Louisville Stoneware

When you eat off a pottery plate, drink your tea from a pottery cup, and pour that tea from a pottery teapot, you are eating, drinking, and pouring from something that was once part of the soil around you. Granted, it’s a very special kind of soil, but still, that thought gives me cause for pause.

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Shown here is the Bachelor Button teapot.

Honeybush Adventure

A few years ago, in a tea store in Chicago, Illinois, I had a honeybush adventure. The aftermath is still with me now, haunting my dreams and reminding me of how much I’ve learned since then.

The tea store was in a shopping center. Hubby and I were in Chicago to…

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In case you're wondering, the vanilla honeybush "tea" was from Teavana. They and many other tea vendors still mislabel this herbal as "tea."

A true vanilla tea from thepuriTea.com

Devonshire Tea to Attempt Teamaking Record

Devonshire Tea is going to attempt to break the current world record for making cups of tea in one hour, using a team of 12 helpers. As of today, the record is 491, so Gavin Sheppard, Debbie Kay, and the rest of the “D-Team” have quite a challenge ahead. You don’t think it’s that tough? Time for…

Read the rest of the article on The English Tea Store Blog.

See also:
A Yank's Cream Tea
Review: The English Tea Store’s Devonshire Tea
Little Yellow Teapot Interview: “Great White” Teapot from Devonshire Tea
Devine Devonshire Tea
Tea Showdown — Devonshire Tea vs. PG Tips
Will the Real Devon Clotted Cream Please Stand Up?

Tea and the Pioneer Spirit II

In January of 2010, I wrote about tea and the pioneer spirit, where that sense of frugality which comes from people living off the land day by day carries through to my desire to get the most from my teas. Time to add to that story. My first sequel.

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Four Samples from Obubu Tea for LibreTea Mug to Steep

Obubu Tea is a wonderful tea company located near the city of Kyoto in Japan. They are unaffected by the recent issues associated with the severe earthquake and tsunami a few months ago. Four samples arrived recently and are so special that they deserve an equally special steeping method. After some thought, hubby and I have decided to let the LibreTea steeping glass do the honors, with Little Yellow Teapot supervising.

Awhile back, the wonderful folks at LibreTea sent us one of their (at that time) new larger steeping glasses. It was a tricky occasion where we had to console Little Yellow Teapot and assure him that he was not being replaced. As wonderful as that steeping glass is, hubby and I are still pretty traditional around the house and prefer to steep in a teapot. The steeping glass and Little Yellow Teapot are best buddies now, even after the infamous “sneaky” incident!

The team is assembled and ready to begin the tryout of each tea. You’ll note that Little Yellow Teapot is wearing his “award sash” (it’s really a tea-dyed headband from CrafTEA Designs) and has his trusty tea cozy from GinghamgrlVA standing stalwartly behind him. The lovely steeping glass looks ready, and those tea samples from Obubu look totally scrumptious.

The reviews will start soon and be posted on The Little Yellow Teapot Tea Reviews.

Tea Kettle Philosophy — Personal Taste

One thing that most tea drinkers treasure is their personal taste. They seem to have a favorite tea flavor, a favorite treat to enjoy with that tea, and even a favorite time of day to sip and munch. I see more limits being put on personal taste every day for reasons such as “it’s harmful to you,” “it costs taxpayers money,” and more. Good intentions infringing on your ability to…

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Tea Name Circus

Sometimes it can seem like there is a tea name circus going on out there. “In the center ring! … a high-flying green tea! … the great Longjing … no, wait, that’s Dragonwell … uh, I mean, Lungching … whatever!” Yes, I fuss a lot about calling those herbals things “teas” versus “tisanes” but this is a different matter entirely. Mankind has…

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English Tea Store Pai Mu Tan

Tea Haiku

Tea is very popular in Japan, practically the national beverage. Haiku is a form of poetry that originated in Japan. So a tea haiku or two seems totally expected. A poetry form that embraces nature combined with the tea that comes from nature plus how that tea affects our lives.

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My review of the Genmaicha shown here.

