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Hey, remember me?

Yeah, I’ve been gone a while…
Busy with stuff:
Moving back home, being a new uncle, trying to write enough so I don’t look like a COMPLETE drain while I take a semester off college, taking care of an aged dog, reconnecting with people, seeing an old friend for the first time, co-owning a hookah…
Oh, and my laptop is broken. Need to send it in. Been like that for a while… (on my father’s computer)

So, now I’ve pissed away a lot of money (much of it to a good cause), and I’m connecting with the kid pretty well. “The Kid” being my nephew, not a child of my own. And I’m thinking about some literary career options – wish me luck.

Onto tea!
(a little more life blabbing, though)
When I got home, and finally sat down for tea in my tea room, the first thing I said to myself was,
“It’s too cluttered.”
My sister is moving back home with the kid, and tomorrow (or, rather, today) she’s moving her furniture back home, into the garage. When that’s all taken care of, I’m going to see how much space is left for me to move any extra tables from my tearoom out… blah! The clutteredness (amongst other things, obviously) is keeping me from spending too much time with tea…

So today (getting to the tea tasting, I promise)
I was in Puripan, and they’ve had all their tea sets on sale since the holidays. Finally decided to buy one. So, with the 40% discount, and a $40 gift card, an $80 set ended up costing $12 from my pocket. Woo!

So, the tea:
Very pleasant. Marvelous. I used my new set for the first time, and made sure to clean it thoroughly with hot water when I washed the leaves, because the chick at the store gave me the set that was on display. Brewing went very well – I got three solid infusions, and luckily my tea brewing skills haven’t atrophied from disuse. I could have pushed more, I’m sure, but I found myself very content at that time, and seeing as the set, tray and woonsan I was using were all Korean made, and three is a lucky number in Korea (or so I’ve been told by the store’s Korean manager), I decided to let things work out that way.
Good tea, good tea. Glad I bought it, in the long run – Great when I want a nice, elegant tea moment, and I’m not trying to impress anyone, and I don’t need an amazing, expensive tea.

So, if you’ve bothered to read this far, I’ll treat you to a description on the tea set as well!
Very simple set: three cups, a pot, and a decanter. The pot and decanter are both solid cylinders, the latter having no handle – it’s basically just a tall bowl with a lip for pouring. The handle on the pot is a long, smooth round thing, that comes out from a 90 degree angle from the spout, as you find on many Korean and some Japanese infusers. It’s a thick clay material, brown – almost ugly. I prefer the term rough.
I had the choice between this set, and an identical one in a smooth, turqouis ceramic one, with all those tiny cracks that are supposed to absorb the tint of the tea over time. The one I bought it much more dull, and not so smooth… ya know? I bought it because, well, I don’t have anything in my collection like it – everything else is so fine.
Drinking with it… almost felt a bit gritty. Something I’ll get used to with time, I’m sure.

Overall, a good purchase, a good tea time, and hopefully I’ll be writing on here more frequently.