I would like to share a new tea cup and my favorite tea pot with you.
I found the tea cup at Ross. Pretty in Pink!
On the bottom it reads:
Fine China
Dishwasher Safe
Made in China
I've had the Bridgewater Tea Pot (for Past Times) for years.
I love that is says Drink More Tea on one side
and
Love and Live Happy
on the other!
I'm still reading The Chinese Art of Tea by John Blofeld.
It can be rather dull reading, but is fascinating at the same time!
Mr. Blofeld collected tea stories, tea songs, tea poetry his entire lifetime
and shares some of those in this book.
Here is one I especially liked and will share on
Food and Feast tours at the museum:
Under Rare, Legendary and Otherwise Curious Teas he lists
Monkey Tea.
"The first Monkey Tea came from a lonely place haunted by wild beasts, but in the hidden valleys there used to be numerous monasteries with monks or tenants engaged in farming and fruit growing.
According to an old story, a very young novice from Heavenly Wisdom Monastery was looking after some pear trees covered with ripening fruit. Suddenly a large tribe of monkeys came swarming from the forest and set about gobbling up the pears. By the time a few monks came running to help, the trees had been stripped and branches broken, so they all walked back to the monastery with dragging steps, expecting a severe scolding from the abbot. Instead, the old man said resignedly: 'Heaven commands us to show compassion to all living creatures, and so does the teaching of the Buddha. Things come and go. Moreover, monkeys, like all sentient beings, have a spiritual nature. They have taken our pears. Well, so be it.'
Henceforward those holy men allowed the mischievous animals to come and go freely, and the latter, gradually losing their inborn fear of humans, came to regard the monks as friends. The winter that year was unusually cold: heavy falls of snow lay upon trees and mountains, and hundreds of pitiful beasts starved to death. After some weeks a horde of ravenous monkeys invaded the monastery grounds and ran agitatedly around, half-pleading, half-menacing, as though to say:
'Please give us food, or else we shall just have to break in and take it."
So the abbot ordered that bags of food be taken out and distributed to the monkeys; whereupon the animals uttering loud cries seized the bags and ran back into the forest.
With the arrival of spring came the time for harvesting tea leaves. While this arduous labour was being performed, monkeys came swarming down from the peak dragging along the old bags which now bulged with freshly picked young tea leaves. 'It was as though one's friends were to come back with baskets of peaches to make return for a gift of pears!' The tea, having been picked in places inaccessible to man, was found to be of unrivaled quality. In view of these circumstances, fine tea from that locality became known as monkey tea."
Thanks to our tea party hostesses.
These are just a few of the tea parties in the Land of Blog.
Wishing YOU well and a wonderful cup of tea!
