Keemun, Obi Wan Kenobi. It's our only hope.

My research into virtual performance has begun exploring some of the cutting-edge technology that may soon astound.

Much of the performance spectacles we've seen in recent years — from the Tupac resurrection at last year's Coachella to Hatsune Miku and the other digital idol singers in Japan — are often reported as being holograms, but they're not. They're two-dimensional projections made to simulate 3-D, actually using an upgraded theater trick from the 19th century.

Three-dimensional projection into real space, though, is creeping its way into reality. There are numerous projects in the works now to generate 3-D images, say, dancing on top of your iPad or in the middle of your dining table. The video below — a quickie, just 12 seconds — shows a demonstration of the latter. It's a tiny teapot, projected in 3-D so you can see — as the camera moves around it — the whole object from all sides, including real shadows.



We're gonna see that Princess Leia hologram tech before we die, by gum.

The ups and downs of tea science

As a curious person by nature, one of the fun parts about being enrolled in a university is having access to research libraries. Nearly any paper published in an academic journal is usually a couple of clicks away. You'd be amazed — at least I was recently — at the amount of research still going on into the continuing mystery of tea. Just in the last year, papers have included "Chemistry and Pharmacology of Caffeine in Different Types of Tea Leaves," "The Chemistry and Biotransformation of Tea Constituents" and "Flavour Chemistry of Mate and Some Common Herbal Teas."

But chemist Matthew Harbowy, who's focused a lot of his own work on tea and caffeine, has taken to Quora (a question-and-answer service with massively greater credibility than most "answers" sites) in recent months to bring a lot of this kind of research out from behind academy walls.

For instance, Harbowy tackles a question I've heard debated almost as often as the great milk-first debate: "Does bouncing your tea bag actually do anything substantial?" After discussing the Noyes-Whitney equation, the hydrophobic barrier and several experiments, he concludes: "Within statistical error, under almost all testing conditions, I cannot find a difference between dunking and not dunking under controlled circumstances, so do it how you want."

Also see his answers to "Does green tea have more caffeine than black tea?" and "How much caffeine is there in jasmine tea?" He's also a contributor to the scholarly collection Caffeine.

'Siri, some tea, please.'

Siri, the new digital "personal assistant" feature on the iPhone 4S, is remarkably helpful. But she can't make tea. Yet.

That hasn't stopped people from trying. One user simply requested, "Siri, make tea." The response was initially hopeful: "Right away sir. All contacts beginning with 's' deleted. Will there be anything else?"

Of course, a large number of people have tried, "Siri, tea, Earl Grey, hot." The result is usually, "Sorry, I can't look for restaurants in Japan" or other locales. Siri is no Enterprise replicator.

On the up side, Siri apparently gives great advice on where to hide a dead body. So there's that.

The tea app we've been waiting for

I've written a few times about various tea-related mobile apps (here, here, and here), and I still use a couple of them on rare occasions. Most come with too-cute names and one or two main functions, a timer, a blender, what have you. But the latest app getting real press is simply called Tea, and it's elegant, simple and useful.

Tea for iPhone comes pre-loaded with 12 tea types and more than 200 teas. Select what you're making, and the app suggests brewing time and temperature. Enter how much of the tea you possess, the Tea app then stores this information and tracks your inventory, provided you enter the data each time you brew (very helpful for those of us who don't think to buy tea until the canister is empty). You can also file away your own tasting and brewing notes.



It's funny how most tea lovers seem to have that moment when we realize that to really enjoy this special beverage, there's a wee bit of work to be done. Guesstimates produce the occasional crap cup of tea. You have to measure, you have to be fairly strict about time and temperature. "I know it makes a difference, but it’s such a bother. I don’t have the patience," writes an L.A. Times blogger before realizing the Tea app could help. Even the app's creator, Samuel Iglesias, says — in this extensive and tech-savvy interview — the idea came to him as he crossed a similar threshold.

"I came up with the concept after being frustrated by my scattershot, do-whatever approach to making tea," Iglesias says. "Sometimes it would taste great, other times not so much, and I would never be exact about how long I steeped it, just sort of let it sit there until my intuition told me it was ready. After learning that good tea methods can’t be guessed at in any reasonable amount of time without systematically logging notes, I decided that something had to change. What I really needed was a smart note taking tool tailored for the different variables that go into brewing tea: water amount, tea amount, time, temperature, and some measure of how tasty it is."

