I apologise to any readers who cannot read Finnish. However, there are so many excellent tea blogs in English that I’m sure you will not miss me.

To all Finnish-speaking readers I say, welcome to read my thoughts in Finnish at aki no asa, where I blog under the name azouras instead of HM. Despite the name change, it’s still the same old me. Tea will figure heavily in that blog, although I won’t promise to stick to it exclusively.

I hope to see you there.

I don’t expect answers.

Yet sometimes I wonder if I should write this in blog in Finnish. If everyone who reads this blog is Finnish, it would make sense. Yes, it’s idle speculation. I speculate anyway.

I believe ju and jyu are the same word, just differently transliterated. Yu, on the other hand, means something quite different. It can be found in the expression chanoyu (the Japanese tea ceremony) and means “hot water”. As to ju, well, I’d need to know the kanji to be able to puzzle out what it means.

From the label of the tea bag:

Hyvin aromaattinen ja hieno, maukas, vihreä japanilainen sencha. Juoma kullankeltainen. Luonteikas teelaatu.
Haudutus 80C 1,5-2 min.

(Very aromatic and fine, tasty, green Japanese sencha. Liquour golden yellow in colour. A tea with character.
Steeping 80°C 1.5-2 mins.)

Also pictured are my notebooks that I've bought from Juuttiputiikki.

The dry leaves are needle-like and they smell very vegetal. Mmmm, I do love the smell of good sencha. The wet leaves, on the other hand, have a marine smell, not as pleasant as the smell of the dry leaves, but by no means unpleasant.

The colour of the tea is either pale green (in natural light in front of my window) or pale yellow-green (elsewhere). It tastes grassy and vaguely marine, and it’s smooth, not astringent at all. So far, this is my favourite sencha.

From the label on the caddy:

Afternoon Tea

Camellia Sinensis, a marriage of handcrafted quality, originality and health, was borne from the desire to create a holistically inspired range of teas based on our own original blends.

Also known as the “High Noon” tea, it has a particularly lovely aromatic flowery taste. This tea is blended with long leaves from Darjeeling and Ceylon and is ideal with scones and cakes.

Ingredients: Black tea

Brewing Instructions: Brew one teaspoon per mug in boiling hot water for 2-3 minutes.

Wet leaves: a mixture of green and brown

When drinking this tea, one is first assaulted by its strong, woody scent rising from the reddish-brown liqueur. The scent is a very good indicator of what is to come. This is a flavourful, robust tea. I’m lamenting my lack of milk or cream because I think this tea would probably even be improved my the addition of a dash of milk. However, I know this tea goes well with cakes.

Finally my cup has found its proper tea

This tea is very British in my opinion. I imagine drinking this tea in the afternoon with Elizabeth Bennet. The tea wouldn’t have any trouble fitting into the milieu; only I would.

The short version: Don’t buy this.

The slightly longer version: I’ve never managed to brew a wholly satisfactory cup of tea with these leaves. It’s always been either strong and bitter, or weak and bitter. This evening I managed a drinkable brew, but it was still bland and very unremarkable. It’s a cheap tea that tastes cheap.

The end.

For a brief time, I was quite addicted to the site. I kept creating my own styles and explored styles created by others. Then I forgot all about it and only recently found it again. Now I sometimes play with it, if I’m otherwise bored.

The site is ingenuous. No more seeing weird fashion shoots in magazines or boring commercials. Users aren’t passively any more; they are actively creating looks and can enter contests with those looks. Most of all, what they create is tailored exactly to their tastes. The site is the perfect advertisement for the designers.

When I was using the site, I noticed its effect on me. I wanted those clothes. Really, truly wanted them, and my tastes weren’t cheap. I was seduced by the Boss Hugo Boss jackets or the By Malene Birger trousers. The only thing stopping me from getting them was the lack of money.

It made me think about high-end fashion and whether it’s really something I’d want to support. I know I don’t want to support the manufacture of cheap clothes that are so badly made that they last only one season. I still buy cheap clothes, because of a chronic lack of money, but it’s an unsustainable practice. I always remember the t-shirt that I bought for 40 euros and that lasted many years, which can’t be said about my usual t-shirts of 20 euros.

