Chaxi at the hot springs

After several baths with just a Thermos to brew my tea, I finally managed to set up a Chaxi at these hot springs in Jiaoxi, on the north eastern side of  Taiwan. The theme was water and waves and a blue feeling to enjoy the fresh aromas of high mountain Oolong!

This Chaxi enabled me to combine the 2 things I like to do most in winter in Taiwan: hot tea and hot springs! With all my equipment, it was much more enjoyable and easy to brew the tea. However, I still managed to make a mistake! I brewed like at home and forgot to consider 2 important factors.

The mistake is that I brewed my high mountain Oolong too light. I forgot to take into account that outdoors the water cools down much faster than indoors. This means that the brew will be even lighter if you brew the same way. And I also forgot to adjust the concentration for the outdoors: when you are indoors, it's easy to focus on a light brew, but when you are outside, there are so many other stimuli that the tea has to be stronger in order to feel it. I was so used to overbrewing the tea in a Thermos, that I forgot to brew my Oolong strongly with my silver teapot. Luckily, high mountain Oolong can be brewed several times, and once I had noticed the mistake, I corrected it in the next brews. 

And that's why I'm so happy!

Cheers!