honu

On 5/26/2017 at 2:34 PM, eve55 said:

I love tea

cool, that's more like it.  which types?

I ran across an interesting reference related to elephants in general and in different countries, here:

http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/ac774e/ac774e0c.htm#bm12

It's a bit dated, from 1998, but it put the number of wild elephants in Laos at a few hundred then with domestic count a good bit higher (although those weren't hard numbers, and they mentioned different estimates in that).  This citation about prices for elephants highlights the problems in protecting elephants in Laos:

Gullmark (1986) says that at the time elephants sold for between US$2,000-5,000 but “the seller sometimes prefers to be paid in gold, silver or hard currency.” Present day prices are unknown but are surely determined by prices in neighboring Thailand - at least for those classes of animals desired in the Thai market. Lao owners, most of whom live reasonably near the Thai border, will often succumb to the temptation of hard currency. The average price for an adult elephant in Thailand is about US$6,000 (150,000 baht), which is 18 times the average annual per capita income in the Lao PDR (US$325).

There was a bird that took up residence at our house that made really loud noises at night for a period of a few months.  I had terrible insomnia from that bird waking me up.  It was louder than any other bird I've ever heard.

I finally got in the habit of going outside and throwing something at it when it woke me in the night, since it wasn't going to stop anytime soon and I wasn't sleeping with that noise going on.  Eventually it probably felt unwelcome and moved on.

That opening story sounded like my family, since both of my grandfathers were essentially lifetime alcoholics.  From their experience I have a guess how that might go in terms of long-term health.  

One of them was mentally and physically gone by the end of his 60's, a vacant shell of a person, a walking set of health problems, but then he'd smoked a lot too.  The other was a bit healthier in general and quit just a little earlier (in his late 50s versus in his 60s, and he stopped smoking way earlier).  He suffered some health problems before he died in his late 80s but nothing that seemed directly related to drinking.  He couldn't really breath normally for years towards the end, so had trouble with something simple like standing up; that probably did tie to the smoking.

It's an interesting question how much is too much.  Those guys could drink but they were doing all that in their free time.  People that use interference with work as a single standard would be on the same page they were on.  People need to decide for themselves what level is a problem, but it's funny how people can develop perspectives on those sort of subjects that make no sense.  I knew a guy that started drinking before noon every single day, always completely hammered by mid-afternoon, so he'd given his life over to drinking, and somehow that seemed ok.  

Drinking a few drinks a day might not ever catch up to you, but there doesn't seem to be much of a divide between people that want to drink a few drinks every day and others with serious problems.  If for some reason you did want to drink 3 to 4 beers every single day (or comparable drinks) that would seem to add a workload on your body, more for your liver to do, minor disruption of unrelated processes, and that many more completely empty calories in place of foods.  Even over the very long term it might not kill you but surely there would be health impact. 

I get it that most people don't share my obsession with tea, but I wanted to post a reminder that there is a tea-themed social event this week, on Friday the 24th at the Seven Suns cafe in Ekamai (Bangkok):

https://www.facebook.com/events/680799915428022/

It's a little off the page I'm typically on but they do serve tea coctails there.  I would tend to drink tea when it's time for that and beer when it's time to drink alcohol but it should work.

It is possible to get a passport with additional pages in it initially, per that being mentioned on the notice.  It wasn't clear if I could have did that (I didn't know about the change in time anyway), or if for some reason that version isn't available when renewal is processed overseas.  

I saw that notice of the change during the process of renewing my passport; there was nothing on the local embassy pages about it.

There must be information about it online but I've not seen any.  There is a notice posted saying that behind the counter beside the entrance / exit to the US citizen services office in the embassy.

I was just in the US embassy in Bangkok and saw a notice that they no longer add pages to passport books, which they did before (I had them add some).  If that is true getting a new passport would seem to be the only option.  The steps for how to do it are clear enough on the website; it takes two weeks to process, and as I remember costs around 3000 baht.  

That lead time doesn't include the delay in scheduling an appointment at the embassy to submit the paperwork, which would take as long as it takes depending on how booked up they are.  She might want to look into it now.