But what about high-end fashion? Where is the limit? How much is too much? I have never had the chance to hold a garment that is truly over-the-top expensive, so I can’t say for certain whether they are that much better made than the more moderately priced garments, but somehow I suspect it. What we pay for when we pay for them is the hype around the fashion houses.

It’s only sensible to pay for quality. You can’t make good tea from fannings and neither can you get a good t-shirt for ten euros. But maybe it’s good that I don’t have and probably never will have the money to buy expensive brands. I’m not at all sure I’d have the willpower to resist, even though I don’t approve of the hype surrounding them. Buying those kind of clothes does not fit with my philosophy of living simply.

Here they are, the Boss Hugo Boss leather jacket and the By Malene Birger trousers. With them a shoulderbag by Longchamp, a t-shirt by Diesel, shoes by Tod’s and tights by Wolford. I shudder to think what this ensemble would have cost.

I suspect I’ll be going back to the site. The lure of the beautiful clothes is too tempting. Maybe this blog will, in time, turn into a fashion blog. Or maybe not.

I began with the bedroom closet, where I managed to clear one shelf. I then moved on to the kitchen, where I moved some boxes into the uppermost closets that I can barely reach with the help of a chair. I also got rid of everything I think I will never need, which wasn’t very much because this isn’t the first time I’ve culled my collection of stuff.

Now I’m working on the office/dining room closet, where I think I can clear a couple of shelves. I have there such things as my old duvet which is older than me and which I’ve spared from the rubbish bin “just in case”. Just in case of what, I don’t know.

One consequence of all this has been an awakening of a decorating instinct. Most of the time, the fact that my flat is rather dismal does not bother me. However, having bough a camera has changed things. I’ve taken a few photos of my flat and they so very clearly reveal all the deficiences in decoration. Greyish white walls, rather ugly plastic mat floors, lack of soft furnishings, furniture chosen with no regard as to their appearance.

There is very little I can do. This is a student flat and as such looks like it does. I can’t paint the walls or strip the floor of the plastic mat. Neither can I afford any re-furnishing. So, this is it, for now. Therefore, I’m left with reading decorating blogs and books and magazines and browsing the websites of department stores and furniture shops. In short, dreaming.

What do I want, then?

Something simple. Not clinically white, though. I’m not fond of the homes, showcased in decorating magazines, that are all from the same mould of clinically pared design. I’ve seen only a few examples where the style works. Most of the homes, however, look very impersonal, never mind how famous a designer is living there.

Nevertheless, there is one thing I like about those homes, and that is the lack of visual clutter. Obviously they’ve been pared of everything extraneous for the photoshoot, but having only the necessary things is my ideal. I want everything to have its place and that place to be out of sight except for the most frequently used things.

I’m not obsessive-compulsive about cleanliness and orderliness. You should see my flat sometimes. However, I’ve noticed that I feel better when everything is in order. When my books are in the bookshelf instead of strewn around the place, when the empty glass jars have been taken to the recycling bin instead of clogging the kitchen counter, when there’s no mountain of unwashed dishes.

Sumi-e paintings capture the mood I’d like to achieve in my dream home. Only, maybe not quite that monochromatic.

Autumn Landscape (Shukei-sansui) by Sesshū Tōyō

This is what tea I have, collected into one place instead of being strewn across my flat.

From back to front, the teas are as follows: In the silver bag, there is Théhuone’s organic green tea, Formosa Pi Lo Chun Superior. In the green caddy, there is Nordqvist’s Sencha Fukujyu. In the white bags, there are Robert’s Coffee’s teas Huang Hua Yun Jian, Pai Mu Tan, something that’s called merely Jasmine Tea and which is a blend of green and black teas, and Japan Sencha. In the metal container with a landscape picture on its side, there are teabags containing Clipper’s green tea with echinacea. To its right, Lipton’s Green Tea Intense Mint teabags and Simon Lévelt’s Organic Jasmine Green Tea teabags.

