Tea and Troops

So I just cooked a tea back in the microwave because I forgot to put water in the mug…
There are tons of tea sites online, just like there are tons of site for almost anything you can think of online. A few of my favorite sites are RariTeas, Celestial Seasonings, and Eastern Tea.
Tea is amazingly wonderful. Not only do different teas do different things for your body in many helpful ways but every part of the world has it’s own variety of tea. It’s the United Nations of beverages I suppose.
The very act of making and pouring tea in Japan is an art form. The tea ceremony is explained at Eastern Tea and Wikipedia has a great little page on it [ wiki ].

I was first interesting in the temae (Temae: Japanese Tea Ceremony in Romanji) through the book The Teahouse Fires by Ellis Avery. The book is not only a really good read but it’s an insightful piece on life at the beginning of the Meiji period in Japan written by (GASP!) a white woman.
Ellis Avery is so cool because not only is she a really good author but went to New York and Japan to study Temae for 5 years. The books cons? Some sex and homosexuality (an act not looks down upon or looked upon at all in many Asian cultures as long as it’s between women, I guess it keeps the men form worrying that their wives will get prego by another guy) so beware of this offends you.

Other good Asian historical fiction
Memoirs of a Geisha by Aurthur Golden (though I do have reason to believe the work is all plagiarized and that Geishas never have sex as a sort of step into womanhood like some sort of sick bat mizpah )
The Language of the Thread by Gail Tsukiyama (haven’t finished it yet but so far so good).
Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (amazing story and very insightful view on foot binding which really helped out in my Medieval Chinese History class).

Back to Tea
I hate Earl Grey tea. I’m not sure as to my specific distaste of it but the flavor and the smell make me pucker. My favorite right now is Chai. Love it and love the whole sticking it to the man in that when Chai was first popular only Indian male royalty could drink it. In Uzbekistan there are Chai houses where only men can go to enjoy a midday rest with a delicious beverage while women work. It makes me happy to be a free American woman but it also makes me want to hit Middle-Eastern men in the head sometimes.
I’m so proud of those men and women overseas fighting for the rights of other people and for those people that are on mission trips and relief trips to bring freedom and aid to each person they reach.
There are even some amazing people over there fighting for the rights of women to not only vote but to move around without having to be covered head to toe and see eye to eye with their male counterparts. It will take some doing surely but hopefully once the generations of these freedom fighting females’ children rise up they will see what is right.

Speaking of the TroopsFamily Christian Stores are teaming up with Tyndale publishers with Operation Worship “100,000 Bibles in 100 days.” When going into an FCS check out the counter and see those nifty little camo bibles. You can purchase either a bible or a plate card for $4.99 and on the plate card or the plate card inside the bible write a not of encouragement for one of our troops. If you purchase a plate card FCS sends it to Tyndale which will sew it into one of the camo bibles and no shipping is charged to you. If purchasing a bible you will have to send it out on your own to the address inside the front or back cover (can’t remember). Church groups wanting to get in on this can purchase a case of bibles with a 25% discount. If you think your church might be interested go into FCS and ask for some info to take back to your church, they’ll give you 2 stapled sheets with all the info you need.