Being resolute: Goals for the new year

I'm a little late, but here are my tea resolutions for the new year ...

1. Resteep.
I'm terrible about tossing perfectly good, not-quite-spent tea leaves. Not every tea is up for multiple infusions, but many will deliver at least one more pot. Sometimes the flavor even changes as you go, softening overall but revealing hidden subtleties. So I resolve to boil one more kettle whenever possible.

Question for readers: How do you save tea leaves for more steeping?

2. Live a life beyond Keemun.
If I had my druthers, I'd probably drink nothing but Keemun every single afternoon. Often that's exactly what happens. It's my go-to variety, and I just love it, from every brand and garden. It gives me less to write about, though, and I'm sure you're weary of hearing me acclaim it. So I resolve to push myself into other provinces.

3. Pester Steepster until they release a mobile app.
I resolve to harangue the people behind Steepster until they complete a task that even my neighborhood Mexican market has been able to do: write and release an app for mobile updating. Steepster is so exciting and cool, but since I don't drink tea in front of a computer each time, and since I utilize my mobile moments to keep up with the seven social media streams I manage personally and professionally (this is getting ridiculous), I'd actually use the service if they had an iPhone or, dare I suggest, iPad app. Which they've been saying since I first logged on was coming, someday, maybe. I hold out zero hope my pleas will produce any results, however, given that the most recent blog post from Steepster's creators basically says they're too busy with other projects to manage the site properly and hope we understand. Great.

4. Post more, yadda yadda.
Every blogger resolves it every year. Be more consistent, regular, frequent. Easier resolved than accomplished when this is a hobby. Then again, this sin't a news or even reviews site. It's just a celebration. My metrics show you're out there, but you're not all out there every day. Which is fine. Drop in anytime.

I'm at least going to read my email and tweet, though, every day. Really. You watch. You'll see.

5. But also: post less.
Then again, I also resolve to schedule and savor more tea moments just for myself, experiences I don't write about. Like experiencing art, this tea loving we do is a purely subjective thing. It's important to pull the curtain on the audience once in a while and remind ourselves why we pursue what we pursue.

iTea app helps me cool down

Thanks to Martin Zöllner who brought to my attention his new mobile app, iTea. It's a full-scale tea timer, handy and useful like many other tea timers available. But it's got one unique feature I really like. Not only can it time the brewing of your tea — it times the cooling down of your water.

For instance, got a nice Japanese bancha tea you'd like to steep at 176 degrees? You could stare at a thermometer, or you could boil your water and set the iTea for the amount you've got (0.2, 0.5 or 1 liters), and it counts down the estimated time for the water, off the stove, to cool down to that approximate temperature. Then use the same app to time the steep the tea, complete with a slider tool to select how mild or strong you prefer your brew.



The cool-down calculations are approximations, of course, but it's darn handy to have an alarm for even a best guess. Can't tell you how many times I've gotten distracted in the kitchen, only to find that my water got too cool.

Available for iPhone: iTea Lite (free, 11 teas), iTea ($0.99, 75 teas) and iTea HD (for the iPad).

@twettle: Your water is ready!

OK, I know I just posted this morning about my desire for a camping Kelly Kettle. But scratch that. My next kettle (says the tweeting tea blogger) will most assuredly be the Twettle.

That's right. A tweeting tea kettle.



According to Gizmodo: "This smartly-designed kettle, which tweets via Wi-Fi, will alert you when it's boiling. Designed by Ben Perman and Murat Multu, it also records details on how many times it boils each week, and just how much water you've boiled up."

But wait — it doesn't exist yet! "The designers are looking for an investment of $500,000 to get the $115 kettles onto the production line."

If this sounds too hilarious to be true, please to enjoy the lengthy explanation by Multu of how such a wacky idea came into their heads. A clue: It started in a vodka bar!

(thanks, Misha!)

Teatime with the new iPad

After spending a weekend with our new iPad, returning to this MacBook laptop to blog seems so clunky and quaint.

