{"id":1631,"date":"2009-10-26T09:14:11","date_gmt":"2009-10-26T14:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephenpickering.com\/?p=1631"},"modified":"2011-03-15T15:46:08","modified_gmt":"2011-03-15T20:46:08","slug":"why_oolong_is_the_best_chinese_tea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephenpickering.com\/wordpress\/2009\/10\/26\/why_oolong_is_the_best_chinese_tea\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Oolong is the Best Tasting Chinese Tea"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Chinese<\/a>

Chinese Tea Set<\/p><\/div>\n

Xiaoyan (Little Sparrow), a Sichuan girl originally from Chongqing, now residing and working Guandong Province, cultivating some of the most beautiful orchids one has ever seen, is a friend of mine. We talk about all things culturally related, and especially love to converse on the similarities and differences in Eastern and Western culture and tastes. We love to talk about books, ancient stories, art, history, precious objects, unique places to visit and the histories behind them, and a whole host of cultural topics. Our discussions are quite interesting and stimulating, and often we talk hours without realizing how much time has passed.<\/p>\n

Recently the topic of tea was brought up in one of our conversations. It happens to be one of Xiaoyan’s passions, and from the sense I get, a passion of China and the East in general. The West though, sans Great Britain, is Coffee passionate. I know that I am, and so every time before that we spoke about the subject, I always wondered why Coffee wasn’t as appealing to Eastern Culture as it was to ours.<\/p>\n

I’ve come to believe that it has to do with the matter of intricacy. <\/em>I know that many a Brasilian will take issue with this statement but, in general coffee is coffee. Sure you can flavor it, dress it up in all sorts of toppings and such, but basically the bean is the bean. I know that some beans are better than others, depending on the climate, the roasting, and many other factors, but these are varying degrees of differences concerning the same thing, <\/em>whereas tea, especially Oriental tea, as a plant, like the grape, has a number of different varieties of the plant itself and not just where it’s grown or how its processed.<\/p>\n

Note the differences in types of tea and coffee consumption from diffen.com<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Coffee:<\/h3>\n