Hello, all!

I'm Tess, 23 and from the Fox Valley area of Wisconsin. Can't tell you
how much I've enjoyed the messages in this group! I've gone and read
through several years of back-messages and have learned so much; such a
delight to get the digest every day and to see what is being discussed.

I'm a longtime tea lover who is currently having the opportunity for
the first time to spend more time (and money--thank goodness college is
over!) learning about and drinking really good tea. So far in life, my
favourites have inevitably been greens, although I do enjoy black tea,
as well. I don't like anything too heavily scented or flavoured, but I
do like a well-balanced jasmine or lychee green or black, and my
current favourite is genmaicha. I didn't even know about this
wonderful stuff until last month, but at this point my boyfriend claims
that if he has to open the fridge door to one more iced pitcher of it
or sit down to a meal to one more pot of it, he'll turn into a bit of
roasted rice. He's unspeakably thankful, I daresay, that a recent trip
to Chicago's Chinatown yielded a fresh influx of variety. (Including
some Lapsang Souchung, which I love but he dismisses as "drinking
woodsmoke.")

I was particularly thrilled to get my first yixing teapot on the trip,
as well, from the Ten Ren store there. I think it'll be a good starter
pot; I've been practicing the gongfu cha method with my other pots and
gaiwans and I'm absolutely convinced that it makes it possible to
squeeze the maximum quality out of the tea brewed that way. I'm very
excited about using the pot--I plan to use it for sheng puerh, which
I've tried and loved thanks to a helpful Chinese friend. On top of
that, my first order of sheng puerh (and a bit of shu, which I haven't
tried) just arrived from the Jing Teashop, and I'm going to tear right
into it after work.

I'm clearly babbling--my apologies. I'm just awfully excited about all
of this and know that you all will be fairly empathetic about that.

The only other thing I wanted to share, just to see what sort of a
reaction I get, is this: a bamboo tea serving tray for gongfu cha is
definitely on my Christmas list; the one I want is just out of the
question before then. So, in the meantime, for practice and
practicality's sake, I've come up with a temporary solution. I
purchased a new broiler pan--I'm sure you're all familiar with them,
they're about an inch and a half deep, 9 x 13 inches, and have a
slatted top for fats/grease/etc to drip through in the oven--and am
using this for gongfu cha. The recessed slats are a bit of a bother,
as I have to put my cups in specific places so they don't lean, but
otherwise, this works *perfectly* and is, I think, an excellent
"starting out" setup for anyone who wants to work with the tray before
they buy a proper one.

Is that appalling? I've given some thought as to how appropriate it is
and can't say I have a problem with it myself, but does anyone have any
other thoughts?

Again, pleased to meet all of you!

Tess