Finding Your Tea Starting Point

You've heard about this stuff called "tea." You want to try it. But where do you start? Well, the obvious answer is to start at the beginning, but that’s not very helpful. So, let’s roll up our sleeves and take a good look at what will be helpful.

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Some New Zealand Grown Teas

The word “Zealong” is being bandied about in the tea world these days. Not many vendors are carrying it yet, but it is getting better known. This is a tea from New Zealand, a nation comprised of two large islands (and some smaller ones) located southeast of Australia between the Pacific Ocean and the Tasman Sea. Yes, New Zealand has joined the growing list of countries growing teas.

Read the rest of the article on The English Tea Store Blog.

Tula Teas’ Zealong Dark Tea

See my review of Tula Teas' Zealong Dark Tea.

Getting a Handle on Tea Cups!

Most tea cups have handles, some being more utilitarian than others. The big question is: What makes a good cup handle? Now, you’re probably thinking something obvious like, “One that helps me hold the cup.” Well, yes, but what is that? Time to take a closer look.

Read the rest of the article on The English Tea Store Blog.

A great video on attaching a handle: http://www.ehow.com/video_4944951_attaching-small-ceramic-handles.html

Image captured from video referenced above

The Land of Tea in Literature — “The First Excellence” by Donna Carrick

China is known by some as the land of tea, that is, the place where tea drinking began. For thousands of years, China had a stranglehold on the tea market that was finally broken by a tricky Englishman. It is a land with a long history, lots of traditions, and relatively recently an upheaval and establishment of a new government. Lots there to inspire authors.

Read the rest of the article on The English Tea Store Blog.

Not to give too much away, but there is a scene fairly early in the novel where a government thug is trying to get information from a man in a hotel room. The thug pours kerosene on his victim and then uses a lighted candle to intimidate the man. Being a bit clumsy, he accidentally lights the man on fire. He then takes a chair and smashes the window. I guess he thought this would help somehow. The burning man leaped out the window and went “splat!” on the pavement six floors below.

I tell you this because when I told my husband about it, he and I began musing about how authors come up with such scenes and, better yet, how we would have written this with a few extra touches. What hubby came up with: the guy probably didn’t die then, a car lost control and ran over him and then hit another car which hit a fire hydrant and caused water to gush forth like a fountain, extinguishing the burning man, who then drowned. Chortle. Sort of the Rube Goldberg approach to interrogation. Or maybe the Three Stooges or Monty Python.

On second thought, maybe it’s good we weren’t in the room when Carrick was working this scene out. Morbid slapstick is not her genre.

Author’s website: Donna Carrick

Tea Veterans — Bruce and Shelley Richardson

Tea just seems to be one of those subjects that draws people into it, hooks them until they don’t want to do anything else. They end up devoting their lives to the study of the leaf and over the years become true tea veterans.

Read the rest of the article on The English Tea Store Blog.

Some Australian Grown Green Teas

In the article Some Australian Grown Black Teas, I looked at a few growers in the northeastern part of Australia in the state of Queensland. Now, let’s look at a growing sector of their tea production and one that is becoming increasingly important for them: green teas, which has grown to about 1/5th of all their tea exports.

Read the rest of the article on The English Tea Store Blog.

Some Australian Grown Black Teas

You know that a lot of tea comes from China, and a bunch come from India. Japanese teas are becoming better known, as are teas from Taiwan and Africa. Don’t forget Brazil in South America. And then, there’s Australia! Yes, the land of kangaroos and koala bears also is the land of tea.

Read the rest of the article on The English Tea Store Blog.

Tea Kettle Philosophy — Keeping Interest Alive

The kettle has boiled, and the water is now in the teapot, busily dancing with those tea leaves to create a wondrous potion for a lovely tea time. The cakes and cups and saucers are laid out and all is in readiness for a relaxing tea time. A moment or two is available now for a good ponder.

Read the rest of the article on The English Tea Store Blog.

Tea Traditions — The Netherlands

The Dutch were among the first to bring tea to Europe. At that time, each transport of a shipment of this precious commodity from its source in China to what soon proved to be an eager and thirsty public was fraught with hazards and took months. I, for one, am…

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Tea Kettle Philosophy — Time Zones

There are 387 time zones on this planet and at least 242 countries, according to one source. And in every one of those time zones people are enjoying tea at some point in their day — which, of course, got me to thinking while waiting for the kettle to boil.

