Thursday, March 21, 2013

Winter Tea

For black tea only. All other teas taste weird in this pot, but it really makes a sweet black tea.

Unknown yixing clay, about 100ml. Have had it about 3 years now.

So this winter is still trying to hang on here in the Chicago area, as there is still snow and the air is quite cold.
I was recently reminded of what type of tea to drink in the cold season, as I have been having some problems with my right shoulder and went to get some acupuncture from an old kung fu brother who is a doctor of oriental medicine. 
My chi was not flowing well in my right arm and stagnating in my shoulder. I had started to drink young sheng a lot again recently, and my chi was not flowing well. 
I was told to keep drinking the dark teas, either black, dark roasted, shu, or aged sheng to balance and warm my chi in this cold weather. I had been drinking mostly dark roast oolongs, black or red teas, and aged sheng and the chi was strong through the winter. But when I switched to mostly young sheng recently it cooled the chi too much and stagnated. So back to the darker teas I go until this weather breaks.
I am ready for the warm weather as it is supposed to be spring now. So I can get back to the new young shengs which I love so much.

3 comments:

  1. Gotta get those bitter plants man, the m,ore bitter, the more healing. I have found a potent lao man e to have some similar qi-mediating affects as herbs I have been prescribed from my acupuncturist.

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  2. What lao man e do you recommend as I have tasted a few, but the only one i liked was the Tea Urchin 2011 four peaks. I have been putting off ordering because of shipping costs.
    I go back to the Doc on tuesday, I will ask him about the herbs.
    It has been two days since my treatment and I feel much better now, aside from the fact of sparring everyone at our school last night. Shins a bit bruised from blocking many low kicks. But shoulder feels much better now.

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  3. Take everything I have to say with more then a grain of salt, I am new to all of this thought, this is just my observations very early in the game of learning

    bitter can correlate with high medicinal quality, but bitter alone is no good long term without something to balance it unless your condition specifically calls for heavy bitter

    I would be very careful of binging on 'bitter', though it may help short term if you have ate junk food all your life and your body needs some serious detoxing, you are always sweaty, and feel hot all the time, also probably overweight.

    I'm still trying to figure out how to drink young pu in the winter optimally. An hr or two after a nice big meal, gongfu small brews, but not packed too heavy. Cooking with more vinegar, ginger, scallions. A food combo I enjoy is chinese cabbage, chinese black bean, mushrooms, celery, taragon, ginger, scallions, seasme oil, soy sauce, vinegar, on rice or stir fried together with it

    longer cooking times seems to have some positive effects too in warming me up in the winter. Curry is great too as long as its not too dry where you are during the winter.




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