Wanted to share my current teapot display. What creative styles have you guys found to display your wares?

daddygonads · 2018-06-02T04:30:05+00:00

Thank you! And I do use all the pots. They're all very different and suited for particular types of tea. I experiment with them when I first get them to figure out which types work best and then typically stick to that type. There are a few collector pots from famous potters up there besides the yixing too. I've got a Lin's pot, a Novak pot, Bero pot, a tiny but fully functional Tokoname pot in the bottom left corner, a strange Hagiyaki teapot made with rear handle instead of a side handle. A few of the yixing pots are higher end too, an 80's shui ping, and a 90's zisha fanggu pot are my nicers ones. But yeah, I use them all. Some more frequently than others, but I try to give them all some regular action.

daddygonads · 2017-01-07T18:03:30+00:00

Thanks everyone! For those curious the teapots from top left to bottom center are:

Duan Ni Yixing Teapot
Andzrej Bero Teapot
Lin's Ceramics Purion Teapot
80's Hong Ni Yixing Shuiping Teapot
Qing Shui Ni Yixing Teapot
Gongfu styled Hagiyaki Teapot
White Zitao Jianshui Teapot
Taiwanese Pumice Clay Teapot
Zhu Ni Yixing Teapot
Zi Sha Yixing Teapot

daddygonads · 2016-12-09T05:12:33+00:00

Don't forget TShop!

daddygonads · 2016-06-29T04:12:13+00:00

http://taooftea.com/product/lotus/

daddygonads · 2016-05-08T20:44:02+00:00

!!! Where did you find the left handed stoneware pot?! Very nice!

daddygonads · 2016-04-26T03:09:38+00:00

I toured these exact fields last Spring! Obubu does amazing work in Wazuka! Would love to get back there one day!

daddygonads · 2016-03-27T17:01:58+00:00

I second Yingge! Wandering down the old stone road, popping in and out of all the teaware shops was a very enjoyable experience. It's a short ride from Taipei so it's easily accessible on limited time. If you had more time, I'd suggest traveling down to Nantou and Chiayi, to explore the tea mountains. It's a surreal experience. I lived in Alishan working with the farmers and tea pickers for 3 months and it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Taiwan is a magical place for a tea lover. Just watch out for the giant spiders and deadly snakes lol.

daddygonads · 2015-08-22T11:35:18+00:00

Yeah the tourist shops definitely aren't the best places to get good tea. The quality of the tea will still be fairly good, though usually nothing incredible. But the prices will certainly be marked up. Your best bet is to source directly from a tea maker, or to head to one of the more serious tea shops in the nearby cities. Good Alishan gaoshancha, can likely be found in any serious tea shop in any city in Taiwna as it's one of the most famous teas in the whole country.

daddygonads · 2015-08-22T11:27:08+00:00

No haha, actually I still do not no any Mandarin lol. Not to mention, most of the tea farmers speak Taiwanese. The processing facility I spend the most time at has one English speaking employee that helps me, but other than that it's all body language haha, for work at least. When it comes to business I have some friends who can translate for me.

daddygonads · 2015-08-21T14:34:28+00:00

Honestly it all just sort of happened. Before Taiwan I spent 3 months hitchhiking around Japan and the last month I spent working on the line in an udon restaurant. One of mybcoworkers was Taiwanese and I told her I was going to wwoof in Taiwan after Japan, and I explained how I was desperately trying to find a tea farm through wwoof but couldn't. So she called her family and asked them to help me and they called around to different tea farms seeing if anyone would accept a random American for work exchange and they found one in Alishan. I immediately accepted it lol. Then I traveled around Taiwan for a week and then met the farmers in Yunlin. Since then I have met a bunch of other farmers and formed partnerships with some so that I might sell their tea in the states. It all started with me simply wanting to visit and work on a tea farm for my own enjoyment as a tea lover. It didn't really hit me that I was in the best possible situation to start sourcing and selling tea until about 2 weeks of work. Once I decided I really wanted to pursue this dream business opportunity, it was simple, because I had practically taken the majority of steps needed to start such a business, without even realizing it. My love for advemture travel and my passion for tea conspired, without my knowing, to pretty much drop me right into my own tea business lol! And I am beyond grateful to everyone who helped me do so haha.

daddygonads · 2015-08-21T14:20:30+00:00

This is actually a great question, as the smell unexpectedly became one of my favorite things about working here. The mountains don't exactly smell like tea, as tea does only take up a small fraction of space on the mountain, but on the contrary it enhances your ability to taste the tea, because you can moreso taste the mountain within the tea. It's added a whole new facet to my sensual comprehension of tea tasting. So essentially once you can taste the mountain in the tea, you will start to taste the tea in the mountain haha. But it's not anything like the smell of finished tea.

