Sunday-22 March 2009

Today, I think I finally found the time to do a few things, not to reveal too much here, suffice to say, I feel satisfied, sort of a sense of achievement.
I cook some curry, make some red bean soup, and shortly, I will know whether the walnut bread that I bake is good enough for consumption. If it meets my expectation, then I will post an article on that, otherwise, you won't see anything with regards to this issue, until I am satisfied with it.
With many ingredients unavailable here, hence, I have to modify the recipe a bit here and there. By the way, the other day, I went to my sister, Joyce's blog site, and I found it incredible that she finally knew how to bake and it looks like her Nutella cup cakes looks so delicious, so, Joyce, make sure you don't forget to bake for me when I am at your place (I hope I can make it this year:). You can get Joyce's recipe here, http://kate-ma.blogspot.com/2009/03/we-were-having-pot-luck-at-friends-home.html.

Back to my topic, I want to share something on Pu-er (普洱茶， which is easily available in Yunnan Province). I went to one tea market in Kunming, and basically you can find all sort of Pu-er tea here, price can be as cheap as RMB 20-30/piece to a few thousands, and some tea owners do not even want to sell their old stock, to them, there is some sentimental value, hence they usually keep the older Pu-er tea (usually, as it ages or matures, its value increases. And optimal age for Pu-er tea is about 10 years from the fermentation time).

And you can also see, the picture, top most, is a tea pot (紫砂壶） that is basically suitable to make Pu-er tea, as the local tea expert here share with me. And the white porcelain tea cup and the plate itself, I bought in a shop in Shenzhen, quite a good quality type (since I came here, I think my apartment is almost full of China and porcelain ware, which of course I like a lot).

OK, that's about it for now. Will write more later.

Choong, Beijing, 3.16pm