I've been writing so much about tea lately I wanted to check in about all that, although not much has a close tie to Thailand.  I've been drinking teas from Taiwan, based on visiting Taipei on a short stop on the way back from the US.  I also did some tea shopping and wrote about that.

Before that trip I was trying some Darjeeling (Gopaldhara), and new teas from Farmerleaf, a Jing Mai Yunnan vendor, and I've been doing more with teas from Nepal lately, and have a new batch from a new source to talk about.  I keep reviewing teas from my favorite producer in Wuyishan, China, last some black teas and a bit of Dan Cong (that's from a different area), and now she's just sent more Wuyi Yancha to try.  I'll mention some posts and one tea event coming up and get back in touch about those Nepal teas and oolongs.

https://www.facebook.com/events/680799915428022/

A tea event at a Bangkok cafe, February 24, more or less an open tasting event at Seven Suns in Ekamai

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2017/01/searching-for-tea-in-taipei-taiwan.html

About tea shopping in Taipei, Taiwan, with a different post reviewing an Oriental Beauty (not mentioned here)

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2017/01/tea-shopping-in-new-york-city.html

About tea shopping in New York City, with a bit about where I went and what I bought and also about notable places I missed

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/12/farmerleaf-moonlight-white-from-jing.html

Review of a moonlight white from Farmerleaf in Jing Mai.  It's hard to say what that is, just a type of white tea, but it's also sometimes associated with pu'er, although I fail to see much connection.

On 1/20/2017 at 3:56 PM, llp said:

I recently got some Oolong Number 17, comes from Doi Mae Salong in Chiang Rai.  My first quality tea it was 380 baht / 200 grams.  Whole leafs and organic.  Thoughts on this tea? I've been cold brewing it overnight.

 

I just saw a tea that must be either that or nearly the same thing on sale at Central Embassy, for essentially that same price (320, that one, but tea versions do vary).  That's more or less the tea that got me really interested in tea, although I'd been drinking Japanese green tea and tried farmer produced tea from Laos well before that.

I could ramble on about background lots.  Number 17 is nice tea (a nice plant for making tea out of, to be clearer), a cultivar / hybrid from a numbered series from Taiwan that is named Bai Lu, but more typically incorrectly called Ruan Zhi here (which is a different one).  The other main type they plant and sell is number 12, or Jin Xuan, known for being buttery, for having a rich taste and feel, with number 17 having a hint of spice to it too, so maybe a little more complexity.  The most traditional and common oolong-basis plant type in Taiwan is Chin Shin (I lose track of transliteration conventions a little, maybe also called Qin Xin, but one is seen as more correct now, based on mainland China embracing standardization more).  It's possible to find Thai teas from that plant but not common.

Thai oolongs are nice, but some from Taiwan tend to be better.  I've heard that the best Thai oolongs go to Taiwan to be sold as fakes, counterfeit tea, so maybe there is better from here that doesn't make it to the market.  There are actually different types and versions of Royal Project products but in general those tend to be ok, and consistent.

Cold brewing is trendy in the US now, for quite some time.  I tend to use it more to get the last of a tea that I've brewed a couple of times but don't have time to wait on just then.  I've not experimented with it enough when only cold brewing to know what the advantages and drawbacks are, or how well it works to decompress the tightly rolled balls only by sitting those in cold water over time.  The typical understanding is that it brings out good flavors from teas but limits astringency, which really isn't much of an issue for Thai oolongs anyway, but it potentially could still be better that way, or as with many other aspects might just depend on preference. 

Always more awareness to get to on this subject theme, and most recently about Christmas theme teas.  I wrote two blog posts about making two different blend versions recently:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/12/standard-christmas-tea-blend-revisited.html

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/12/making-chocolate-covered-cherry.html

The short version is that black tea combined with clove, cinnamon, orange, and any number of other ingredients can be considered a Christmas / holiday themed tea blend.  In the one post I took that in a different direction, and used cacao nibs to make a chocolate covered cherry blend.