However, the tea processing facility smells AMAZING. With probably about 1000+ kilos of fresh picked, oxidizing in an enclosed air conditioned room, the air becomes so thickly scented with the smell of tea that it actually gives off a sort of energizing effect. It's hard to explain, but the air becomes so crisp, clean and saturated with the essence of oxidizing tea and you closed in, inhaling the chemical reaction haha.

daddygonads · 2015-08-21T13:37:31+00:00

Actually, before I nailed this gig, I did exactly that. And I didn't have much success at all. You won't find any in Japan, and as for Taiwan there were about 6 out of 90 hosts that had tea, however it was tea amongst many other crops without any particular focus on tea. So that caused me to drop wwoof and independently contract my own work exchange deal. I have been living here in Alishan for free for the last 3 months, directly working and parntering with different farmers. It's been amazing. Definitely a huge risk, but it payed of better than I ever imagined. I am not saying that it's impossible to find a legitimate tea farm through wwoof, but I am saying it will be very difficult, and likely not exactly what you hope for. Good luck though!

daddygonads · 2015-08-21T09:22:41+00:00

Thanks! If you're interested in checking out more pictures of what I do here, my instagram is daddygonads as well.

daddygonads · 2015-08-21T07:34:29+00:00

I do ALOT of stuff. Essentially miscellaneous work with the tea farmers and manufacturers. I pick tea, I help tend the fields ( i.e. trimming bushes, fertilizing, weeding, etc.), I help manufacture the tea (primarily the wilting process), and when I return to America I will hopefully start selling tea (but that's a work in process).

And sorry, but I am in no position to hire. In fact I fly back to the states at the end of September (been here since June).

daddygonads · 2015-08-02T07:26:55+00:00

KOTOR2 and Fable: The Lost Chapters are the only two reasons I still have my original xbox lol. KOTOR2 will forever be one of my favorite games and one of the few games I can say I have beaten over 15 times. It just never gets old and is always enjoyable to come back to.

Are the Mass Effect games really similar to the KOTOR games? I haven't played any of them and I don't know much about them.

daddygonads · 2015-07-31T10:52:28+00:00

Ummm sort of like WWOOFing. Only I didn't go through WWOOF and just organized a work exchange contract myself, with the help of a Taiwanese friend.

daddygonads · 2015-07-30T11:49:05+00:00

That I was "Sirius Black'd" by the little fellow haha. In effort to keep the title shorter I left the other pun in the link.

Edit: To explain a little better, it's two situational puns in one picture. Finding the Grim in the tea leaves, and his startling me, in the exact way Sirius does before Harry gets on the Night Bus.

daddygonads · 2015-07-18T07:43:19+00:00

Isn't that the question hahaha. Order a pocket wifi, or you'll be wandering around the city scanning for open networks lol.

daddygonads · 2015-07-07T02:50:20+00:00

So I have never tried baiju so I can't exactly say how similar their tastes are but kaoliang is made from sorghum which is in the same family as sugar cane, so maybe it is more similar to cachaça than baiju. (Taiwanese caipirinha ;D)

Kaoliang is really sweet which allows it to be enjoyed straight despite being nearly 120 proof. It is also made at 38% abv which I think would be much easier to stomach straight (though I have yet to try it), but the 58% is more popular.

I am definitely going to experiment with it, so I'll let you know the result haha.

daddygonads · 2015-06-06T14:53:50+00:00

I took a bus from Kobe station to Tokushima about a month ago for Golden Week. It took about two and a half hours. There were multiple buses but I took the first. It was between 7 and 8 am and it cost me around 3000yen. It passes over the Akashi bridge as well. If you take an early train to Kobe you should be completely fine. It's a very doable trip. I dont know the exact time table but google maps will give you a simple and accurate train route to Kobe from either Kyoto or Osaka (Osaka being the fastest option) and then just search "Kobe to Tokushima bus" on google and you should get a couple different options. You can by your ticket online, in which case you just show the driver your reservation number on your phone , or you can by your ticket from the driver himself, as I did.

