Would You Like a Storm with That Tea?

The hub made it home safely from China last night with more Chinese gifts in tow. The Chinese seem to be the most generous people. He and his coworker were given these beautiful tea trays and yixling tea pot. (If you click on the link where the tray is from, you will be able to listen to some soothing Chinese music but won't be able to get the English translation. It's worth clicking!) This tray has a slide underneath where all the access water goes. Too cool.

I have been looking around the internet trying to learn this new way of serving tea. It's absolutely fascinating. From what I gather, the "style" or custom with the yixling tea pots is called Kung Fu. While I did have my "tea" this morning, I only had it about half right. Still, it was really fun and the tea is amazing. The hub found a nice box of oolong that contains these tiny little packages.

Since I didn't have any small cups, I used my demitasse that I picked up in Bremen, Germany last year. It was perfect. I had several pots all by my lonesome and when the kid arrived home, I even made him a pot.

While surfing, I even found a video. While this video washes and washes and washes the cups and pot, more sites say to only wash the pot and cups with the boiling water once, then add the tea and rinse the tea and cups and then you are set to drink the third pot. Isn't it captivating?

This is what the leaves look like after they have brewed several pots! Wow!

After about my third pot (mind you, these are tiny pots), we had some terrible storms roll through. I even took the cats to the basement while mom and I sat in her living room (that is all underground) for about an hour. The kids were in lock-down mode at dismissal time and they had to wait an extra 45 minutes until they released them. We had tornado warnings for about an hour all around us. Thank goodness, I don't think any actually touched down; but the rain was torrential. These pictures are taken about half an hour after the storms came through. (Sorry about the blurr at the top. Bet you don't miss this Dianne!) The ponds were completely overflowing as were the streets!

My brother Johnny continues to make a little more progress. His blood pressure was better today; and although he still had a temperature, it was mild. His nurse says he is still asleep 99% of the time but acknowledges her when she says his name. I keep thinking about going up but think I will wait until he is alert and perhaps I can help him along at that point. I am playing it by ear day by day. I have coverage set up for mom in case I need to fly up this weekend as the hub and boys are heading North for Ukrainian Christmas. I am staying home to watch over mom. As I've said before, I don't I feel comfortable leaving her alone overnight any longer.

Again, thank you for your continued thoughts and prayers. It's working!!