That tea is fresh!

Tea is somewhat fragile.  It will go stale over time losing its aroma and taste.  Start with buying tea from fine retailers who buy directly from the growers, like Teabox, or look for single estate teas.  Getting it quickly from farm to table will maximize shelf life for you. Once you get it in hand,…

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Upton Tea Black Currant

Upton Tea has an enormous selection of tea.  They certainly understand tea grading and quality.  They have 8 pages of Teas from India (including 5 pages devoted just to Darjeelings) and 13 pages of Chinese tea to choose from.  If you’re looking for high grade teas with lots of letters this this looks like a great…

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Starting your tea collection?

If you want to get into tea a little more and advance past Bigelow Constant Comment, which is not bad for tea bag tea, I’d recommend the following online tea stores.  I’ve tried their teas and they have consistently delightful and good quality teas. Embassy tea at http://www.teaembassy.com/ is out of Austin, TX.  They have a simple…

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Funky Fairy update

I popped in the new Funky Fairy shop at Lowe Mill.  They’re still on the second floor but they’ve moved into a larger spot across the hallway.  Best of all they now have a much larger stock of loose leaf teas to choose from.  It’ll take awhile to taste them all but I’m the person for the…

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Mother’s Day 2014

We continued our afternoon tea tradition for Mother’s Day. Our theme this year was locally-made food! Up front on the left are the requisite crumpets served with toppings of lemon curd and locally-made Queen Bee Blueberry Lemon Jam. My sister made beautiful open-face cucumber sandwiches (front right, bottom tier) and olive nut sandwiches (front right, top tier).…

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Funky Fairy Tea

The Funky Fairy’s original location is in Killen, AL but they also have a location in Lowe Mill where I picked up some Cranberry Orange and Irish Breakfast teas. The Cranberry Orange was nice and strong but still smooth and not bitter.  The orange and cranberry were more like supporting characters, not overpowering.  It was…

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Brewing a Pot of Tea

So now that you know to warm the pot and to boil only fresh water in your tea kettle what else is needed to brew the perfect pot of tea?  Well, there’s any number of methods but here’s how I do it: Measure out the tea While the water in the tea kettle is coming to a boil,…

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The Four Types of Tea

There are four types of tea all made from the same plant but processed differently.  In order of strongest to weakest they are: Black Oolong Green White More on the manufacturing process later…

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Savannah Breakfast Tea review

I really like breakfast teas.  They have a tendency to be stronger than your average tea and will really wake you up.  I’ve never been much of a morning person so I can appreciate a good breakfast tea. This is a special blend of Chinese, Indian and Ceylon teas from the Tea Room in Savannah GA. …

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The tea leaf

All tea comes from the same plant:  Camellia Sinensis – a cousin to our Camellia Japonica. All of the varieties of tea (black, oolong, green and white) are the result of the processing but all tea stems from the same source – the leaves of Camellia Sinensis.

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