Organic vs. Non-Organic

I know you all purchase organic products when you can (right?), if not for yourself, then for the environment. However, sometimes organic can equate to expensive, and right now high price tags can be as hard to swallow as pesticide-laden foods. Dr. Weil recently posted these twelve foods to buy organic regardless of the price tag. He also posted twelve non-organic foods with minimal pesticide residue (a.k.a. "items you don't have to buy organic"). You may notice that tea isn't on either list. The truth of the matter is that conventional tea is still relatively low in pesticide residue... but that doesn't mean it's better for the planet, the plants or the producers. You may be glad to know that I recently heard a pound of tea has less pesticide residue than a single apple. Wow! Lemme know if you'd like to see a full story on pesticides in tea and I'll pitch it this month.

Hanami -- The Cherry Blossom Festival

As I recently said in the Samovar blog, I planned a hanami celebration with some friends. It was incredibly windy on the day of, so although we made matcha, it was left undocumented. Here are a few photos we DID manage to snap. I hope you enjoy them, and take the time to welcome spring with your friends!

We celebrated at my favorite park in Charlotte -- Freedom Park. Here's the view near the entrance.














Here's the view from our barbecue spot.


























Veggie Yakitori + FIRE



===============















Happy Vee! (If you look closely, you can see my hubby, Marko, reflected in my sunglasses.)

Maybe it's just that I was very happy, but it also seemed that the ducks and ducklings were enjoying the weather. :)













Hanami Crew














Andrea drinking matcha. She'd never tried it before, nor had Adam (also pictured).














The willow tree near our barbecue was lovely, but...














... we came for the cherry blossoms!














We found a nice spot to enjoy our veggie yakitori/kabob-type food (yum!) and assorted sushi (veg + otherwise) from our fave local sushi joint, Ru San's (nothing fancy, but very fun -- fusion rolls like walnuts and Sriracha hot sauce).
























Later, we ate wagashi (higashi, matcha agar and youkan) and played soccer. (Below) Marko (our official photographer and my beloved) kicking our collective butts with his Eastern European soccer skills.

ITO EN Kai Visit

I have a confession to make. Although I have lived in NYC for 2.5 years, drunk tea around the globe, written extensively on tea in NYC and tried many an ITO EN tea, I had never actually been to Kai (ITO EN's flagship store restaurant) before this week. You see, if tea is not a separate item on the menu, I often just skip the venue. Now I know that (unless you just hate amazing Japanese food) this is not a valid excuse. Fortunately, I do NOT hate amazing Japanese food; in fact, I love it. Although I generally have a strict vegetarian diet (no chicken broth, nothing with gelatin, etc.), I have made occasional exceptions for seafood over the last four years thanks to the irresistible nature of seafood in Japanese cuisine. Kai was one of those welcome exceptions. I'm sure you'll see why!













The orchid on each table and the very Wabi Sabi bamboo hot-towel holders visually kicked off the attention to detail that was present throughout the meal. The decor was lovely -- I was particularly enamored with a washi (Japanese handmade paper) hanging that could be seen in the restaurant and the store.












The Kai bento box (for me) and the sushi-tempura lunch (which my friend Evan adored). Before this arrived at the table, we were both served fantastic miso and I was served wonderfully creamy silken tofu with spring onions and ginger. Yum!











Here are some of the goodies from the bento box. The salmon was absolutely amazing. You can't see it in the second photo, but there are two cubes of steak behind the grilled fish. I gave those to Evan. There is also some tempura-fried pumpkin and lotus root hidden in the first photo. Yum!



Throughout the meal, we were served houjicha, which was a perfect pairing for some of the stronger flavors in the meal (wasabi, tempura-fried green pepper, grilled fish). I loved the leaf coasters for the teacups. The silverware pictured here was for the dessert. The forks remind me of some of the handcrafted silver from Penland School of Crafts.












The assorted sweets were a satisfying visual and culinary finish to a delightful meal. They were: yuzu cheesecake (great texture; loved the bits of yuzu zest in it), chocolate cake (rich and creamy with a bit of crunch from a whole walnut), fruit jelly (slightly-sweet agar with fresh fruit, fresh mint and bits of gold), matcha almond (I kid you not, these are legendary. I'm talking cult following here.), raspberry sauce accent.

I wish I knew enough Japanese to give ITO EN an articulate thank you for this meal, but for now I'll just say "Oishii!" (Delicious!)