It's a completely different subject but I researched caffeine in a recent post, how much is too much, about withdrawal, and the long term effects of caffeine intake.  Anxiety is part of that, of course, a potential side effect, especially past the normal recommended limit of 400 mg per day (over four cups of coffee, or around ten cups of tea).  The interesting twist was that even if insomnia isn't an issue caffeine can change your REM cycle during sleep, possibly resulting in a long-term drop in energy and clarity.

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/12/effects-of-long-term-caffeine.html

More of me just talking to myself about tea; my favorite tea shop in Pattaya (Tea Village) added a small seating section, so having tea on-site there is an option now, with scones and such available related to whatever they prepare just then.

Seems there should be more to update.  I've been trying teas from Nepal lately, and pu'er, compressed tea from China, commission-produced versions by a shop in Kuala Lumpur, Golding.  I just tried an exceptional pu'er-style tea from Myanmar, sold by the Tea Side vendor.  It's interesting how those variations of known types works out; for example, Nepal is 50 miles from the growing areas in Darjeeling, so they are making similar teas, which can be quite different when they use different processing styles or tea plant types.  The tea growing area in Myanmar is right across the border from where pu'er is made, Yunnan, with the old traditions not necessarily divided by where the current border lies.  The tea trees themselves can be hundreds of years old, although age of trees is a hot topic, not easy to determine, and often exaggerated for marketing purposes, but regardless of that the tradition extends over that long time-frame.

Nothing new has been coming up related to Thai teas.  I gave a presentation introducing Thai tea to an expat meet-up group  event, Random Thainess, in Sathorn, BKK, over a month ago now, nothing new, but the summary and discussion format was different.  I'll add some blog links in case any of that is of interest, along with including a picture of that shop cafe area here (so small it's not really a cafe, but it works out similarly).

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/09/random-thainess-expat-meet-up.html

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/10/myanmar-old-tree-hei-cha-sheng-from-tea.html

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/10/kanchanjangha-estate-nepalese-teas.html

We used to visit the rink at Central World, which is fine, but now regularly go to the one in Mega Bangna (Sub Zero).  It's a little bigger and costs less.  The ice isn't ideal in either place, for some reason not cooled enough in Central World, so water accumulates, and not evened up very well in Mega Bangna, a bit dinged up.  For the most part that doesn't make a difference; if you can skate then you can, and if you can't perfect flat ice in an ideal texture won't help you.  Both places seemed to have staffing to offer lessons.

This thread isn't really active now but since the subject is timeless I'll add my own experience related to it, with going through all this twice (and living in Bangkok).  It seems clear enough there are three levels of quality and price of car seats available here:  

-Tesco-Lotus level, flimsy and cheap;

-mid-level Thai brands, like Cool Kids (and one other I forget the name of), perhaps decent, depending on perspective, costing more but moderate in price;

-imported goods, Japanese and German brands and such.  If cost is no issue probably the best way to go, but each step at least doubles costs, so for an infant seat and toddler seat one might be around 50k per device at this level, versus 2-3K for Tesco and 5-8k for Thai mid-range versions.

To back up, you need a rear-facing seat for a very small baby, an infant seat, and a toddler seat facing forward, mostly because babies change size too much.  You could put a young infant in a seat that's too big facing forward but that wouldn't be safe for them at all, defeating the purpose.  The nice part of doubling up on devices is that infant seats double as carriers; you can haul the tiny baby around in one.

I did try a Tesco version infant seat for my son and it broke fairly quickly; probably a good thing it was never tested in a crash.  It probably would have been ok, but maybe not, which again kind of defeats the purpose.  They look fine but the materials and design just aren't ok.  To make a long story short we went with a Cool Kids version the second time, an infant carrier that also snapped onto a stroller, which was designed to work as a toddler stroller without that seat attached later.  This involved buying a completely separate forward facing carrier, so altogether it ran something like 20k, not much for two seats and a stroller.  The quality really could've been better, probably just fine in even a horrendous crash, but not as bomb-proof as devices that cost three times as much made to higher standards.  It would seem to make sense for people to say "good enough; it's safe" or also "no way it's good enough for my kid, safety first," even though those do directly contradict each other.   Or this being Thai Visa cursing the opposing viewpoint while stating either would seem standard.

