The Semi Daily Cup?

I have decided that no one in their right mind should care what type of crummy bagged tea I drink. So from now on I will only post daily cups if I have a full leaf tea of good quality. Frankly Safeway is not up to snuff with it's imported fine tea selections and this I am sure all of you know. Last few days I have actually been skiing, so only bagged tea for me. Don't worry though, I have lots of good things in waiting to drink in the near future. Hope you will join me in my quest to drink at least one cup of great tea a day.

4th place

With a horrible loss against a winnable team last night, the Jazz made up for it tonight beating Atlanta. A bit to close for comfort, but a win is a win. And with a surprising couple of losses for Denver last night and tonight, the Jazz have been able to gain a slightly tighter grip on the division with a 2.5 game lead over the Denver's Nuggets. As long as the Jazz hold the division they will not fall below 4th place but if we want some home court advantage in the playoffs (and the Jazz most definitely do with a 23 and 3 record at Energy Solutions Arena) we will need to hope for Lakers and Phoenix losses and New Orleans losses as well.
On a personal note, I hope D Williams is only wearing that arm band in order to put some padding on his sore elbow. I have been making fun of A.I. for wearing his for some time now, and I would be disappointed if I had to stop.
Go Jazz.

Holosync Part 1

I am going to keep this one short here because I am only two days in. So far I am surprised. The website has loads of claims, and one of the articles claims that this program can awaken latent powers. Well I don't feel my ability for telekinesis increasing yet, but after examining the steps and going over the tapes I would have to say that this program does look helpful. Just by mere time spent in solitude and reflection can have a benefit, and the first thing that struck me about this program was the amount of time it takes each day and the amount of months it takes to develop. This is definitely not a miracle pill, which adds to my comfort. Nothing is free, as my Daddy always taught me.
Once you put the headphones on (stereo headphones) the audio is very serene. Very peaceful. And you have an immediate feeling that can probably be attributed to the placebo effect. Then you settle in. You let your breathing slow and move into rhythm. And your off. The first stages of meditation can be felt within ten minutes, and these are just the first tapes, I can't wait to work my way up to the full hour session. Here's to hoping these trends continue...


photo by Fumanchu

The Daily Cup

Nothing new and crazy today. I just had the usual green tea again. Same as last night, I had the yellow mountain needle point green tea. This time I used more tea leaves to help strengthen up the flavor and it seemed to do the trick.

Where the West Was Won.

The west in the NBA is out of control. Only 5 games separate the teams in 1st and 9th place. The Jazz won their game last night against Golden State, which was huge, but the Nuggets, the Rockets, The spurs, and The Lakers also won. The Jazz managed to beat Golden State, but other than that most of the threats still remain. Portland has fallen, but the defeat of Boston by Denver last night probably will raise some eyebrows. At least Charles Barkley has placed his vote for the Championship, The Utah Jazz. Boozer likes those TNT guys so hopefully he won't let them down.

The Daily Cup

Yellow Mountain Green Tea. Great green tea and one of the ten famous teas of China. The taste is very sharp, and in a world of packaged crumbs that is called bagged tea, this tea never seems to give in to the evils of tannin. I used the Gong Fu style (loosely, I was the only one drinking)and I don't think I added enough today. The color was promising but it was a bit light, regardless of steeping time.

Everybody was Gong Fu Fighting...

Here is my promised intro on Gong Fu. There are many books about the proper steps and techniques that are used in the ceremony but I will give a quick into and then a link to the video on you tube that helps to quickly introduce you to Gong Fu.
The Gong Fu tea ceremony is a ceremony of preparing loose leaf tea that originated in Fujian province during the late Ming Dynasty 450 years ago. It is a practice that is used to enjoy tea in groups. This is great for guests because the portions are small and the steep time is relatively short. Here is the video.


So much better that the Song style.

The Future of Meditation

I see a lot nowadays in the meditation market and I fear meditation might be going in the wrong direction. There are so many eccentrics and copycats out there that it gives meditation a bad name. Either you are considered that weird guy, or you are that guy who is riding the fad that is modern meditation. First you go to yoga class where they play the soundtrack to garden state, then your off to starbucks to have your mocca latte before you go to meditation class. All these things are spoken about like it is something that a college student does, something that only lasts four years.
There is also a huge array of products coming out that are trying to ride this wave, But are they any good. I have received a series of CD's from my father with a product called the Holosync program. The cd's are supposed to change your brain's wavelength to the wavelength of yogi's from India. I will be reviewing these tapes over the next few month's and telling all of you out there if I think their is any merit in the new age revival in the starbucks era.






Pic from flickr

Sunday.

Today is my day off so no posts.
Tea of the Day- Green Tea with Jasmine.

The Daily Cup

Today I had a wild pu-erh tea whole leaf tea. It was aged 5 years when I bought it and I have saved this batch for almost 3 years now. I shared this with my girlfriend this morning for about 2 hours. It was a very pleasant start to the day all around. The earthy flavor was very distinct and strong. I never quite know how to describe a pu-erh, in my own words I would have to say that it reminded me of the redwood forest, although I doubt that will mean much to any of you. We shared the tea using the gong-fu style, minus the traditional bowing. Tea has become a bigger and bigger part of my life lately, and I have to say, I couldn't be happier. Maybe it is the chemical Theobromine in the tea. I can't say for sure.
For those of you who don't know what the gong fu serving method is, I will give a short intro tomorrow.

