I have an odd relationship with lavender; while I don’t really care for the scent of it at all (and that’s the way it’s most commonly used here in the U.S.), I do enjoy the flavor of it, particularly combined with other flavors. Lavender and tea is a natural pairing in my eyes. When I [...]
There is a traditional ceremony performed in nearly every home in Ethiopia and Eritrea in which the bright red bean of a tree that grows wild in the mountains (called Bunna in Amharic) is roasted over a coal fire, ground with mortar and pestle and then infused in boiling water to produce a thick, dark, [...]
Brought to my attention by Tonnvane, a sometime contributor to GongfuGirl, a charming little temporary event-space called a Pop-up Tea Shop appeared at 47 Lamb’s Conduit Street in London yesterday. Sadly, the entire lifecycle of this “business” was to conclude at the end of the day today as it was part of a rather clever [...]
I picked up a couple pieces of this 2003 Fang Cha Pu-erh at Teahouse Kuan Yin a couple of weeks ago. I don’t believe I’d ever seen pu-erh in tiny squares before. They are about an inch and a half wide. They brew into a wonderful, sweet pu-erh that lasts for at least six infusions. [...]
Katrina, the founder and editor of Tea Pages, is assembling an anthology of writings about tea called Tea Memories. Published and unpublished writers are encouraged to submit pieces 800-1800 words in length between now and June 30th for possible inclusion. The theme of the anthology is direct personal experiences in which tea was a vital [...]
This past November, in a thorough security scan of the British royal family’s residence, it was determined that a samovar which had been presented as a gift to the Queen by the Russians more than twenty years ago might possibly be harboring surveillance devices, leading to its removal from the premises. The need for security [...]
Most producers of Earl Grey use marginal quality broken bits of black tea, relying on the strength of the bergamot to carry the flavor of the tea. I’ve had many a cup of strongly flavored, but not terribly interesting Earl Grey tea over the years. Jing Tea, on the other hand, uses whole leaf Ceylon [...]
Immediately after opening the package of DAVIDsTEA’s Quangzhou Milk Oolong I knew that this would be a tea I would really like. The smell is extraordinarily aromatic, and reveals immediately the reason for its name. It doesn’t really smell like actual milk as much as it smells milky. The scent is really more like pure, [...]
