Romania

Romania, the land of Transylvania, and stories of vampires (based on Romanian ballads and folklore). There is a lot more to Romania than these stories, of course. From 1948 to 1989 they were part of the U.S.S.R. Their first free elections were held in 1990, and in 2004 they joined NATO, and in 2007 they joined the EU. Here I am feeling old again because I remember when the U.S.S.R. was still a thing. They are a country in the southeast portion of Europe with a small border on the black sea. They have 4 distinct seasons, and the land is described as being 1/3 mountains, 1/3 forests, and 1/3 plains and hills. The people of Romania are said to have descended from the Romans, and they have been though many changes over time. I find interesting that they once used the Cyrillic alphabet, and switched to the Latin alphabet when academics started studying in other parts of Europe, especially France.

My tea research on Romania started off pretty boring. I found ads for Lipton tea. I also found a video of a Japanese tea ceremony in Romania. They are cultured far beyond the stories of Dracula, and vampires that were such a big genera in this country in the early 2000's. I started searching for videos of tea by cities in Romania. Nothing for Transylvania, but I did get a hit with Bucharest. There was a young man who posted a video about making pu-erh tea.

Most of the audio for the video was in a language I did not understand. I did notice right away that he had a tea tray with the slats on top, and the reservoir underneath. He had a gaiwan and a small teapot on it. From the way he was gesturing to the tea pot, I knew it had to be yixing. That's an unglazed teapot from a special region of China. The minerals in the clay are said to help remove bitter notes from tea. He decided to brew in the gaiwan instead. He did actually say the temperature of the water and the time to brew in English. Then he started waving a prominent bulge in his underwear at the brewing tea. I was afraid that my food porn was going to turn into real porn. I'm not sure what was up as I didn't understand what he was saying, but I do know that there are some people in Romania really like their tea.

I recently got some ginger pu erh, so I will brew a cup for the tea lovers of Romania.

Comments

  1. Poppy CrockerJune 16, 2019 at 7:34 AM

    Hopefully not literally tea lovers....

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Lace makerJune 16, 2019 at 2:08 PM

      I originally phrased it differently, but in the end I couldn't resist just saying tea lovers.

      Delete

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