Tea incense

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Tea Incense ( 茶香 ) is the method of using dry tea as an incense, thus "tea incense". Through the ages many things have been used as incense. Tea is one of those things. Using tea as an incense to sniff is an excellent way to experience tea.

1 Instructions
2 Methodology
3 Scents
4 Links
5 External links

[edit] Instructions

Heat dry tea using a censer or an incense burner ( 香爐 ). Pass the censor around a few times to share and describe the scents. At the same time listen to others while trying to define the different scents. The tea releases different scents as it changes temperatures by the heat of the odorless charcoal. It's important to understand that "Tea Incense" is using pure unused tea of good quality, taken from the same canister, box, or bag of tea that has been bought for drinking.

[edit] Methodology

The tea incense heating methodology is based on the "Stoneware Chip Method", by "Master Lin, Rai-Hsian" (老師林瑞萱) from the, "Zuowang Valley Tea Lore Center", (坐忘谷茶道中心).

[edit] Scents

The sense of smell can triggers memory recollections, experienced scents, and even abstract descriptions to try to define the scent in words. Tea for years has been appreciated not only its tastes, but for its fragrance, aroma, or "scents". Teas have different scents depending on the variety, processing, age, quality, and character of the tea.

As the tea scents meander and spiral away from the tea, it is like a mountain stream moving away from its source sometimes slowing almost to a stand still and sometimes speeding up and even rushing over a rocky falls. One thing remains constant and that is its overall motion is tranquil moving down the mountain. Another analogy is the clouds in the sky moving fast or slowly yet again one thing is constant, the tranquil moving and shape changing of the sky ever so quietly ever so unhurried.