The more humble of Tao of Tea’s two Portland teahouses, Original Tao was built in 1997 and is tucked into a small neighborhood in the southeast part of the city. It is small, but well worth a visit. In addition to the extensive tea selection, which includes choices of traditional serving styles, the teahouse has [...]
No one comes into the world drinking tea. (I would hope not, at least.) We all have to be introduced to it. I would hazard a guess that my first experiences with it are rather different from those of other U.S. tea aficionados. When I was 10 years old, my mother–a newly minted consular officer [...]
This is a bit silly, and that’s the only disclaimer I’m going to provide:
I spent the end of last week and the beginning of this week in Minneapolis, Minnesota, a far cry from Seattle on a lot of levels. The people in that part of the United States, at least the ones I was in contact with, are fueled by steak, overcooked previously frozen vegetables and soft-drinks/sodas/cokes (or [...]
I am usually disparaging of teas that are blends of different varietals or tea leaves with non-tea ingredients added to them. They usually seem somehow deceptive and incoherent to me. Naturally there are exceptions, Russian Caravan and Earl Grey being two that I enjoy drinking. However, in complete contrast to that purist tendency, I also [...]
Sixteen or so years ago, I got a job at a place in Tempe, Arizona, known as the Coffee Plantation. This was a bit odd given that I didn’t (and don’t) drink coffee, but they decided that I would be an ideal person to be their retail tea specialist, a position which later advanced to [...]
I wouldn’t normally have any contact with those odd, restricting constructions of convenience called “tea bags,” but Mighty Leaf Tea sent us some bagged teas to sample, so I gave one a chance. Mighty Leaf Tea’s bags are a little different, in good ways. The company calls them “silken pouches” to differentiate them from those [...]
A couple of weeks ago I was given the opportunity to participate in the online Holiday Tea Tasting for T Ching and sampled three lovely teas. Additional reviews and some of the teas themselves can be found on T Ching‘s site. The three teas selected were very different from each other and complimented each other, [...]
The pre-infused, dry smell and look of Adagio Tea’s Yunnan Gold black tea did not provide me with even a hint of how wonderful this tea would be. But as the first pot of it brewed I was surprised by the most lovely caramel-like scent wafting from a few feet away. The taste is even [...]
As the country known for the genesis of coffee drinking, enhanced and fostered by a centuries-old ritualized coffee ceremony, Ethiopia is not a country I associate with tea. But the Ethiopians do grow and drink tea and when I was at Tana Market, one of the Ethiopian groceries on Cherry Street in Seattle last week [...]
