Do you believe in destiny?  I definitely do.  In June 2008, I was on a visit to Bozeman, Montana for my son’s 11th birthday.  Evan and I were returning to our hotel room after a fun-filled day when I caught a glimpse of a beautiful young woman with dark hair.  My heart started to race [...]

In England, February is National Heart Health month.  They have designated Friday the 13th as “Go Red for Heart” day and are encouraging everyone to wear red to work and play.
I’d like to propose a Go Green for Heart Health month.  Green tea is the best beverage to promote health and wellness.  I know we [...]

Even more than Barack Obama and all the obsolete analog TVs in America, I am so ready for CHANGE.
Last year I had three major losses: my career, my kid, and Pluto.  When my job was off-shored to Singapore and Cincinnati (did Ohio fall into the Atlantic?), everyone told me that early retirement was a gift.  [...]

Third in a series on the teas of Taiwan.
Taiwan’s tea grows mostly below one thousand feet at the northern end of the island around Taipai where the Formosa cultivar Ching-Shing Dapan flourishes.  Traditionally about sixty percent fermented, this classic tea is quite singular in aroma, taste and appearance.  It is flamboyantly perfumed and has the [...]

We are all travelers. At least until we choose to stop exploring our world’s extraordinary splendors and doing battle against the injustice and brutality it contains. Our travels, for pleasure or cause, in our local communities or in distant lands, bring us in contact with other people, most of whom are not like us in [...]

Not in a million years did I think that I would be serving my tea blends in the ward of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit (CICU) at Providence Hospital in Portland, Oregon, where only critically ill patients are cared for 24 hours a day by a dedicated staff of nurses and doctors.
When my older brother, [...]

I once spent three weeks in Britain living on tea alone.  I was there to learn the Queen’s English at the Bell School of Languages, and boarded at a private home.  Dorothy, my landlady, lovingly reassured my parents as they took their leave that she would make me something “really nice” for tea.
My parents departed, [...]

I came to ceramics late in life.  My first love was teapots - porcelain with a shino liner, woodfired for three to four days to build up ash, and cooled for a week.  The aesthetics were Japanese – the forms were not.
Then I started making tea cups because the users of my teapots asked for [...]

Second in a series on the teas of Taiwan.
Oolong or semi-fermented tea is neither green nor black but in a class unto itself.  In discussing China oolongs I describe the process of repeatedly rolling, oxidizing, and firing the leaf until it is done.  Clearly, new-grown leaf could not withstand the rigors of oolong manufacture, which [...]

Guest Contributor Kate Dumont (KD) recently caught up with Chris Cason (CC), co-founder and tea sommelier at Tavalon Tea.  Chris oversees Tavalon’s Voice as editor-in-chief of his tea blog and has over ten years of experience working with loose leaf teas.
KD: Where were you born and where do you live now?
CC: I was born South [...]