bringing style to the art of tea appreciation
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 […]
Carpets fit for the Runway When Korhani Home rolled out the carpet at Toronto’s Fashion Week, they had no intention for it to be walked on. Instead they found ingenious ways to evoke style eras through history, reflecting the seasonal designs they are offering. Who would have thought that you could make carpets into capes for masquerade balls or evoke Genghis Khan? Their new collection of home carpets were wrapped around models in ways that would make my fingers bleed […]
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 […]
Under the Microscope I’m always pleased when I visit an online tea retailer and find that they have close-up shots of their premium teas. It is reassuring to be able to examine, photographically, the quality of the leaf before purchasing it. Reliable retailers know that we want to see the curl, the colour and the twist of the leaf. It should look as we expect and we hope when the goods arrive we can compare our new purchase with those […]
At a runway show during Toronto fashion week last fall, I found a small bright pink tin of Kusmi Sweet Love tea in a gift bag. I thought the packaging and theme would be perfect for the love-fest that we know as Valentine’s Day. I’ve recently unpacked and sampled it. Sweet Love’s China black tea base is perfumed with all-natural aromatic morsels of cardamom, cinnamon, sweetness of licorice root, guarana seeds and pink pepper. I’m not a big fan of […]
I first heard of this little wonder when I attended Cynthia Gold’s workshop “Making a Final Statement – Tea and Dessert Pairing” at World Tea Expo. While discussing methods for infusing foods with tea, she showed us a small Matcha Grinder. Her suggestion was that it could be used to grind other teas besides Tencha (the dark green leaf used to make Matcha) and the powder mixed into batters, sauces, etc. The thought of grinding other teas fascinated me and […]
Smoking out a Winner The origin of Lapsang Souchong, 正山小種 is also associated with war. There are several versions of the story, but each involves a prematurely halted processing of black tea, bohea class. In China, sometime during the Qing dynasty (1644 – 1912) invading troops marched into the tea producing area of the Wuyi Mountains of Fujian province. One version suggests the area itself was under attack, another that the troops required accommodation and for this purpose took over […]
Those of us who seek out specialty teas from the prime tea growing regions of the world, may obsess about the pH of water, its mineral content, chlorine levels, purity, etc. We want to give our precious leaves the optimum conditions for the release of their hidden taste treasures. With all this focus on the condition of our water we may be missing a very key factor, particularly in the preparation of black teas; ~ The water may have boiled, […]
Tea in the City: The perfect guide Two years ago, at the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas I purchased a series of three books by Benjamin Press, called “Tea in the City”. Jane Pettigrew and Bruce Richardson collaborated on guides to Paris and London. They are currently out of print, but usually available on Amazon through sellers. A New York City guide (also, currently out of print) was written by Elizabeth Knight with photos by Bruce. It was from […]
Marie Saint Pierre at LG Fashion Week Toronto Marie Saint Pierre is a Montreal, Canada womenswear designer known for free-flowing, artistically inspired garments. Her clothing is a favourite of many of Canada’s cultural luminaries. Her clothes drape, wrap and layer in ways that we don’t expect. I own a few of her pieces; my favourite from many seasons ago – a crisp white taffeta shirt with exaggerated collar and cuffs. They are designed with the urban woman in mind, but […]