PS -- ITO EN has a well-curated selection of loose-leaf teas available through their flagship store and online. Expect to pay top dollar and receive top quality. In the past I've bought their Qing Ming Dragonwell, Makaibari Muscatel, Ureshino Tama Ryokucha and Taiping Houkui, all of which were amazing, and this time I bought a magnificent Uji Sencha (a store exclusive that has the marine notes and richness of Uji Gyokuro with the softer, sweeter notes of sencha) and their Linden tisane (which I have yet to try, though in general I love Linden, and the fact that it's where my name comes from). I also bought their new Oolong Shot, which is served hot or cold. I tried it hot, and quite liked it for an RTD.

Fortnum & Mason Sale

Fortnum & Mason is having a 10% off and free shipping sale for all Daily Candy readers through January 31st. Be sure to check out their tea collection and tea accompaniments, like biscuits and jams in their Food Hall section. Yum!

Daily Candy is also offering a 30% off sale for "previously featured" items on the Target "Red Hot" shop, which includes a cute star-shaped mug. Rad.

More Tea Sweets

Here are some tea sweets I recently enjoyed. I made the tea-poached pears myself; here's a variation on the recipe, complete with tapioca pearls, but it's really very simple to make my basic version. Just poach peeled, cored pears in spices and enough sugar to form a simple syrup, add black tea for about 5 minutes while simmering and strain with a slotted spoon. You can add some butter early on if you want a richer taste. All the credit for the ginger-green tea cake goes to Ambrosia Bakery at my local CSA. They often use coffee and tea as ingredients in the baked goods, with fantastic results! (Or so I hear... I'm allergic to coffee, so I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have the same love for the espresso brownies as everyone else.) What are your favorite tea sweets for the holidays?

Tea Eggs

Tea eggs are a beautiful, traditional Chinese dish made with tea, eggs and spices. They're fun and easy to make, and the flavors are perfect for cold weather. I recently made some with a variation on this tea egg recipe. (I substituted loose leaf Assam black tea for the bagged tea and changed up the spices just a bit.) Yum! I just wish the crackling turned out a bit better. Have you made them before? How did they turn out? Do you have a good recipe to share?

Thanksgiving Teas

Thanksgiving can be an ideal time to share delicious teas with friends and family. Aside from flavored teas, there are a number of rich, warming and even digestion-aiding teas, tisanes and tea cocktails/mocktails you can make for Thanksgiving. This year, I'm making home-blended masala chai, fresh ginger tisane, Superior Pu-erh from Imperial Tea Court and Ti Kwan Yin from Teance. I'm also making homemade rum-spiked apple cider, which I'll also be spiking with black tea. Yum! What are you brewing this Thanksgiving?

In SF

I flew into SF after stopping off in Chicago on Friday night. It has been a busy trip so far: a tea tasting at Teance, interviews with tea professionals at Teance and Samovar, time with old friends and amazing food and tea. As always, I am very impressed with the approach to food here, and am glad to see many aspects of that approach (appreciative, contemplative, responsible) reflected in tea. Also, the weather has been fantastic. It was over 80 degrees this weekend! More soon...




Golden Gate Park












Winnie Yu at Teance in Berkeley













An amazing spread of sweets at Samovar (where I also had a phenomenal gyokuro and a great honey-aged phoenix oolong)

Dim Sum, Mooncakes and Tea

Last Friday, I had the pleasure of joining Winnie Yu (of Teance) and some of her friends for vegetarian dim sum and tea in Chinatown. (Winnie's rule -- Always bring your own tea to dim sum! Good advice...) She gave me these fantastic lard-free mooncakes, which she ordered from China for Teance. They are an important of the annual Moon Festival, which happens mid-fall, and were used to smuggle secret messages during the Ming Revolution. Since they are very heavy sweets, Winnie suggested pairing them with pu-erh, but they also go very well with the wonderful Tieguanyin Winnie gave me.

You can read more about pairing tea and sweets in my most recent World Tea News article. You can buy Winnie's incredible teas (which she sources from farms directly) on Teance's site. Maybe if they get enough emails requesting mooncakes, they'll offer them online next year. :)

Wabi-Sabi Cupcakes

One of the cool samples I got to try for my latest World Tea News article was an assortment of the brand-new Wabi-Sabi cupcakes from TafuNY. Yum!




















