Here are a few more random, fun and vaguely tea-related links. Enjoy!
Hot Tea/"Hottie" T-Shirt (Fans of Arrested Development may remember Lucille making the same pun about, ahem, Buster's Dad. *Queue music*)
Broken English Tea Packaging... Winning.
Top Tea Cocktail on LA Weekly
Jeremiah Weed Sweet Tea (This stuff got me into trouble when I got a round of it -- and won a t-shirt and hat -- at my local music trivia night last week. It's dangerous! Here are some Vee Tea tea cocktails, in case you want to make your own dangerous tea-based beverages.)
This tea steeps in your mouth. I'm kind of horrified.
Of Montreal's Id Engager has a teapot (among many other things. Can you find it?
Join the Tea-V Set. Join the Vee Tea Set!
Pots de Creme with Matcha Stars Yum!
Have a link to add? Post it below or email it to me at VEE _at_ VEETEA _dot_ COM.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Friday, May 15, 2009
Tea & Sweets
Dessert Magazine has a new issue about tea desserts and pairings that looks seriously yummy. My favorites? The Matcha Panna Cotta with Elderflower Syrup, the Masala Chai Creme Brulee and the Green Tea & Jasmine Delice (from The French Laundry). What caught your eye?
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Cool Tea Gadgets
I love cool new teaware (more here and here). This post is dedicated to techie teaware and other tea-related gadgetry.
Williams-Sonoma variable temperature kettle -- OK, so the "a temp for b class of tea, c temp for d class of tea" thing is a gross generalization, but selecting specific temperatures for your water is incredibly useful for making tea if you know what temperature you should actually use
Yanko Design's Turtle Tea Kettle -- Best for blacks and tisanes, as it reaches a full boil
Three award-winning tea kettle designs -- Very cool concepts! I wish the first one could indicate more than one temperature, but it is undeniably awesome anyway. I love the magnetic trivet idea! The second one seems a bit dangerous (how do you avoid spilling boiling water when you release the switch?), but is a novel idea. The third is cute, but I wish it had a built-in strainer for us loose-leaf tea drinkers. Which is your favorite?
"Sonic Boiler" -- Quite possibly fraudulent, but interesting nonetheless.
Tea Forte's "Tea Over Ice" Pitcher -- Cool, but not as cool as Hario's "Ice Brew Teapot," which I saw for the first time at Sungarden's booth at the World Tea Expo. Ice slowly melts in the top compartment, filters past tealeaves and then collects in the bottom compartment. It's a similar concept to their "coffee water dripper". Sadly, I couldn't find an image on their site...
A mug that cools tea sip-by-sip -- Very clever...
Handpresso for handmade espresso -- I suppose you could also use it for "Redpresso" or rooibos that's ground espresso-style, and maybe even for other partially-ground teas and tisanes. What do you think?
Cute, Unbreakable French press mugs and tea infusers -- There are lots of options like these on the market these days.
Collapsable travel strainer for tea -- I like that the strainer can also store tealeaves for reinfusions.
What are some of your favorite tea gadgets?
Williams-Sonoma variable temperature kettle -- OK, so the "a temp for b class of tea, c temp for d class of tea" thing is a gross generalization, but selecting specific temperatures for your water is incredibly useful for making tea if you know what temperature you should actually use
Yanko Design's Turtle Tea Kettle -- Best for blacks and tisanes, as it reaches a full boil
Three award-winning tea kettle designs -- Very cool concepts! I wish the first one could indicate more than one temperature, but it is undeniably awesome anyway. I love the magnetic trivet idea! The second one seems a bit dangerous (how do you avoid spilling boiling water when you release the switch?), but is a novel idea. The third is cute, but I wish it had a built-in strainer for us loose-leaf tea drinkers. Which is your favorite?
"Sonic Boiler" -- Quite possibly fraudulent, but interesting nonetheless.
Tea Forte's "Tea Over Ice" Pitcher -- Cool, but not as cool as Hario's "Ice Brew Teapot," which I saw for the first time at Sungarden's booth at the World Tea Expo. Ice slowly melts in the top compartment, filters past tealeaves and then collects in the bottom compartment. It's a similar concept to their "coffee water dripper". Sadly, I couldn't find an image on their site...
A mug that cools tea sip-by-sip -- Very clever...
Handpresso for handmade espresso -- I suppose you could also use it for "Redpresso" or rooibos that's ground espresso-style, and maybe even for other partially-ground teas and tisanes. What do you think?
Cute, Unbreakable French press mugs and tea infusers -- There are lots of options like these on the market these days.
Collapsable travel strainer for tea -- I like that the strainer can also store tealeaves for reinfusions.
What are some of your favorite tea gadgets?
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Bramah Museum of Tea & Coffee
According to this article on London tourist spots, The Bramah Museum of Coffee & Tea is set to reopen this year. The tea museum's website says they're set to open early this year... but May isn't exactly early, is it? Have any of you heard anything? Is it open? If not, do you know when it will open?
Monday, May 11, 2009
World Tea Expo
This post is dedicated to the World Tea Expo. It was, as usual, fantastic. Here are a few highlights from my week in Vegas, from the Expo and otherwise:
Seeing so many tea people -- I love learning about what everyone is up to, talking tea and connecting with people and ideas in the industry. Connections took the forms of chatting between classes, touring the show floor, interviewing like mad, holding a TweetUp, sending the obligatory "where are you now" texts to find fellow attendees... I only wish I'd had more time to spend with everyone!
Trying new teas -- ITO EN's new shincha (sold out already), Hawaii-grown teas from Sherri Miller, oolongs from Teas, Etc. and much more... Along with the people, this is one of my favorite things about the Expo each year!