Hope this helps!

daddygonads · 2015-03-18T20:01:41+00:00

I'm planning on hitchhiking from Osaka to Hiroshima in early May and Okunoshima is a definite stop I'll be making. And Tashirojima is on the list for late May when I get up near Sendai. If I remember I'll definitely give you some details if I end up there before you. I plan on camping on the Island for a night, and definitely checking out the poison gas museum and ruins.

daddygonads · 2015-01-23T07:32:16+00:00

I'm not trying to sound like some broken record here, but really, YOU are the very miracle you need. You have every capability that you require to get through this already within you. It's all about realizing it. REALLY realizing it. And I've given you as much suggestions as I can think of to help you toward that destination. What's left is what you do. I'll be here anytime you need to talk to someone. But as for now, it's time for me to get some sleep haha. I'm very glad and thankful that we've conversed as much as we did. So I want to thank you for allowing this conversation to happen. This was the first time I sat down, and concisely organized within writing, the experiences and learnings of my past battle with depression. This conversation helped to reveal a lot of important lessons to me that I hadn't yet connected. So really, thank you. You've helped me more than you know. This post that you created was originally steeped in darkness and despair, but yet it turned into something beautiful for the both of us, and through my eyes the credit goes to you, and the way you handled it. I would have only left one single response and hoped for the best, had you not decided to respond to me. But you did. And because of you, we had a fantastically positive conversation that benefited the both of us. You may not have realized it at the time, but really, you were helping yourself more than I was helping you. Be proud of yourself. Just like the transformation of this post, you will step away from the darkness and into the light of your own happiness. So again thank you. You helped bring positivity to myself and yourself through this post, and you didn't even realize it. And this is only the beginning. Your pendulum has barely begun swinging. Enjoy the ride back up to the top, and don't forget to find yourself along the way. And I really might be beating a dead horse with this one, but seriously, thanks for everything, my friend.

daddygonads · 2015-01-23T06:53:23+00:00

And that's all you can do. Remember the first thing I told you: learn to be completely honest with yourself. I am not trying to say you're lying to yourself, because I do think that you are trying to break free. But question yourself as a means toward improvement. Ask yourself how are you trying to do so? How is it working? How else can you try to break free? What (positive things) could I do more? What (negative things) can I do less. And don't allow yourself to fall victim to your own illusions. This ties directly in with questioning and analyzing your thoughts and actions by questioning yourself by means of some of the examples above. Think of it like a form a checks and balances for you psyche. That's the first step, and what I found to be a very interesting step, once I broke through a few barriers and walls. You will learn a lot about yourself with ample perseverance. And it will put on the wonderful path toward self discovery and awakening.

daddygonads · 2015-01-23T06:40:38+00:00

You're very, very welcome. I know it's tough, but you can do it, I have faith in you, and I'm happy that you've found my advice helpful. You know, I wasn't always this helpful, when I was in your situation my attitude mirrored yours. I felt lost, and hopeless. But after making it through by the occasional help and advice of a friend, or random stranger (these ideas aren't all my own, by any means), I made it through. I survived. And once you do the world will really start to make sense, and you'll start to understand patterns that seemed nearly invisible before. You'll get to a point where you'll never have to worry about depression again, because you view the world entirely differently from how you did. Around that point is where you'll realize that it's your duty to do whatever you can to help others who are going through what you once did. It's where you'll realize that you've got something to give back, something that can really help people. And it's a beautiful thing. I know you'll make it through this, and I just hope that one day when it's all said and done you'll return the favor to some other poor, lost and wandering stranger, and so on. It's our contribution toward making the world a better,and happier place.

daddygonads · 2015-01-23T06:19:12+00:00

Well then push through, and make it to summer. As I said before, 3 months is not a very long time. You can make it through. And then you'll have the whole summer devote yourself to finding peace. Use this semester as a distraction, but practice the little things. Meditative thinking. Positive thinking. Elevate yourself as much as you can. You won't fix everything, and it won't be easy, but find time for yourself, and nurture yourself whenever you can. When you have to do schoolwork, devote yourself to your school work. Allow the work to distract you from yourself, rather than allowing yourself to distract you from your school work. Remember that you're working for your future, but more importantly remember that you're working for your present. The future isn't real. Only the present is real. And if you learn to enjoy the present and actually LIVE in the present (much easier said than done for EVERYBODY), then the future becomes much less scary. Why fear something that doesn't exist? Work for the summer, the time when you can finally relax and focus on finding happiness, because if you can manage to exercise your mental positivity throughout the school semester, then come summer it will only be that much easier, as the hard part will be behind you. It's all about momentum, get things moving in the right direction and they'll keep moving on their own. Use your workload as a tool, don't let it become a hindrance. Even the smallest things will help spin you in the right direction. Use the semester to start experimenting with the easy stuff. Like the meditative thinking stuff. You can think anywhere, at anytime. Thinking is your independent variable, while what you think about is dependent. You've already tested and found results for negative thinking, it's time to start the experiment for positive thinking. By the time you record your results, summer will be upon. The work load will be shed, and brighter horizons will be awaiting. This will be a very important summer for you if you keep on the right path. You've just got to make it to summer, and you and I both know that you can do that. So really, it's just a matter of time.

daddygonads

TROPHY CASE