Steve Smith…where are you?
I’ve been following tea super star Steve Smith’s new Portland start-up activity since last May when The Oregonian did a piece on him.
It sounds like Steve was getting a bit bored during his year-long visit to France, and I suspect his do-not-compete clause was probably running out with Starbucks, so he was [...]

I recently returned from three weeks abroad during which I traveled through the tea estates of Southern India.
One thing I discovered during my travels was that we take for granted the leaves that we love.  More specifically, we take for granted the people who pick the leaves that we love, and these people are mostly [...]

Tea has taken me on a journey to many actual destinations, but, above all, to a place of calm - quiet, restorative, relaxing, and solitary.  The mere act of taking time to brew a proper cup of tea from fresh, premium-quality leaves calms me, centers me, and focuses my attentions away from the stresses, intensities, [...]

“There are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea,” said Henry James in the shortest sentence he wrote in The Portrait of A Lady.  He was speaking, of course, of English teatime, which Johnson had defined in his Dictionary as “any time tea is served.”  [...]

A couple of weeks ago, I got one of those calls that no one wants to get - my mother had fallen and broken her hip.  Thanks to an understanding boss and a nice airline, I was able to get from Texas to New Jersey the next day to be with her.  She was glad [...]

Everyone knows that tea is delicious with breakfast, especially on cold, rainy mornings when water streams down the window panes and cars make splashing sounds as they drive by.
Although not all of my favorite fall recipes are just for breakfast, they do go perfectly with a black or Earl Grey tea.
Pumpkin Bread
2 slightly beaten eggs
2 [...]

This week an espresso vendor we had carefully selected and just begun buying from “looked us over” and decided we could not place a second order until we updated our grinding equipment.  Stunned at his attitude, I explained to him how passionate we were about the product and what a tremendous response we had from [...]

As the temperature outside drops, it seems as if our stress levels rise.  The holidays are coming, the year end is nearing, and we still haven’t finished those projects from earlier this summer.  We all feel stress differently; headaches, body aches, diminished energy, anxiety, and even depression are common symptoms.  But why go through all [...]

Sen no Rikyu (1522-1591) is undoubtedly the most renowned tea master in Japanese history.  Born in Sakai near the end of Japan’s warring era, he performed tea ceremonies for powerful feudal lords Nobunaga Oda and Hideyoshi Toyotomi, and was the latter’s confidant.
Sen no Rikyu collaborated with Hideyoshi in the construction of the Golden Tea Room [...]

This is a crazy time for Jin Junmei (Golden Junmei), a newborn black tea that sells for 100 dollars an ounce.  Similar to Pu-erh, Jin Junmei is hot and getting more and more popular, especially in Fuzhou and Xiamen (two cities in the Fujian province of China).  Most people buy it as a gift, despite [...]