My favorites were the milky, nutty Chocolate Genmai and the roasty, complex Sweet Chestnut Houji (a fan favorite, I'm told). TheMatcha was pretty classic, basically exactly what you'd expect it to be, and the Chocolate Matcha was a pleasant balance of rich sweetness and mild astringency. The Kokutou Genmai was very unique (in a good way), but I wasn't such a big fan of the Raspberry Houji. All of them were very snackable (2-3 bites each). Have you tried the Wabi-Sabi cupcakes or been to TAFU? What about other tea-based sweets? What do you think?

Tea and Sweets Article

So... Part Three on tea and sugar is up on World Tea News. It's about tea and sweets pairings and tea-based sweets. Excerpt:

Chocolate pairings are spreading, but recently, Charles Chocolates, Chocolatea, Keiko Tea, Torn Ranch and The Tea Room all have upped the craze with chocolates that include tea.

Joan Freeman, Chocolatea’s owner and chef, sometimes uses tea as a “functional ingredient,” but feels the most successful tea chocolates taste like “true tea in true chocolate.”

She added that teas with strong flavors are easier to blend. This may be because, as Yu put it, chocolate is “overpowering” and masks subtler flavors.

Yu partnered with Chuck Seigel, owner of Charles Chocolates, to make tea truffles that go beyond Earl Grey. Seigel said, “The notes in the chocolates match the notes in the teas, such as robust chocolate with charcoal-fired oolong.”

Yu added that, when it comes to discerning tea and chocolate tastes, “Customers really get it.”


This was an incredibly fun and challenging article to write. It was fun because I got to try some great sweets and learn some amazing things, but challenging because I was trying to compress 5000 words of notes into a 750-word article! You can read the final result, Sugar on the Side, on World Tea News. I'll be posting more about some of the amazing tea sweets I got to try soon. Yum!


Tea sweets from Amai in NYC

Food Trends Include Tea

According to a new industry report, tea as a culinary ingredient is a hot trend right now. It says, "Among the trends that made the most progress are superfoods like green tea, edamame and acai." I've mentioned tea in various foods (frozen treats, cocktails, sweets, chocolates and more chocolates) and linked recipes for cooking with tea before, but it's always good to me (and the rest of the tea industry!) to see this echoed in cross-industry reports. This is true not only because it increases tea sales, but it gets people to look at tea in a fresh way and introduces people to tea who would have been unlikely to try it otherwise. What are your favorite dishes with tea as an ingredient?

Tea in the City

So... I waited in line from 8:30AM to 1:30PM to get a new iPhone today, having had my older model stolen on Monday. I'm writing this as it syncs, so I'm a little distracted.

However, I wanted to note that I've been seeing mentions of tea everywhere these days, and I don't think it's just because I'm obsessed with it. :) In line, a number of people were sipping RTDs (mostly Snapple, but still...) and I read a New York Times Article about female artists in China that mentioned an artist who wrapped household objects, including (you guessed it) teapots, with yarn. (Being both a female tea-lover and a former textiles artist, I loved that!)

Afterward, I walked one block up from the 14th St Apple Store to Chelsea Markets for tea and a fantastic veggie lunch at T Salon. I have to say that it was one of the best lunches I've had in Manhattan for under $10 in ages. The veggie pate was soooo tasty and I even liked the vegan cheese (it's not usually my thing). It was a pleasant perk after the long wait, especially because it had somehow slipped my mind that the Apple Store was so very close to T Salon, and because I had the chance to chat with T Salon's fabulous Miriam Novalle.


How do you stumble across tea in your daily life? Do you feel that it's showing up more and more places these days?

Tea at Google

Last week, I had the pleasure of eating lunch and drinking tea at the NYC Google office. For those who haven't heard already, Google takes exceptional care of its employees and includes fantastic meals as a company perk. A Google friend was kind enough to invite me for a meal (incredible raw beet-cabbage puree with cranberries, tasty polenta-crust pizza, fresh berries, raw vegan Swedish meatballs) and tea. Most of the food was local and they give employees the option of joining a crop share with a local farm. It was very interesting to see their tea offerings, as they are thought of as a more "energy drink and espresso" kind of place. They offered: ITO EN's Fruit Tea, ITO EN's Teas' Tea, Honest Tea, yerba mate, brewed tropical black tea (not actually very good), Mighty Leaf pyramid bags, and kombucha. Good selection! They used to carry ITO EN's Sencha Shot, but my Google guide said she hadn't seen it around in a while. Too bad--they're very good and they parallel the whole "energy drink" thing well. Perhaps they'll pick up Oi Ocha now that it's widely available in the U.S. They also offer a casual afternoon tea service with finger sandwiches, sweets, and Mighty Leaf. I think it would be really cool if they did cross-cultural afternoon teas that introduce employees to foods and teas from around the world! Apparently, they discussed it, but it hasn't come to fruition yet. I'll let you know if I hear any more on the topic.

