Tea & Coffee Trade Journal

It's always a treat to go to a favorite restaurant, hotel or spa and find that they serve great tea. However, for tea vendors, getting into top restaurants and other venues can be very difficult. I recently had the opportunity to write on the subject.

If you subscribe to Tea & Coffee Trade Journal, be sure to check out my two-part article on getting your tea into high-end channels (such as award-winning restaurants, hotels and spas). The two-part piece includes interviews with top people from In Pursuit of Tea, Tavalon, Adagio, Mighty Leaf, Art of Tea and more. Part one is general advice for getting into top outlets/servers and specific tips on working with restaurants. Part two will go into more detail about other high-end channels and how to sell your teas to them.

PS -- If you don't already subscribe, you can buy the issue individually -- it's in the current issue (September) and the next issue (October).

Tea, Sick Again

Today, I had tea in a lovely little tearoom in NYC with Sebastian Beckwith of In Pursuit of Tea. Unfortunately, I am sick again. Not sure if it's allergies or what, but I am very fuzzy (mentally) and congested and just generally not feeling well at all. In fact, I had to come home early today and sleep for a long period of time, only to awake and find that, yes, my entire body DOES still feel like it was hit by a truck today. Also, I now have a fever. Fortunately, I was able to get an appontment with a doctor who is not only NOT a quack, but actually quite good. The problem is that my insurance doesn't cover him. At this point, I feel it's worth it to pay (much) more for a doctor I know won't try to give me entirely unnecessary exams, sell me flax seed oil for migraines, or any other ludicrous thing under the guide of "medical science." I seriously need to get a new insurance plan.

Anyway, I got to have tea with Sebastian. Though my allergy/illness haze, I remember that he's a cool guy and we had a good converstation. Oh, and I drank a nice Dimbula Ceylon. The details left about when the fever arrived, so I can't really say much more than that. I'm going back to sleep now.

Back to Work

Now that I'm back in NYC, it's back to work again. The time change is a little rough, but I think I'll be reacclimated to the city soon. I heard from Sebastien Beckwith of In Pursuit of Tea today. A little while back, a friend told me that we'd get along very well and have lots to talk about, so I sent him a letter to introduce myself and see if he'd like to meet me. It occurred to me that he might think I'm crazy ("Hi, I like your teas and my friend said we'd get along. Let's hang out!"), but that's OK with me. At any rate, he called and we're going to meet up later this week for tea. I'll let you know how it goes!