Interviews -- I held about two dozen interviews over the course of the Expo. Some were informal talks, some were sit-down-with-a-recorder interviews and some were video interviews. The videos were with notables like James Norwood Pratt, Jane Pettigrew, Bruce Richardson, Kevin Rose and Steve Schwartz. They'll start showing up on World Tea News soon.
Classes -- My favorite class was Rona Tison's Japanese green tea cupping course. Tasty! A few of my other favorites were with Charles Cain (TeaGschwendner USA), Michale Cramer (Adagio) and Elisabeth Knottingham (The Teacup in Seattle, WA), who held a fantastic class on hiring and keeping great employees.
Leaving the Strip -- Sometimes Vegas is just so... Vegas-y. This year, I got off the strip on a few occasions. Downtown Vegas' First Friday with my husband, my World Tea News boss and her husband (and his beautiful flower shop, set to open soon) was fantastic. Red Rock Canyon was gorgeous! And tapas with the Gamila Teastick crew was was tastier (and cheaper) than most of the strip fare.
What was your favorite part of the Expo? What are you looking forward to about next year?
Seeing so many tea people -- I love learning about what everyone is up to, talking tea and connecting with people and ideas in the industry. Connections took the forms of chatting between classes, touring the show floor, interviewing like mad, holding a TweetUp, sending the obligatory "where are you now" texts to find fellow attendees... I only wish I'd had more time to spend with everyone!
Trying new teas -- ITO EN's new shincha (sold out already), Hawaii-grown teas from Sherri Miller, oolongs from Teas, Etc. and much more... Along with the people, this is one of my favorite things about the Expo each year!
Interviews -- I held about two dozen interviews over the course of the Expo. Some were informal talks, some were sit-down-with-a-recorder interviews and some were video interviews. The videos were with notables like James Norwood Pratt, Jane Pettigrew, Bruce Richardson, Kevin Rose and Steve Schwartz. They'll start showing up on World Tea News soon.
Classes -- My favorite class was Rona Tison's Japanese green tea cupping course. Tasty! A few of my other favorites were with Charles Cain (TeaGschwendner USA), Michale Cramer (Adagio) and Elisabeth Knottingham (The Teacup in Seattle, WA), who held a fantastic class on hiring and keeping great employees.
Leaving the Strip -- Sometimes Vegas is just so... Vegas-y. This year, I got off the strip on a few occasions. Downtown Vegas' First Friday with my husband, my World Tea News boss and her husband (and his beautiful flower shop, set to open soon) was fantastic. Red Rock Canyon was gorgeous! And tapas with the Gamila Teastick crew was was tastier (and cheaper) than most of the strip fare.
What was your favorite part of the Expo? What are you looking forward to about next year?
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Tea Chocolates
Did you get your mom something tea-related for Mother's Day? I did! Check out these yummy tea chocolates from Charles Chocolates and Teance. Other mom-friendly tea gifts include:
Flowering teas
Flower-based tisanes
Chocolate teas
Cool teapots
Afternoon tea for two (or more)
What did you get for your tea-loving mother?
Flowering teas
Flower-based tisanes
Chocolate teas
Cool teapots
Afternoon tea for two (or more)
What did you get for your tea-loving mother?
Friday, May 8, 2009
Web Two Point What? (Part Two)
The Expo was awesome! More on that later...
You may remember that I wrote about using the Internet as a marketing tool for your tea business a while back. Well, here's tea & the Internet, part two. It talks about social networking, photo, video and other means of using the internet to market your tea company, and has a few notes on web culture. Here's an excerpt on sources' web marketing ideas that were not covered in detail:
*Imbed Web 2.0 tools like Digg and StumbleUpon into your site.
*Offer RSS feeds on specific topics, such as green tea.
*Include real-time reviews on your site.
*Respond to reviews on sites like Yelp and Citysearch. (Jacobs politely responds to every Yelp reviewer with a coupon, which he said increases loyalty and causes 80 percent of the negative reviewers reverse their reviews.)
*Launch specific, targeted, unique Google Adwords campaigns. (Lawrence went from all organic traffic to 75 percent search engine traffic after doing this.)
*Encourage viral marketing.
*Post on community message boards, related informational sites and blogs to increase backlinks.
Most of the rest of the article goes into much more detail. It's been getting some retweets, so I'm guessing that means it's useful. :) Check it out on World Tea News.
I'll post about the Expo next week, when I'm a little more caught up on things. In the meantime, I'll just say that it was fantastic connecting with so many tea people!!!
You may remember that I wrote about using the Internet as a marketing tool for your tea business a while back. Well, here's tea & the Internet, part two. It talks about social networking, photo, video and other means of using the internet to market your tea company, and has a few notes on web culture. Here's an excerpt on sources' web marketing ideas that were not covered in detail:
*Imbed Web 2.0 tools like Digg and StumbleUpon into your site.
*Offer RSS feeds on specific topics, such as green tea.
*Include real-time reviews on your site.
*Respond to reviews on sites like Yelp and Citysearch. (Jacobs politely responds to every Yelp reviewer with a coupon, which he said increases loyalty and causes 80 percent of the negative reviewers reverse their reviews.)
*Launch specific, targeted, unique Google Adwords campaigns. (Lawrence went from all organic traffic to 75 percent search engine traffic after doing this.)
*Encourage viral marketing.
*Post on community message boards, related informational sites and blogs to increase backlinks.
Most of the rest of the article goes into much more detail. It's been getting some retweets, so I'm guessing that means it's useful. :) Check it out on World Tea News.
I'll post about the Expo next week, when I'm a little more caught up on things. In the meantime, I'll just say that it was fantastic connecting with so many tea people!!!
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