Tango @ the Teabar

What a fun event! Here are a few photos before I end my mate high and go to sleep. :)


Just as yerba mate is the national drink of Argentina, aflajores (pronounced alfa-CHOR-eys) are the national cookie. They are kind of like shortbread cookies with dulce de leche and coconut, though they are made differently in other parts of South America (no coconut, dipped in chocolate or white chocolate, etc.). Delicious! They went very well with the iced mate, which is how they are often consumed during a sort of Argentinian late-afternoon tea-meal.


Empanadas--an Argentine staple! I live near an empanada place in NYC and it is my favorite meal-in-a-hurry place in all of New York. These are baked rather than fried. Yum! You can see some of the crowd (there were 30-40 people total) in the background.


Here's a little more of the crowd. They loved the iced mint mate and the hot lemongrass mate. Yum! They didn't mind my speech or the wine tasting too much either. ;)


Tango @ the Teabar would not have been complete without the tango. These dancers were fantastic! They also did a rhumba. Cool!

Time for me to go to sleep. More tomorrow!

Iced Tea

Over the weekend, I went to a great barbecue. I'm originally from North Carolina and when I mentioned to a few of my Southern friends that I was going to a barbecue, they thought I meant there would be a pig on a spit like at a Southern barbecue. Much to my relief, there was not, but there were many meats and (thankfully) veggie options grilled over the course of the day. The one really Southern thing that was consumed... sweetened iced tea, made by yours truly.


Me drinking my Southern iced tea

As the weather gets hotter, many people switch from hot tea to iced tea. Most in the US choose RTD (ready-to-drink, or bottled, tea).


Most kinds are very sweet and have a lot of added flavors.


Some kinds are unsweetened or less sweet, and have fewer flavors added. (These particular ones are at my favorite Asian market in NYC.)

Whether you prefer your tea sweet or "unsweet" (as they say in the South), it's easy to make delicious, natural, high quality iced tea at home. If you want to learn more, here's an article I wrote on iced tea last year. It includes which teas ice well, how to make iced tea, and a bunch of other interesting info on iced tea. Enjoy!

Photo Day!

I've been accumulating a lot of tea photos lately, so I think I'll start posting a few each week. Some warrant their own posts (a series of photos on how to make chagra sachets, for example), but some are basic enough to share posts with other semi-related photos. Here are a few for now, mostly from local tearooms. Enjoy!


Amai's matcha cupcake, which, I'm sure, helped them win Best New Tearoom in Time Out NYC's Eat Out Awards. (You may remember I posted a quick tearoom review of their tea house last Friday.)





A glimpse of T Salon, which I also reviewed recently.







Two of Sanctuary T's famed tea cocktails.







Sanctuary T's cheese plate. (Oh, how I am a sucker for a good cheese plate!)







Houjicha, freshly roasted by TAFU's tea master at the Coffee and Tea Festival. Yum!

Eat Out Awards: Sanctuary T

Sanctuary T is part restaurant, part bar, and part tearoom.

A sandwich board outside claims "Our tea is good enough to eat," and they back it up by integrating tea into their foods in a variety of ways, some innovative (black cod slow-cooked in lychee black tea) and some classic (chai ice cream).

Their cocktails (which I mentioned in a recent post on tea lectures at the Coffee and Tea Festival) are not quite up to par with those by my personal bar idol Jeff Hollinger nor as, ahem, "original" as those at PDT (as much as I adore a few drinks on PDT's menu, I'll pass on the bacon-infused bourbon old fashioned and the buttered popcorn rum, thanks). However, they ARE damn good drinks that take on the challenge of artfully blending sweet, savory, and sour, and put a fresh twist on classics like the gin gimlet (this time with Earl Grey) and the margarita (tangerine green tea, passion fruit, Contreau, and tequila in a martini glass rimmed with crushed pink peppercorns).

