bringing style to the art of tea appreciation
Saturday February 1st, 1.30pm The 8th Annual Toronto Tea Festival takes place over 2 days, Saturday February 1st and Sunday 2nd, at Toronto’s Reference Library, in the Appel Studio. I’m happy to announce that I will be speaking on Saturday Feb.1st at 1.30pm. Topic – Botany of the Tea Plant. I’ve really enjoyed researching this project. A bit of a deep dive for me, but I’m learning so much! My plan is to distill this knowledge into a concise 30 […]
Bookends We traveled back to northern Ontario a few weeks ago. The last time we visited, it was springtime and I wrote about that season in an earlier post. The wilderness was awake with nesting birds and budding trees. It’s now autumn and the colours of the landscape have changed. Sunsets seem brighter, the wind cooler and the air is damper. This year, the wind off the lake was very strong, making it difficult to canoe except in those rare […]
An Interview with David Campbell of Tillerman Tea Whenever I taste a tea that is new to me, I embrace the opportunity to take a little detour and stroll into unfamiliar territory. I’m sure this pursuit of tea knowledge is the reason that many of us stay engaged in the industry. I first tried Winter Oolongs a few years ago and while I enjoyed them, I had no frame of reference for what might make them special. When I recently […]
In its sixth year, and now one of the biggest consumer tea festivals in North America, The Toronto Tea Festival is preparing for a large crowd of tea fans – both novices and connoisseurs and everything in between. The weekend event will be taking place at Toronto’s Reference Library in the Appel Salon Saturday February 3rd and Sunday, 4th, from 10am – 5pm. The Festival was founded by Tao Wu and his sister Mingzhu Gao, of Tao Tea Leaf in […]
There are still some good suggestions on the previous post (2013), but so much has happened in the tea world and my tea life that I thought it deserved an update. curati.co I’m often asked which teas I can recommend and where to buy them. “Where can I find fine quality tea that is fresh and that I can trust to be sourced directly?” Since I don’t sell tea, I provide names of vendors I trust, but inevitably people […]
As the summer progresses and seasonal native plants begin their cycle of growth, attraction, and fruit bearing, I like to plod through my patch of the city to familiar spots where I find berries, leaves and flowers. This neighbourhood is a very built up residential area in midtown Toronto in close proximity to colleges and tourist attractions, and in spite of that there are still a few little oases of wild that exist mostly through abandonment and neglect. I have […]
As I plan and plot my path through the upcoming World Tea Expo 2017, I thought I’d have a peak at some of my experiences from last year’s expo to inspire and prepare me for this year’s show. In 2016, I had very little time to cruise around the exhibit floor because I was book signing The Tea Book at Nepali Tea Traders booth for a few hours every afternoon. In the mornings I managed to attend a brilliant line […]
I have always been captivated by the line in Leonard Cohen’s Suzanne “She feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China”. I recently learned that this line was inspired by Cohen’s introduction, by his friend Suzanne, to Constant Comment®, an orange spice tea blend from Bigelow. Constant Comment was one of the few teas (all loose leaf) that sat on my shelf when I set up house in a garage in Banff, Alberta (housing was scarce […]
Toronto Tea Festival, Saturday & Sunday, January 28th – 29th The end of January is shaping up to be an inspiring finale to Hot Tea Month, which is mostly celebrated in the US where it is necessary to add the word “Hot” to the title. Stateside, “tea” on its own usually refers to iced tea – not a cozy image for these short cold days. In Canada we seem to have adopted this celebration, keeping all three words intact, even […]
On Saturday, November 5, 10am – 5pm, The Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton Ontario will hold its first Tea Festival. I’m pleased to have been invited to speak. My topic – The Many Ways of Tea: Tea’s Journey Around the World. If you are in the Hamilton, Ontario region, come and participate. I’m scheduled to speak at 1pm and 4pm. In between I’ll be book signing The Tea Book. I hope to mee you there! Preview Save Save Save Save
Linda Gaylard is author of The Tea Book, by DK Publishing (a division of Penguin Random House). Linda is also a Certified Tea Sommelier located in the city of Toronto, Canada. She graduated from a comprehensive program of study developed by George Brown College, with certification by The Tea Association of Canada. During her year-long training, Linda studied an extensive program of courses, including sensory perception, tea and food pairing, tea regions and terroir, tea history among other tea focused subjects... Read More
