Celebrating Tea in 2010

Happy New Year! I hope that your new year, like mine, has gotten off to a great start!

One of the things I look forward to each year is the idea of getting back to basics in January. I like to take the opportunity to simplify and clarify things in my life at the beginning of each year. I step back and look at my life and my business. I make goals and strategize on how to reach them. While looking at the big picture, I try to appreciate the little things.

This year, part of my simplification for January involves celebrating Hot Tea Month. Each day in January, I'm focusing on a different tea. For example, on New Year's Day, I drank a silver needle from Teance. The next day, I drank a silver needle from American Tea Room. Today, I drank a Bai Mu Dan. During the next week, I'll drink a different green tea each day... and so on it goes. Each day, I'll take on the simple act appreciating a different tea, but there's an overall goal to the exercise -- to re-educate my tea palate in a very straightforward way by reacquainting myself with a range of teas.

Of course, there are plenty of other ways to celebrate hot tea month. (In fact, I came up with a list of 31 ways to celebrate hot tea month for About.com.) How are you celebrating Hot Tea Month or using January as a time to rekindle your love of tea?

Tea Chemistry

In honor of the Chinese New Year here's a cool video on tea chemistry with a New Years angle. It covers some very cool aspects of tea chemistry that I think even the non-geeks out there can enjoy.

EDIT TO ADD -- PS -- Teance is having a two-day, free-shipping sale on orders over $60. Enter the code "CNYFREE" on January 30 and 31 for free shipping. They recommend the following as Chinese New Years gifts:

Yunnan Gold
Yellow Gold Oolong
Osmanthus Oolong
Flower Bouquet
Pu-Erh 15 Year Aged

Tea Sweeteners Article on World Tea News

Part Two of my series on tea and sugar is up on World Tea News. Part One was about sweet tea in the U.S. and worldwide. Part Two is about tea sweeteners. Excerpt:

Let’s face it: America has gone foodie. In the past, customers added sweeteners to tea with no thought to the impact on flavor. Today, they are demanding a more sophisticated sweet tea.

Tea blenders say striking a balance between sweetness and tea taste is key. Rona Tison, ITO EN’s senior vice president of corporate relations, said the goal is to “keep the sugar level down” while “bringing out a profile that enhances the tea flavor.” Most sources advocated considering the unique flavors of both sweeteners and teas when pairing.


This is a very controversial topic, so it was very interesting for me to research. Everyone has a strong opinion on the matter, and very few of them seem to agree on much. Read more on tea sweeteners.

New Vee Tea Article

There's a new Vee Tea article up on World Tea News! It's part two of the American tea palate series. Excerpt:

Despite the shift toward “pure” teas, blended teas are holding strong. Most sources linked flavored teas’ popularity to palatial accessibility, but Pratt offered a more practical reason: “Flavors are essential in places like most of the American West, where the water is so bad, real tea flavors are undetectable.”

Flavored specialty teas are here to stay, but sources said they are undergoing radical changes. According to Harrison, “In the past, low-quality black tea was a carrier for an artificial fruit flavor. Now, there is an understanding for intelligent tea blending that goes way beyond fruit and fannings.”


Read the rest on World Tea News!

RTDs

Sorry for the late post today! I just sent off a new article on the American tea palate and RTDs to my editor. What do you think about the future of the American tea palate? And the proliferation of new types of RTDs available on the market? I'd love to hear your thoughts!

PS--Happy Fourth of July!