black teas only, and while interesting, and perhaps even useful, their presence on a given tea indicates some effort at quality but is no guarantee of good taste. Good taste is subjective, and besides- we have all known pedigreed dogs that were culls, right?

Source: Tea Basics by Rasmussen and Rhinehart