I wish I'm from Uzbekistan, even the sound emitting from the mouth has a
feel of exoticism to it! :") Nah, I'm from plainer parts of the world,
down in South East Asia to be precise...

You are absolutely right, san francisco probably has only one Imperial
Palace that offers authentic gongfu cha style, on the other hand, there are
possibly pockets of teashops all over America that offer lessons in gongfu
cha that are more art than substance. I happened to wander into one such
shop in a subsurb mall in Vancouver, the shopowner was entertaining some
customers and a full regalia of tea paraphernalia was used, which she
claimed one must have in order to enjoy tea 'properly'.

I would like to see tea drunk on its own merits, without all the unnecessary
steps, as simple as possible (er, but not teabags...), so that one can focus
on tea (erh, C Sinensis, that is...), and not be distract by the teaware.

Oh dear, I think I just called myself a fundamentalist...

Danny

"Alex Chaihorsky" > wrote in message
. com...
> > Gongfu tea style has moved out of its humble origins and evolved into a
> > flowery art form which is so enticing to the westerners, are you one of
> > them?
>
> I do not think gong fu in America "evolved" into anything flowery mostly
> because tea culture does not exist here. Tea houses here are rare,
> traditional Chinese teahouses are very few (may be 10-20 in the whole US),
> probably 90% or so of tea is drunk with ice.
> Europe, Russia and may be Central Asia are different, but US? I follow a
> very good Russian tea site and thing I hear about tea clubs in Russia are
> mind-boggling. They evolved into something decadent and extreme
> pseudo-sophisticated. Which is normal - how else you are going to charge
> $200 for a teapot of tea?
> The whole Bay Area with its hundresds and hundreds of Chinese and Japanese
> restorants has how many traditional Chionese teahouses that offer gong fu?
I
> know one - Imperial Palace. And the gongfu there is very humble and
simple,
> as a matter of fact one has to ask for wenxiangbei, they do not include
them
> by default.
>
> Hey, is there a meaning to your nick "samarkand"? Are you writing to us
from
> Uzbekistan?
>
> Sasha.
>
>