Tag: featured

Tea Culture, Tea Knowledge

Urban Foraging

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 […]

Tea and Travel, World Tea Expo

A Look Back at World Tea Expo 2016

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 […]

Tea Cuisine, Tea Culture

Tea & Oranges

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 […]

Tea Culture

Toronto Tea Events!

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 […]

Social History of Tea, Tea Culture, Tea Knowledge

Tea Festival: Royal Botanical Gardens, Hamilton, Ontario

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

Tea and Travel, World Tea Expo

Advance! My Picks for World Tea Expo 2016

Advancing the Business of Tea   In World Tea Expo’s 14 years, the popularity of tea has grown in North America and beyond. The market is crowded with online retailers – some with big dreams. How can the industry support them and what’s the next step? The expo’s tagline “Advancing the Business of Tea”, suggests that there is work to be done examining other markets and ways in which tea and all its supporting product can be exploited (in a […]

Social History of Tea, Tea Science

More Tea Advice from Fannie Farmer (Part 2)

1906 As I continue to examine Fannie Farmer’s earnest observations and advice on tea in her Boston Cooking School Cookbook, it might be useful to put her book into the context of the world in which she and her readers live. Wilfred Laurier is Prime Minister of Canada Theodore Roosevelt is president of the USA As mentioned in Part 1 of this post, The US establishes the Food and Drug Act to ensure that only food that passes inspection may […]

Tea Science

Gardener’s Intuition & the Ancient Tea Bud

Spring Flush At this time of year in my part of the world (Toronto), we are keeping our eyes on the weather and hoping for clear sunny days to venture out into our long-abandoned gardens looking for signs of life – bulb leaves surfacing, buds starting to plump and earth worms stirring in the soil. Today there’s heavy snow, tomorrow could be mild and rainy – such is April. On the other side of the world, little green tea sprouts […]

Style and Design, Tea Knowledge

The Gaiwan: Tea Vessel With Soul

When I first embarked upon my tea studies at George Brown College in Toronto, I was introduced to an odd little tea vessel – the gaiwan  –  which looked like a wide-lipped sugar bowl with lid and saucer. I struggled to use it – the lid needed to be positioned in a way that allowed the tea’s liquor to flow in a stream without letting any (or not many) leaves to escape the vessel. The index finger had to control […]

Tea Culture, Tea Knowledge

Monkey Time!

Year of the Monkey The Monkey appears ninth (out of twelve) in the Chinese Lunar calendar’s Zodiacal line up. New Year celebrations run from Sunday February 7th (New Year’s Eve) to Saturday February 13th. People born under the sign of the Monkey are said to be quick-witted, charming, lucky, adaptable, bright, lively, smart. A year of the Monkey is said to be unlucky, so precautions must be taken e.g. making sure the rice jar is not empty and avoiding sharp […]