No matter what infant seat one gets the device needs to attach very securely inside the car using seat belts, to face rearward, to buckle the baby very effectively, and to be designed to support a very small human with appropriate durable frame and padding design.  It wouldn't hurt to be a packaging engineer to assure all that, but it would have to be enough to try to think it all through.  The toddler version really should have a reclining option to help the child sleep, or to just suit their preference, with most of the same concerns addressed.  Bucking a toddler securely is a different concern; good luck with that part, since by the time they're 2 1/2 it's like shackling a little version of Houdini.  By the time the child is 4 or 5 a simple booster to sit on the rear car seat--they design those; no need to go with a throw pillow--may work as a replacement, but those seats are safer, so it will make sense to keep them in it until they're good sized.  

About strollers, in my experience it's nice to have the giant, unwieldy, luggage-carrying, rain-proof version for a young child and switch to an "umbrella" type later, or just carry the little person, or make them walk.  My son was into the umbrella stroller until later; my daughter will have none of it at 2.

I don't get back to the US very often, kind of a shame since I have young kids, and family there would love to visit with them.

Odd you'd mention food being healthier in America; how could that be?  If it's "in the market" it's just ingredients, vegetables and whatever else, isn't it, or the idea is that American deli food seems healthier than Thai street food type fare?

At any rate since I don't get back so often I mostly just feel reverse culture shock back there.  It's great being able to use English with everyone, much more functional than my Thai.  As for women, I'm married, which kind of settles that issue into one related set of problems.

Greetings again! At the risk of talking to myself in this thread I'll mention another category of teas I've been on lately, aged oolongs.

Why would someone let a perfectly good oolong get old, to wait a decade or two to drink it (or much longer)? One answer is that the character of the tea changes, and improves, if someone likes the characteristics that develop.

A different answer is that trends in tea come and go and this was just one more variation, a way for teas that were set aside for different reasons to become an in-demand new category.

I've recently tried three relatively old oolongs, a 21 year old version from Thailand, a 30 year old tea from Taiwan (both of those Chin Shin, one traditional plant type from Taiwan), and a 40 year old Tie Kuan Yin from China, which I tried in a Bangkok Chinatown tea shop, Jip Eu. I really liked the Thai tea and the other two were interesting but less enjoyable.

The related blog posts go into lots of detail about them, and why I didn't like the two, but the Taiwanese tea tasted a bit musty for a few infusions, and the Chinese tea was unusual, structured and complex but not really pleasant in the sense of having nice flavors (it tasted like coffee; I guess a good thing for a coffee drinker).

There is talk of a "taste of age" that comes with aged teas, a consistent type of flavor profile, or other related aspects, a feel. The teas were complex, all of them, but it works best when those tastes are in a pleasant range, not just unique and complicated. More on all that in write-ups:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/07/trying-40-year-old-tie-kuan-yin-at-jip.html

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/07/comparing-aged-teas-21-and-30-year-old.html

I visited a dhammakaya temple on a meditation retreat a long time back, so although I wouldn't have any input on scandals about corruption or misuse of funds I could say a little about what I did see.

That was a small temple outside of Bangkok, well outside in the country. The buildings weren't expansive on that scale but it was growing fast and had a lot of infrastructure for as small as it was. Related to the commercial aspect, they did sell amulets and statues, and there was talk of magical powers that seemed a little shady, seemingly too farfetched to be genuine, but that was the extent of all that.

Their practice of Buddhism was quite close to "normal" Thai Buddhism, with a couple of exceptions related to meditation practice and afterlife beliefs. A lot of Thais have inconsistent beliefs related to afterlife, and the belief in different realms one might come back to isn't really so controversial in Buddhism, so it's a short step to believing in a relatively Christian version of heaven. But most don't take that step, and dhammakaya standard teachings do. I'll leave it to others to go further with saying to what extent there continuity of a person (rebirth as continuing patterns of karma, versus no permanent soul), or how rebirth is supposed to work, since all that was never interesting enough for me to focus on it much.

