Friday, July 17, 2009

Prehistoric Horse, Sabrina Siegel and Oolong at J-Tea

Lucio Menegon, Valerie Kuehne, David Grollman and Jeff Kaiser

Hanging with Prehistoric Horse at The Wandering Goat
(Click any photo to enlarge.)

The day after my gig with Sabrina Siegel and Prehistoric Horse (smoking gig, at The Jazz Station in Eugene, OR-Thanks to Douglas Detrick for booking, I'll be back next week performing with Cooper Baker) I went to meet Lucio Menegon, Valerie Kuehne and David Grollman (pictured above) for breakfast at the always wonderful Morning Glory Cafe (not much of a website at this date), vegetarian and vegan awesome breakfast food. When the Horse packed up and left for Seattle, I was desiring some tea, and I remembered that my tea guru, Jonathan Sielaff had told me about an oolong dealer in Eugene and that my parents had sent me a newspaper article on the owner, Josh Chamberlain. And San Diego tea shop owners Ronald and Emily (Infusions of Tea) had also mention him. So I decided to finally stop by, and I am so glad I did: a top-notch selection of Oolong teas. Josh himself travels twice a year to Taiwan to select them. Lucky for me, he was open, and since I had called ahead he had waiting for me a table of oolongs to try out. I cannot overstate the deliciousness of these teas. When we had worked through a variety, Josh (recovering from a bicycle accident-hence the cast on his arm and his jaw was wired) had narrowed my taste preference: the clue being that I liked smokier single malt whisky. I ended up purchasing Dong Ding Fine (sometimes "Tung Ting"), Wen Shan Bao Zhong and Gui Fei Mei Ren Jin Xuan Varietal. Also tasted, among others, the Li Shan Early Winter 07/08 and Dong Pian Winter 08/09, all fantastic teas. I thoroughly recommend exploring his site and ordering tea. Due to his hands on, individual owner/operator approach combined with his passion for tea, you are guaranteed to have the finest leaf sent your way.

Josh Chamberlain at JTeaInternational.com

Josh Chamberlain at JTeaInternational.com
Josh Chamberlain, owner of JTea International, prepares several Oolongs for me to taste.


JTeaInternational.com
Several of the Pu-erh raw cakes available and assorted Teaware.


JTeaInternational.com
More tea and teaware...


JTeaInternational.com
The shop...


JTeaInternational.com
Pure Yixing clay, which makes the best teaware in the world...

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