bringing style to the art of tea appreciation
Tiered cake stands, white linen, dainty sweets and bone china teapots are well-worn symbols of Afternoon Tea, – the popular, more formal approach to serving a cuppa. To that end, hotels and other venues have dreamed up all kinds of themed afternoon teas – the edible garden, Asian-inspired and ultra chic! Afternoon Tea is often erroneously called “High Tea”, a name which originally defined the meal that was served at a high (dining) table close to the supper hour. In […]
In Celebration of a Good Year The events of my 2014 were exciting and life-changing. Work in the tea world was plentiful, which explains dear reader, why posts have been spotty at best. One of the projects I’ve been working on has allowed me to explore tea mixology (the craft of cocktail blending using tea as a flavour ingredient). I’m not actually a fan of spirits, but I have loved learning about the interplay of flavours to create the right […]
Myths and Vagaries A few months ago I watched uncomfortably as a fellow tea sommelier asserted that the reason they had presented White Tea first was that “it was unoxidized”. I know this to be untrue, but I could understand how they might believe it. There is wide spread misunderstanding of White Tea with inaccurate information lounging everywhere on tea retail websites eg. “white tea contains almost no caffeine”. Another eg. “try our Anji Bai Cha White Tea”. Nope. It’s […]
A Unique Afternoon Tea As part of this event, I will be giving a talk on the History of Teaware: Form, Function and Style. If you are in the Toronto area, please consider attending. See details on the poster below.
Download Printable PDF I know you can do it! However, if you get really frustrated, here’s the solution © The Tea Stylist Solution available here
Mochi Fusion A favourite treat around my household is a sweet rice cake known as Korean Chapssalddeok or Japanese Mochi. It’s texture is soft, silken and slightly gooey (in a good sort of way). Traditionally it would have taken many hours to make as it required steaming and pounding of rice, cooking and mashing of red beans or lotus root. In today’s kitchen it can be prepared in under an hour. All you need is some fine sweet rice flour […]
Several times a year my husband agrees to read my tea leaves. He learned the art as a young boy from his lovely eccentric aunt. I don’t know how much credence anyone gave this rather pagan pastime when he was a boy in England, but it provided hours of entertainment and a slight shiver of excitement if only a few statements came to reality. The key was to keep the predictions vague, general and open to interpretation. Teomancy, Tasseomancy, or […]
Tea or Dessert? Most of my tea friends know that I’m not a fan of flavoured teas, particularly teas with dessert names, such as “New York Cheesecake” or “Apple Crumble”, etc. These sweet themed teas are usually enhanced with artificial flavours or if the flavours are natural, the black or green tea base is inferior and anyway, most retailers don’t want to waste a premium tea by adding unnecessary enhancements. There are however traditional fragrances that have been infused into […]
Tea cuisine is still very much experimental. There will be successes and failures. The point is to keep trying. Since it is a relatively new culinary category, good ideas will eventually emerge and become part of tea’s repetoire. Coffee has been used for decades in baking and alcoholic concoctions, but I believe that tea performs much better than coffee in savoury dishes. Could you imagine coffee encrusted fish? – I didn’t think so. This time out though, I’m playing with […]