I can say one thing immediately about the iPad: It's a wonderful reader. I have never had the slightest interest interest in a Kindle (really? it's the 21st century and you had no intention of a color screen?), and I look forward to watching those wither and crumble in the weeks ahead. While my spouse has spent the weekend loading fun apps and games onto the iPad, and watching video (fantastic!), my moments with it — to my complete surprise, really — have been spent reading. The iBooks feature is glorious. The display is crisp and clear. The navigation is simple, the page-turning function lifelike and intuitive. The battery life seems interminable. The best part, to me, is that the iBooks store is easy to use (like iTunes) and is already filled to the gills with free books. You'd be amazed how much great literature is free — from Dickens to Joyce to Twain, from The Art of War to The Prince — including several intriguing old texts about tea.

My favorite free tea book thus far is Tea Leaves: Being a collection of letters and documents relating to the shipment of TEA to the American colonies in the year 1773, by Francis S. Drake. It's loaded with details of the tea boycott that lead up to Boston's infamous tea party. And, frankly, it's easier to hold an iPad and flick the pages with the pinky sticking out from my teacup than it is to hold and navigate a real book. So here's to more iTea with the iPad.

Can't wait for my favorite iPhone tea apps to update for the bigger, brighter iPad!

It also doubles as a marvelous tea tray ...



Oh, and don't miss this nifty new tea gadget for the iPad. (Whether you intend to buy one, be sure to click on the "pre-order" button for full details...)

Dialing up some new tea apps

I've been enjoying a few fun, free tea-related iPhone apps recently, in addition to my others:

Teavana has a great new app. I hesitate to promote an app that is created solely to market a particular brand, but (a) it's a good brand and (b) the app rocks. In addition to offering a direct portal to the company's catalog and store locations, it also contains a lovely tea timer (pictured, complete with Asian music and graphics of tea leaves slowly falling to the bottom of the glass) and a nifty Tea Blender that allows you to create your own blends (from Teavana ingredients).

One of my favorite shops, Tea Gschwendner, also has a new app with tea news, catalog access and more — but it's all in German. Ratten!

My Tea Timer has become my go-to steep watcher. On launch, it gives you a brief bit of tea trivia, then it allows you to program your own tea times — and save them in a regular list and a list of favorites. As someone who has a mind like a steel sieve, I've found this indispensable for mastering tricky steep times for delicate teas. Now I no longer have to remember which pu-erh is best at 30 seconds on first steep and which is best for 75 seconds on second water. I simply punch in my time, give it a name (" 'S' Puerh 1st") and get it right every time. There's a sizable library of alarm sounds, too, though I'm not sure what tea lover is going to choose "referee whistle."

Japanese Tea is an app that I don't understand, yet I keep playing with it. It's a game, the object of which is to select the proper values of certain variables (type of tea, amount, taste and water temperature) in order to make the perfect cup of tea. The judge of all this is an adorably grumpy-looking "Grandmaster" who, let me tell you, is difficult to please. I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to be aiming for with the various sliding scales and slot machine-type aspects of the game, but I have managed to please the old man on a couple of occasions and improve my "chado score."

Tweet-a-lee-dee! Try Steepster instead

Here's a fun new bit of tea tech. I was about to kick off a Twitter feed for teasquared, and I probably still will — but here's a Twitter-like service especially made for tea lovers: Steepster! Sign up, type in the tea you just drank, write a note about it. It racks up a log of what you drink and what you think about it (complete with thumbs up or down), and you can type more than 140 characters.

Bookmark teasquared on Steepster and follow what we're sipping.
Join in and we'll follow you, too!

iTea: Four nicely brewed iPhone apps

OK, I'm a free app whore. I've filled five pages of my iPhone with bounteous, useless software gadgetry, most of it blissfully free — like these:

• Evernote (it'll totally organize my life, once I learn to use it ...)
• Taxi Magic (even though I ride the L everywhere)
• iZen Lite (a Zen rock garden, just drag your finger to rake the gravel)
• SitOrSquat (instant locations and ratings of nearby public restrooms)
• GuitarChords (I haven't strummed a note in three years)
• Famous Documents (someday the bizarre set of circumstances will present itself in which I'll be glad I had the Paris Peace Treaty of 1783 and the Texas Declaration of Independence in my pocket)
• Plus, a nifty astronomical star chart I have no idea how to read.