As for meditation, practices vary within the rest of Thai Buddhism too. Some meditation emphasizes visualization of colors, and other practices nothing like that. Focus on breathing is normal and standard, not just within the Thai tradition but there as well. Seated and walking meditation are both taught. Dhammakaya emphasizes guided meditation, kind of an unusual idea, listening to someone talk, with focus on what they are saying as a form of meditation. Along with that one is taught and encouraged through that real-time guidance to visualize a crystal monk figure or angel or something such. Then you are given certifications related to what degree of success you had in your practice, based on what you tell someone helping with that guidance, some type of instructor.

It starts to sound a little like Scientology, doesn't it? The form is different, since that relates to taking classes and something more like psychotherapy, with even more commercial aspect to it. The potential seems to be there to extend the levels of certification and tie it together with donations, although I have absolutely no experience with that being conducted. The only fund raising I ran across was asking for donations, and not in a very direct fashion involving any pressure, so nothing different from any other religion, with a lot more emphasis on religious item sales.

The monks I came in contact with seemed to not really be a part of any conspiracy to raise a lot of money. No one was marching in formation or anything like that, not even sitting in those rows to meditate. If there was a commercial aspect that involved some degree of corruption or inappropriate funds handling it seemed they had nothing to do with it, so selling magic amulets and the like seemed the worst offense being conducted. Since ordinary Thai Buddhism, the standard forms, also overlap with unusual belief in the effectiveness of icons in a way that somehow limits this as a transgression, under one possible interpretation.

My take, for what it's worth, is that they were extending the worst aspects of Thai Buddhism in directions it really shouldn't be going further in. I have no idea if that carried over to higher ranking monks being personally wealthy.

I just visited a World of Coffee and Tea Expo at Impact (in Bangkok, really Nonthaburi, close enough), and Dilmah had a booth there (related to the last post).

They seemed to have loose teas that might be on the level of what Twinings sells, although since I've not been drinking a lot of Twinings or Dilmah that comparison is just a guess. They sell mostly Ceylon teas (from Sri Lanka, the old British colony name there, which stuck to the tea).

They had lots of flavored blend tea bags at their display booth last weekend (a week ago now), but sold other teas like "darjeeling" and "lapsang souchong" (both almost certainly from the region in India and from the related Wuyishan area in Fujian, China, respectively). Since they weren't offering samples of those teas I can't say how they were. I tried a tea-bag version of a loose oolong from Sri Lanka (my first) and it was pretty awful; could've as easily not been tea in that bag. But then tea dust is often like that.

It sounds like a negative conclusion about Dilmah teas is implied, but I don't mean it that way; I've really not tried their better teas.

There wasn't a lot more there to see related to tea, oddly. This blog post says what was there, another Ceylon vendor, a standard Thai commercial tea producer (Boon Rawd, the company that makes Singha), and one smaller producer vendor, Chaidim, but only one of their teas really stood out for me. I've been to an organic foods expo that seemed to do more with presenting different teas; I'll keep my eyes open for that. There was a booth related to a Nespresso compatible coffee capsule machine that made tea with results from that a bit inconclusive. Really it doesn't seem possible that above average tea can be brewed in 15 to 20 second using a similar process to expresso but I only tried one, that orangish "Thai tea," and it was ok, not great.

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-bangkok-world-of-coffee-and-tea-expo.html

I could only comment about what I've tried from Dilmah, since surely they make a range of products, but their tea bags are not so good, and loose black tea is ok.

What I've tried was typical machine-made CTC tea though, astringent enough that if you don't prefer to drink tea with milk or sugar, or both, most people probably wouldn't like it.

There had been an older Thai belief that if you didn't eat all the food you bought or cooked you might suffer hunger in a next life as a result, a direct application of bad karma. I've heard it mentioned that waste is also seen as disrespectful to the farmers, although related to their best interest it may be as well if people throw out as much food as they eat.

To some extent that practice seems to be replaced in some of the younger generation by a tendency to leave food behind as a sign of having the wealth to do so, even to the extent of ordering a lot of extra food to make that especially clear.

It doesn't necessarily need to be separated by age, though, since my wife's aunt seems to prefer to make a show of having more food than can be eaten on the table to demonstrate that ample consumption is available, although she wouldn't do the same if she was paying for it.

