What Colour Is Your Bowl?

I like the enumeration at the end of this passage. It gives you the impression of peering into the cups to appreciate their coloration and the effect it might have on whipped green tea.

The cups Lu Yu liked best had an exquisite blue glaze, so that once the reddish-brown cake tea was served in them, it would look jade green in the cup. The more delicately colored whipped tea inspired Sung ceramicists to come up with strangely beautiful teacups of blue black, black, dark brown, and deep purple.

James Norwood Pratt. The Tea Lover's Treasury.

Reading this presents us with the memory of all the joy in comparing colour swatches and the names invented to distinguish colourings: Brinjal, Black Blue, Pitch Black, Mahogany (names lifted from a purveyor which markets itself as "Craftsmen in Paint and Paper"). Still love the simplicity of Norwood Pratt's listing. Luscious even without the presence of jade tea.

And so for day 1624
25.05.2011