The Birds!!!

The Birds Have Returned!

March 20th might be the first day of spring, but today I woke up to the sounds of birds chirping.

It was refreshing to hear them instead of my alarm clock for a change. But at least I could find the snooze button on my clock. Its the weekend!!! Wait for the sunrise!!!

Daily Cup

Today I had more time to spend on my daily cup so I decided to steep up a batch of some Ginseng Oolong. This stuff is great the whole leaves are rolled nicely, and by the third steep the flavor was perfect. There was also a strong, lingering sweet flavor after the sip that made it that much better. Good stuff, but I think high in caffeine, after my 6th or 7th steep I felt a slight headache coming on.

Here are the leaves before opening.

Here are the leaves after.

The Broken Board

Chess seems to be a dying game of strategy. Yeah you can find the niches that play constantly and at a level you can probably never reach, but it's essence. The idea of sitting across from a stranger in a park and matching wits only happens in select cities. Even as millions of people pour into coffee houses and tea houses on a daily basis they seem to want to jump in and out as fast as possible. The seats could be packed, not a space to sit among large sofas and chairs that have so much padding the arm rests come up to your chin, and on the rare occasion that they have a chess set it is always unused due to lack of pieces, or a black and red folding chess board that has 1/4th of the squares torn away. So I should re phrase my statement chess is not a dying game of strategy. It will always be there in some form or another. But even though chess is the most played game on yahoo, with thousands of players on at any given time, it will still be dying in a sense. That feeling of antiquity and austerity you imagine when you where younger, and that feeling of passion for the act of moving pieces for the goal of defeating a foe, not just stealing pieces and clicking a mouse. And on that note, I found a great chess site, Schemingmind.com.

The Daily Cup

I think that at least one cup of tea is essential. There are endless benefits, helps to ward off cancer, lowers blood clots, antioxidants, and bla bla bla. Those things all have their place but there is also something spiritual to drinking tea. It sooths the mind and prepares it to experience life. So for that reason alone one cup is essential. You can take your time and brew a fine full leaf tea, or you can do the hurry up method of popping a tea bag into a mug, either way one cup is essential.
Today I didn't have the time for a full leaf tea, that takes a certain amount of respect that I wasn't able to give.

Twinings brand green tea. On sale at Albertsons. It does the trick in a pinch.

I take what I can get though, and on my way out this morning I was able to prepare my mind and body for the day.



Anywhere a person cultivates tea, long life will follow. -Eisai, 1211

Where Amazing Happens.

I am a huge Utah Jazz fan. Basketball, for those of you who don't know. And so like it or not I will be giving weekly updates as to the standings in the west. I am not an sport analyst by any means. I am a fan, so don't expect me to have anything intelligent to say. I will more or less be cheering when the Jazz win, and pouting when they lose.
Ok here we go. Lots happening last night. Denver lost, thank god, they are uncomfortably close in the division but with the Jazz win Utah now has a 2 game buffer for first place. Next up for the Jazz will be Golden State, but the Warriors are hot right now beating the Suns last night. Denver plays the Celtics next, which will also be a tough game for them so I have my fingers crossed, Jazz win, Nuggets loss next week after the break. Maybe we can get a three game lead going.

My only problem with science is not that we believe in it, but that we only believe in it because it is scientifically proven.

My favorite show on television right now is Stargate. Battlestar Galactica has been on hiatus for some time now and Firefly was canceled. I love science fiction, so many advancements have been made in reality, and many of these advances were modeled after what we hoped for and dreamed for after watching a good sci fi flick. But this medium does not stop with technology and architecture, science fiction also seeks out the advancement of the human itself. With Star Trek we examined what it meant to be human, and more so than that, we examined the nature of a soul. Stargate and many other science fiction shows carry on this thought to this day. We try to find out what a soul is. We try to find out what god is. And we try to fit what we are into what we learn about the universe. Is there a God? If not, Is there a reason we think there is a God? More and more studies come out everyday that link thought processes with physiological responses. Meditation can change brain waves, faith can make you live longer, hope can cure illness. The list can go on and on.
There is science, that we have scientifically proven (yes there is a joke in there), and with science we have discovered a vast universe, a whole spectrum of invisible realities, we have theorized about the possibility of many infinite dimensions, and we know that everything is just different combinations of energy. So who is to say that, like sci fi suggests, we cannot evolve to a point of pure energy. And if we can, then what is the difference between science and religion. Understanding science does not change the fact that we are evolving toward something, some state of being, and the more we learn about the universe, the more I think that science will one day prove to be the math, so to speak, that will give us all that we hope for in religion.

Isaac Asimov once said: "Individual science fiction stories may seem as trivial as ever to the blinded critics and philosophers of today, but the core of science fiction, its essence has become crucial to our salvation, if we are to be saved at all."

Time to sit back, relax, enjoy a cup of tea and bookmark this site.

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