On left, in the front, there are two teabag collections from Twinings that I wrote about here: Classics and Flavoured Black Tea. The read metal caddy contains Afternoon Tea, a blend of Darjeeling and Ceylon black teas, from Camellia Sinensis in London. The small plastic bags contain the five teas I got from my sister at Christmas. And last, the teabags in the plastic bag on far right are some Japanese tea that my Japanese friend gave me. I presume they are sencha.

As you can see from the fact that the review of Nordqvist’s Sencha Fukujyu is from summer 2009 — yes, it’s the very same batch of it — I’m not particularly enamoured with it. I could just throw it away. It’s not like I’m going to drink it. Clipper’s green tea with echinacea has also lain there for several years without my having drunk it. I those teabags from Twinings just make me sigh. I used them this autumn term because I was just too frazzled to enjoy proper tea. I drank them with honey, which is the only way they can be drunk.

As to the teas from Robert’s Coffee, well, Huang Hua Yun Jian is a decent tea, but I’m not so fond of the rest. After having drunk Théhuone’s teas, I’m not so fond of going back to them. However, Robert’s Coffee is one of the few places in Oulu where you can get decent tea. I guess this means I’m going to be buying my tea online in the future.

I also took photos of some of my teaware. Here’s my meagre collection of teapots. Unlike some people I know, I’ve got only three pots.

The small brown one is a souvenir from my father and sisters’ Prague trip a few years back. The white one I bought from Kofeiinikomppania at the Market Hall in Oulu. And the one with blue stripes was made for me by my godmother in 2002 or so. And before you ask, I have no idea why there’s a dimple on the side of the pot. I guess because my godmother wanted it to be there? I don’t know.

Here you can see the pot from the other side. The figure of the woman was inspired by Matisse’s work.

And last, here are two mugs made for me by the very same godmother. The one on left dates from 1992 and the one on right from 2002.

This afternoon I brewed a pot of Butterfly Of Taiwan from Théhuone, one of those teas I got from my sister.

From the label:

Oolong teelaatu jonka pronssinhohteisen juoman tummaan teehen vivahtavassa luonteessa löytyy miellyttävää makeutta ja hienoista paahteisuutta.
Haudutus: 85C 2-4 min.

(Oolong tea, a bronze-coloured drink with a character that hints at black tea and has pleasing sweetness and slight toastiness.
Steeping: 85°C 2-4 mins.)

The description is spot on. I love the smoothness of this tea. My mother and father like stronger brews than I do, and I think this one would be a very good tea to drink with them.

The leaves are rather small.

But look at that gorgeous colour.

I’m already craving more.

Työn myötä sain ystävältäni monta kassillista aiheeseen liittyvää tavaraa, joka minun nyt pitäisi sijoittaa muutenkin liian täynnä oleviin kaappeihini. Kellarivarasto kun on käyttökelvoton siellä ajoittain leijuvan epämiellyttävän hajun takia. Onneksi se haju ei koskaan tänne korkeuksiin ulotu.

Siispä nyt on jälleen kerran vuorossa kaappien inventaario. Makuuhuoneen kaappi on täynnä vaatteita ja liinavaatteita, ja lisätilan saaminen sinne on lähes toivotonta. Jäljelle jää työhuone/ruokailuhuoneen kaappi, jossa majailee suuri joukko astioitani — keittiön kaapistoa kun ei nauramatta kaapistoksi oikein voi kutsuakaan. Sinne voisi järjestelyllä saada lisää tilaa. Ei muuta kuin töihin.

Saan outoa tyydytystä siitä, että järjestelen tavaroita. Mielestäni on jopa mukavampaa päästä eroon tavaroista kuin saada niitä lisää. Mitä vähemmän silmieni edessä on tavaraa, sen parempi. Nähdessäni tavaroiden asettuvan järjestykseen edeltäneen sekasorron sijaan, minut valtaa tyytyväisyys. Tuntuu, kuin paino putoaisi hartioiltani, kun kaikki on taas järjestyksessä.

Paheksuntani ei asiaa muuta: ulkopuolinen maailma on kovin kiireinen ja yliampuva. Sen vastapainoksi haluaisin kotini olevan rauhallinen paikka, niin ulkonäöltään kuin ilmapiiriltäänkin. Paikka, jossa on aina aikaa kupilliselle teetä.