It's funny how these two approaches contrast so directly, when it seems to just make intuitive sense to order as much food as you want to eat.

I'm sure this must come up in other places on this forum as well, and there was a post mentioning a TAT reference that tourism is really up 15% this year, but in general how could someone know if tourism is down, or to what extent?

There is plenty of circumstantial evidence discussed here, about businesses going out of business, or places looking empty, but if related government agency numbers aren't a good reference what would be?

Of course the next point is always that Chinese tour-group tourists are replacing Russians or Europeans with more money, and I can't imagine any stats capturing tourists place of origin, and even if it did separating out travel by groups versus individual planning.

I just visited Samui two weeks ago and there was no way for me to get a feel for it tourism was slow there or not, especially since it's not a higher season. On the way back we stopped by Chumporn, a beach resort, and it was deserted, but more of the same, not sure if that would've been different a few years ago at this time.

I just wrote a review of a tea cafe in Bangkok, Seven Suns, with a section that described seven other cafes that I've reviewed here.

I'm not really big on going somewhere for a cup or a pot of tea, really, because it's a much better value to buy good loose tea and brew it at home, but writing about tea sort of leads to checking such things out.

A lot of this post is about the thread theme, tea awareness in Thailand (Bangkok, really). That shop owner is trying to make tea accessible by creating healthy iced-tea blends and such. They sell traditional single-type teas, the kind enthusiasts like me drink, but part of his mission is to ramp up a middle ground between what old Chinese people drink and bubble tea:

http://teaintheancientworld.blogspot.com/2016/03/seven-suns-tea-cafe-and-visions-of.html

Seems like claims on both sides have already been covered, but to chime in my two kids have both US and Thai nationality and passports.

My understanding, from talking to related staff at the Bangkok American embassy and Thai government staff, and a local immigration lawyer, is that holding two passports and retaining two nationalities forever is permitted by both countries.

I'm not clear on it being required but it seems necessary to only use the Thai passport to enter and leave Thailand, and to always use the same passport entering and leaving other countries so the records and stamps match up.

The original question was about someone changing nationalities, so that really is a slightly different case, but the consensus here seems to be the same applies to immigrants to Thailand that adopted the nationality, but I really have no background with that.

I'm not accusing any tea vendors of anything, or trying to spread fear about teas, but an online friend living in Indonesia passed on a personal account of negative health effects from drinking inexpensive teas (from there, not Thai teas).

I had tried the same teas, a little, but per his account after drinking them for a long time (a commercial jasmine black tea) he suffered unusual muscle cramping. He kept changing his diet and other environment factors to figure out what was causing it and after cutting out the teas that gradually dropped out.

That's actually the end of the story. There is no decent guess about what was causing that in the tea, could be pesticides, or chemical fertilizer residue, or something else. It seemed more likely to me they were using some solvent to get the most out of the jasmine flowers, or an artificial flavoring, since I've never heard of any comparable health impact from any teas, and I've read a ridiculous amount about tea, and it seems a coincidence a jasmine tea did it. But who knows.

Relative level of risk is hard to assess, or how it might relate to the Thai jasmine teas someone else just posted about. I have tried Thai teas with a chemical taste but I didn't actually finish one container, and my friend probably only experienced the effects because he was drinking the tea every day for awhile. All the same one really wouldn't want to consume smaller amounts of a toxic chemical with no noticeable effects, except maybe health problems that could build up over time, to show up years later instead.

It might sound like I'm going somewhere with this, to suggest people should drink better tea, or organic tea, or not drink jasmine or flavored tea. I can't really suggest what to drink or not drink; no matter what's on the label you take a leap of faith, at least here in Thailand, but to some extent everywhere. But if you buy the absolute cheapest teas on the market it seems certain those were made with lots of chemical fertilizer and pesticides, so the issue is really about if you end up consuming any of that and if so what the effect of what they used will be. More "natural" pollution might pose the same risks, using water sources contaminated by heavy metals, for example (just a hypothetical example; what do I know about pollution and food safety).

I'd go to Siem Reap and spend a couple of days, very inexpensive there anyway, and inexpensive to travel there by bus if cost is a concern.