Spring has arrived on the east coast, finally allow­ing us to enjoy tea in a more nat­ural envi­ron­ment. Few peo­ple are more adept at blend­ing nature and tea cer­e­mony than the Tai­wanese, so it makes lit­tle sense not to emu­late them now. A 2009 win­ter Li Shan fits the weather perfectly.

This morning’s tea recalls a week­end spent among friends in Flush­ing, NY. Both times I have been here I often felt I had been trans­ported out­side the US for a few moments — I think this is the clos­est you can get to Asia with­out leav­ing the North East.

We had a grand time drink­ing young puerh with Kai at the Fang Tea Expo — 2008(?) Bulang Shan, mao cha from 1000 year old Yiwu tea trees, and a mid-roasted Tai­wanese oolong.

After refill­ing the park­ing meter for what felt like the 5th time, we were treated to end­less gen­eros­ity by Annie and her hus­band at Luh Yu Tea Empo­rium. We drank a Da Yu Ling and their cus­tom label 2008 Nan­nuo puerh cake. A very good old arbor tea that we expect has some excel­lent aging poten­tial based on some early experiments.

We feasted with a gaijin’s attempt at Shabu Shabu — deli­cious, but we expected we can get bet­ter results next time. Our bril­liant and delight­ful 4 year old com­pan­ion Doris (who we know to boss adults around in at least Eng­lish, Man­darin, Can­tonese and Fujianese) decided that she was in no mood for hard boiled eggs that day.

We ended the evening with a stop by Benito’s, where he wowed us with his own pri­vate col­lec­tion of Tai­wanese arti­san teaware, paint­ings and com­pe­ti­tion teas. The mod­est gen­tle­man sent us away with sam­ples, as usual.

I expect to return to Flush­ing again before spring is over. Be sure to enjoy the gen­tle warmth and soft light before the sun turns too harsh.