TheNHBushman.com

I have strict orders from friends to blog on every single new tea item I acquire! In keeping with this directive, I present a new large teapot to you. There is nothing special about this pot really, but it looks nice, is inexpensive and brews tea well. I refer to these kinds of pots a “convenience pots” because they typically aren’t used for brewing gong-fu tea. These pots are good for entertaining a large group of people because you can brew enough tea to fill all the cups on each round, with little waiting. While I do prefer gong-fu tea brewing, there is a wait between infusions that sometimes isn’t socially preferable. My friends do all enjoy sitting around the cha pan and being entertained by the gong-fu brewing process, but sometimes you just want to sit down and watch a movie or have a group discussion in the living room, not in the tea room. This pot is made for that order.

In these shots I am making (yes, its true!) Jasmine flavored tea, one of my summertime favorites for quenching my thirst. One has to be careful how much tea is placed into the pot because the steeping times are considerably longer than when brewing gong-fu style.

This shot shows how large the pot is in relation to my swirled cups. While not huge, it makes enough tea to fill all of the cups with a single infusion - something that none of my smaller gong-fu pots are capable of.

One of the benefits of having a large cha pan like mine (or like these) is that the cha pan protects even larger pots like this one. You can see how the pot nestles right into a curved radius that the carver provided for this very purpose.

Unfortunately, the camera flash illuminates everything on the cha pan and makes it look dirty! I assure you that its clean, and the residue is from evaporated tea that has drained away.

Recently, US social networking sites such as MySpace have been in the news, as they are fertile hunting grounds for internet predators. US lawmakers are proposing yet another law to limit access to these sites in order to protect children from such dangers. Although I disagree with the method that lawmakers in the US typically propose to help solve a problem, this situation has given me reason to question my own presence on these social networking sites. While I found MySpace to be completely useless and in reality, stupid, I have had profiles on Hi5 and Friendster sites. After socializing with people on those 2 sites I have come to the conclusion that I have no need for such sites. Its nothing personal but I am just not looking to connect with women for sexual encounters, and, let’s be honest here - that is what these site really are for, whether or not you want to admit that. Therefore, I have removed my profiles from all the social networking sites that I belonged to. I feel that it is better to avoid the scrutiny that is beginning to develop on these sites. I would suggest that our readers review their own participation in such sites, and especially MySpace.