The tea menu includes a variety of flavored and unflavored teas, as well as tisanes and specialty tea drinks like matcha lattes. I think it could use more unflavored teas, but, then again, I think that about most tea menus. Oh, and it doesn't hurt that the staff knows their products (which is, alarmingly, becoming a rarity in the rapidly-evolving and growing tea world!).

The atmosphere completes the Sanctuary T experience--it is a successful blend of modern and eco-chic, with rich wood tones, chocolate brown, touches of silver and sparkle, and deep red highlights.

Aside from nit-picky grievances (e.g.,the tea menu said "Non-caffeinated" when it should say "Caffeine-Free".... If you'd like clarification on that point, read my article on caffeine and tea.), my only complaints are the music (oh, the sigh of relief when it changed from light jazz to Motown halfway though my visit) and the price (it seemed that a number of items were just enough over the appropriate price for you to notice that you are overpaying). Overall, I'd say that it is a fantastic new addition to the NYC tea world... and it would seem that the weeknight crowd I saw there would agree with me. I'm sure that I, for one, will be back again soon.

Sanctuary T
337B West Broadway, between Grand and Broome
Monday-Saturday 10AM-11:30PM, Sunday 10AM-6PM
212.941.7832

Eat Out Awards: T Salon

T Salon is in its third NYC incarnation. After opening and closing in The Guggenheim and Lower Midtown, it has settled into Chelsea Market, home of the famed (and past-its-prime) Buddakan and a variety of gourmet and foodie-friendly shops. It is the kind of tearoom that aims for greatness on many levels and succeeds on some. It has eco-friendly policies (soy-ink packaging, potato-based cutlery), a generally pleasing ambiance (great color scheme, gorgeous upholstery, soothing music), and an exceptional variety of flowering teas. There are some wonderful things going for T Salon, but somehow it falls flat of expectations. This is, perhaps, best summed up by the scones, which are served with fantastic Devon cream and raspberry preserves. The scones themselves are decent, but their mediocrity is only highlighted by their superior accompaniments. If it weren't for the incredibly strong potential for such a place, I would not bother being so disappointed. I am glad it was nominated for "Best New Tearoom," but can see why it did not win. It is my hope that someday T Salon can live up to its aspirations. If it does, it may just be the best tearoom in NYC (new or otherwise). For now I will remain (mostly) unimpressed.

T Salon
75 9th Ave. (Chelsea Markets, toward the back), evening entrance at 459 W. 15th St.
Monday-Wednesday 8:30AM-8PM
Thursday-Saturday 8:30AM-10:30PM
888.358.0506

Coffee & Tea Festival: More Lectures

Today I'll run through two more lectures of note that I caught at the Coffee and Tea Festival, Green Tea 101 and The Future of Tea.

Green Tea 101--Tafu Tea (NYC staff and visiting Japanese teamaster)

Although this presentation was a bit heavy on the advertising of Tafu, it was interesting to attend. Most of the information was a very basic rundown on Japanese tea. Chinese tea and other green teas were not addressed. However, the teamaster clearly knew his tea extremely well and there were a few gems doled out in the lecture. My favorites:

Notes on brewing sencha included the saying, "If you are sweet to it, then it will be sweet to you."

An emphasis on the aroma of houjicha and genmaicha (Americans are rarely taught to focus on the aromas of their foods and drinks)

Information on cooking with tea and pairing foods (especially desserts) and teas from Kyotofu... yum!


The Future of Tea--Chris Cason (Tavalon)

Somehow, I had never been to an event by NYC's Chris Cason before. I was glad to see he lived up to his reputation of delivering lively and fun lectures. After covering some of the basics of tea, he discussed ways in which tea can be integrated into mainstream American culture. These methods of "making tea accessible" included:

Educating peole about tea (Obviously, I'm a big advocate of that!)
Baking and making candy with tea
Cooking with tea, and doing so in unusual ways, like poaching halibut with brewed chai in lieu of water, or using lapsang souchong leaves with wood chips to smoke foods
Making tea cocktails (which I talked about yesterday)
Incorporating tea into the spa (I used to manage a teabar at a spa, so this is an area of interest for me, too)

Chris is working on a book about his ideas on new approaches to tea and tea trends in the US. Exciting! Maybe you'll get to see an interview or book review on Vee Tea before it comes out.


Tomorrow, I'll be wrapping up a few loose ends with the Festival. Don't forget that it's Earth Day this weekend! Do something to make your life a little greener, and enjoy your tea!