Recently, though, I loaded up on tea apps. Here are my faves:

Tea Time
It is awfully handy to have a tea timer on the go, and this one (pictured above) is exquisitely simple. Just pick your tea type — black, green, white, oolong or herbal. Then pick how you like it — mild, medium or strong. Select loose leaf or bag, and hit Start. It calculates the proper steeping time, even recommending the proper water temperature. Tea Time remembers the settings from your last cup, but there's no way to save different settings.
$0.99

Tea Tasting Notes
This is the one I'm most excited about. I used to make fun of oenophiles who kept journals and steamed labels off their favorite wine bottles to paste carefully in keepsake volumes. As a tea lover, I get it now. So many varieties, so much to keep track of. This little database app packs a wallop, allowing users to record the name of a tea with a rating, notes about dry leaf and wet leaf appearances, color, aroma, taste, a Web address (if applicable) and comments. You can even take a photo of the tea! The search feature is easy and accurate. So when I enjoy a new Nepalese white at Tea Gschwendner, I can make a few quick notes — even snap a shot — and be able to reference it next time I'm shopping. Or just use it as a database at home.
$2.99

The Book of Tea
An essential tome for all tea lovers, The Book of Tea is an important resource for Asian history and traditions in teaism. Now you can have it with you anywhere. This app is simply the full text of The Book of Tea, readable chapter by chapter. Handy as a reference, or just to have something refreshing to read on the train. (FYI: If you have the whole Kindle thing going on with your iPhone, The Book of Tea is also available through Amazon as an e-book for $3.92.)
$0.99

Binary Tea Timer
Utterly useless. But just weird enough to be entertaining. This geek app counts down three steeping times — green tea (3 mins), black tea (4 mins) and chamomile tea (6 mins) — but it does so using a binary clock. Good for buttering up the IT guys with a pot of assam, or just having something kind of arty to look at wwhile you wait. Worth every penny you pay for it, anyway.
Free

Now, set a jaunty tea song as your ringtone and you're good to go.

Cup of tea, cup o' soup

Behold the power of Twitter. Seems every chipper local newscaster is in my face every day now asking, "So what is Twitter?" We've been tweeting for a while now (well, we're just getting started with @teasquaredblog), and while I enjoy the quick-and-dirty ease of this particular means of communication, I can't help but chuckle at the various ways people try to cram their full-sized lives into Twitter's bite-sized bits. (Of course, my favorite use of Twitter is The Mime. Now that's online performance art!)

Case in point: the Twitter cookbook, in which a deranged chef attempts to boil down — and heavily abbreviate — recipes to fit into 140-character tweets. Example:

"Chocolate Cupcakes: cream4T buttr/8T sug; +egg. Sift1/8t soda&salt/6T flour/4T cocoa/.25t bkgpdr. Mix all+4T milk; fill6cups. 20m@375F/190C."

Hey, if it gets people cooking who would otherwise just nuke another cup of Ramen, I toast their efforts.

I only became aware of this madness while searching for some recipes today; I stumbled across one on the Twitter cookbook for Darjeeling soup. The tweet:

"Darjeeling Soup: fry leek&onion/T butter. Simmer15m+2c cauliflr/1tater&celery/4c Darj tea/s+p/bay. Rmv bay; puree+6T milk. Srv w nutmeg&pep."

Here's my translation:

1. Chop 1 medium onion and 1 medium leek. Sautee in 1 Tbsp. butter.
2. Add 4 cups Darjeeling tea, plus 2 cups chopped cauliflower, 1 cup chopped potato (I'd say red here), 1/2 cup chopped celery, 1 bay leaf, and salt & pepper to taste. Simmer 15 minutes over medium heat.
3. Remove the bay leaf. Puree the soup in batches in a blender or food processor (letting the steam escape!) with a total of 6 Tbsps. milk.
4. Serve the pureed mixture with nutmeg and pepper.

Sounds delish to me — something to file away for next fall!