Any idea why a raccoon and a tea kettle might have been painted upside down? baisao: Hokusai, The Tea-Kettle Raccoon: Painting Executed Upside Downinfo
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Any idea why a raccoon and a tea kettle might have been painted upside down?

baisao:

Hokusai, The Tea-Kettle Raccoon: Painting Executed Upside Down
info

(via tea-for-tea)

Source: baisao

“Pasted into this leatherbound volume are the original watercolours for one of the earliest illustrated books on Chinese customs to be published in English. At the back is the author’s manuscript together with details of the publisher’s and printer’s quotes and a newspaper cutting announcing the publication. The watercolours were purchased in Canton in 1789. They are of a type produced in workshops for sale chiefly to foreigners, for whom they functioned as records of the exotic. George Henry Mason published them under the title Costumes of China yet they equally record trade and leisure activities.” baisao: Woman preparing tea, Guangzhou, 1789info
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“Pasted into this leatherbound volume are the original watercolours for one of the earliest illustrated books on Chinese customs to be published in English. At the back is the author’s manuscript together with details of the publisher’s and printer’s quotes and a newspaper cutting announcing the publication.

The watercolours were purchased in Canton in 1789. They are of a type produced in workshops for sale chiefly to foreigners, for whom they functioned as records of the exotic. George Henry Mason published them under the title Costumes of China yet they equally record trade and leisure activities.”

baisao:

Woman preparing tea, Guangzhou, 1789
info

(via tea-for-tea)

Source: baisao

tea-for-tea: Tea bowl by Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743)Edo Period, early 18th century Japan I will never get tired of looking at old tea bowls. 
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tea-for-tea:

Tea bowl by Ogata Kenzan (1663-1743)
Edo Period, early 18th century
Japan

I will never get tired of looking at old tea bowls. 

“In Japan the discovery of tea has also been attributed to Bodhidharma, an itinerant Indian monk who brought Zen Buddhism to China — even though tea was certainly in production when he arrived. Steven D. Owyoung writes that  Bodhidharma was a man “uncouth and unattractive … monosyllabic and miserly with his words … coarse featured, hirsute, and typically brooding or scowling,” nonetheless, a great and devoted monk. The story goes that once, deep in meditation, Bodhidharma allowed his eyes to close. Disgusted with his weakness, he took a knife and slashed off his eyelids to keep it from happening again. His eyelids landed on the ground, and from them sprang a tea plant – a stimulant that kept subsequent generations of monks awake and alert as they meditated.” - From “Origin Myths” at Little Red Cup Tea Proper.
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“In Japan the discovery of tea has also been attributed to Bodhidharma, an itinerant Indian monk who brought Zen Buddhism to China — even though tea was certainly in production when he arrived. Steven D. Owyoung writes that  Bodhidharma was a man “uncouth and unattractive … monosyllabic and miserly with his words … coarse featured, hirsute, and typically brooding or scowling,” nonetheless, a great and devoted monk. The story goes that once, deep in meditation, Bodhidharma allowed his eyes to close. Disgusted with his weakness, he took a knife and slashed off his eyelids to keep it from happening again. His eyelids landed on the ground, and from them sprang a tea plant – a stimulant that kept subsequent generations of monks awake and alert as they meditated.”

- From “Origin Myths” at Little Red Cup Tea Proper.

kicker-of-elves: drying tea at the tea processing plant of “Mei-ya-wu” Brigade, Hangchow  Emil Schulthess 1966 These days the city is Hangzhou — but everything else looks pretty familiar.
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kicker-of-elves:

drying tea at the tea processing plant of “Mei-ya-wu” Brigade, Hangchow 

Emil Schulthess 1966

These days the city is Hangzhou — but everything else looks pretty familiar.

(via tea-for-tea)

Source: kicker-of-elves

Original Description: Group of workers harvesting tea. Greek women. Taken between 1905 and 1915. From the Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).
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Original Description: Group of workers harvesting tea. Greek women. Taken between 1905 and 1915. From the Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection (Library of Congress).

Spring Tea in Hunan Province, taken on a recent trip to origin. 
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Spring Tea in Hunan Province, taken on a recent trip to origin. 

Hey! You can order Little Red Cup tea by the cup at 158 Pickett Street Cafe in South Portland! We’re very excited to be sharing a counter with these bagels.
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Hey! You can order Little Red Cup tea by the cup at 158 Pickett Street Cafe in South Portland! We’re very excited to be sharing a counter with these bagels.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858). Yaozen Restaurant at Sanya from the series Grand Series of Famous Tea Houses of Edo. Japan, Edo period, ca. 1839-1842. Woodblock print; ink and color on paper. Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), a leading ukiyo-e artist who designed poetic Japanese landscape prints, also created a print series depicting fine restaurants in Edo. Hiroshige portrayed upscale places that served special meals, followed by tea ceremonies. The restaurants also functioned as meeting places for cultural activities hosted by connoisseurs. Hiroshige’s depictions, accompanied by his trademark beautiful landscapes, inspired even more people to travel to Edo to experience the sophisticated delights of the city for themselves. Via.
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Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858). Yaozen Restaurant at Sanya from the series Grand Series of Famous Tea Houses of Edo. Japan, Edo period, ca. 1839-1842. Woodblock print; ink and color on paper.

Utagawa Hiroshige (1797-1858), a leading ukiyo-e artist who designed poetic Japanese landscape prints, also created a print series depicting fine restaurants in Edo. Hiroshige portrayed upscale places that served special meals, followed by tea ceremonies. The restaurants also functioned as meeting places for cultural activities hosted by connoisseurs. Hiroshige’s depictions, accompanied by his trademark beautiful landscapes, inspired even more people to travel to Edo to experience the sophisticated delights of the city for themselves.

Via.

Dipping Water From The River and Simmering Tea

Living water needs living fire to boil:
Lean over Fishing Rock, dip the clear deep current;
Store the spring moon in a big gourd, return it to the jar;
Divide the night stream with a little dipper, drain it into the kettle.
Frothy water, simmering, whirls bits of tea;
Pour it and hear the sound of wind in pines.
Hard to refuse three cups to a dried-up belly;
I sit and listen—from the old town, the striking of the hour. 

Su Shi (苏轼), translated by Burton Watson