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McLeod Russel — The Elephant in the Tea Room

McLeod Russel India Ltd. is a huge tea company operating primarily in India. They are the proverbial “elephant in the room” and not to be ignored. So, I’m not.

The story of McLeod Russel starts with two men…

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More photos:

Left to right: Chairman of the Board Deepak Khaitan with Aditya Khaitan and Bharat Bajoria

Inside the Nilpur Blending Facility

Tea Writers — “Desperately Seeking Income”

So many people writing about tea. So many people turning to writing, period. Many get sucked in by pay-per-click sites like Examiner.com, hoping that they can get enough hits to make all their time and effort worthwhile. I hope so for their sake.

Other sites paying by how many people read your work are About.com and AssociatedContent.com. Trust me, unless you are writing about something extremely popular, you will get at most a few dollars for each article if you are extremely lucky. The average is less than a dollar. Writing about celebrities will get you the readership you need to make the effort worth your while. Writing about tea will usually not.

So, what is the answer for those who love tea, love writing about it, and need a sufficient income to be able to continue it? There are several options that come to mind:

Affiliate Programs
By signing up for affiliate programs with various tea vendors, you get a bit of a piece of each sale that comes from someone clicking on the link on your blog site. This is far from a get-rich-quick scheme, and I have yet to see a dime in my own pocket from the affiliate program I signed up with (LibreTea). Too many of these on your site can make you look very unobjective to your readers about the products you write about. I wrote positively about the LibreTea mug before posting the affiliate program to assure objectivity.

Advertisers
These can be hard to attract to your blog site. For advertising to be worthwhile to the advertiser, they have to get enough hits resulting in sales from the ad. One way they check that your blog will generate that kind of “click throughs” from their ad is by checking your Google Page Rank. It’s sort of like your credit score. Google guards carefully how they calculate this rank so that sites cannot manipulate it (but it still happens). Another way is through stats on your blog using such tools as Google Analytics or the ones already in WordPress. Aside from this, ads on your blog can give it a cluttered look and, if the ads are especially prominent, make your blog look like it’s the advertiser’s blog. If objectivity is important to your blog, you could lose it by having lots of ads, especially if you are reviewing products from those advertisers.

“Tip Jars”
Some people call these “begging jars.” However, they simply ask that, just like you would for any entertainer you see and stick a dollar or two in their jar, that you express appreciation for the enjoyment and/or information you get from reading the blog. It’s totally voluntary to give something and how much. Avoid PayPal. As of January 1, 2012, they will be requiring that you allow very sensitive information about yourself, such as your Social Security Number, be allowed to be e-mailed to you, thus putting you at risk of identity theft.

A word of caution about WordPress
Pay close attention to the user agreement. If you have a free blog through WordPress.org, you cannot have affiliate program links and ads. If you go to Wordpress.com and pay for your site, then you may be able to have ads. Again, read the user agreement carefully.

Stuff to consider for those of you hoping to get an income from your tea writing.

Being an Observant Tea Drinker

Have you ever lifted a cup of hot tea to your lips, took a big gulp and — Yow! — got a scalded tongue? Never happened to me. Uh uh, no way, those stories are totally untrue. Well, okay, there was this one time… oh, and then that other instance… but I’m a lot more observant now!

Read the rest of the article on The English Tea Store Blog.

Expressing Independence Through Tea

Tea is a great way to express your independence. Since July 4th is a day when we here in the U.S. celebrate that happy state of being, a special tea time seems natural. Independence is something we strive for, even from our first wobbly steps as toddlers. Being able to walk means you can…

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20 Reasons to Drink Tea in July

July is the first full month of Summer, reason enough to drink tea, as if you true tea lovers need one. Nevertheless, I pulled together 20 more fun times to toast with a nice hot cuppa tea or a glass or two of tea served cold with or without ice. Again, I skip the obvious occasions, such as the 4th of July.

Read the rest of the article on The English Tea Store Blog.