Archive for December, 2008
an ex-employee of teavana’s experience
Here is a really good article written by an ex-employee of Teavana. it tells of their corporate structure and there selling methods, some usfull tips when going into the store so you don’t get the wool pulled over your eyes. this article also is about how they treat their employees and their costumers, and I’m certainly not impressed.
here is the link to the story (link)
me and my zarafina
got a zarafina tea maker for christmas here are some pictures of it.
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- unboxing
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- in action
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- great result
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- perfect
Domo Tea
I gave a bit of a review of this stuff before but that didn’t seem like enough so here is a full one and with a little background on matcha itself.
Domo teas are a matcha blend that comes in three flavors (at the moment) you has ginger kiss, vanilla cloud, and chocolate ecstasy. They are made with evaporated natural cane sugar juice and skim milk powder, which goes well as a latté or in a smoothie among other things and has only 20 calories per scoop (I’m not a calorie counter so this doesn’t mean anything to me). Domo is a Canadian company started by two women from Vancouver Tammy Olsson and Anne Yeo it can be found in western and central Canada and will be in Ontario and Québec soon but until then you can order from there website (US and international as well). There website also has a recipe section so you can make smoothies and some cocktails as well.
I thought I should also give a little bit of background on what matcha is so you know what you’re drinking. Matcha is a Japanese preparation of the carnellia sisensis plant by grinding the whole leaf, which is different from other types; this gives it the most caffeine out of all the teas. The tea is ground and the more finally it is ground the higher the grade is Tencha grade is the only grade that can be considered matcha all others are just considered pulverized. It can take up to an hour to grind 30 grams of the leaves so matcha is usually more expensive then other teas. It is produced in Japan in the Uji region of Kyoto, the Nishio region of Aichi along with Shizuoka and Kyushu. The plants used are shade grown and are covered with blankets two weeks before picking to protect them from any direct light. Matcha also has some of the highest antioxidant count out there with 70 times that of orange juice (fresh I assume) and many times that of green tea. Hoped you learned something about matcha and go out and try some of those domo blends there just great and one glass and your fine for the whole day it doesn’t make you all jittery like coffee.
green tea benefits
Just was searching around twitter for good website links and I came across an article on health by dratiffarid. The article talked about how green tea can help with weight loss, kind of figured though but the neat thing is it helps with weight loss even when the person is still eating junk food. Crazy eh, well I do not think your going to shed pounds when you drink green tea even when your shoving br. big bars and pizza pops in your mouth but it is good if you are trying to wean yourself off junk food and see positive results.
Here is a list of green teas health benefits:
#1 weight loss
#2 Prevents cancers
#3 Reduces risk of stroke
#4 lowers your blood pressure
#5 Prevents food poisoning
#6 improves your immune function
#7 it boosts your energy
#8 relieves indigestion.
#9 relieves depression and headaches.
#10 gives you a lot of stamina for hard work.
Therefore, it is best to drink green tea. You should drink at least 1 cup per day.
(Provided by health by dratiffarid)
Just another reason to start drinking tea, I did not hear the last time coffee had these kind of benefits.
the onion: chrstmas tea kettle
a funny video from the Onion i thought it fit the whole theme, enjoy.
Revision3 Tea Samples
Diggnation has put out another tea selection with adagio.com the whole gang has created their own personal blends through adagio’s signature blends. The Revision3 Tea samples include all eight varieties from their old batch and the new batch. And now they are 20% off.
The collection includes:
Red death rooibos (Kevin), Tea bag of holiday goodness (Alex), White monkey Sinensis (Prager), Green times so simple so good (Hippie Glen), Mintastic (Kevin), Executus (Alex), Love child (Hippie Glen), White ginger (Kevin), Man behind the green curtain (Prager).
They all come in the 4oz sampler tins and cost $19.00 (regular $24.00). But if you have a shipment of $50.00 or more shipping is free (if your in the contiguous United States rats!)
Sorapot
elegant designed teapot
I found this flitting around twitter friendfeed and a dozen other blogs and now I am on it this is just too awesome not to talk about.
Sorapot has a beautiful teapot that they have designed it just looks like a work of art but do not be fooled this thing is sturdy too it’s made with investment case stainless (like in a jet engines turbines) steal and Pyrex glass. It is designed by Joey Roth with the idea that they would last forever he wants to go into an antique store in 50 years and see one, man if I had one id never sell it would go to the grave with me lol.
Capacity: 11 oz, just enough for two cups of tea.
Dimensions: 8″L x 6″H x 5″W
Price: $200 (USD) brushed ($250 CAD)
$250 (USD) mirror polished ($312 CAD)
Ineeka teas
a new take on the tea bag
Ineeka teas have come out with a revolutionary new design for their tea bags. They are not loose per say they come in pouches but the pouches have small cardboard arms on either side, you place these on the sides of the cup so it sits in the cup. By setting the arms on the cup, you tare open the bag thus making the tea loose. The bag acts more like a sieve then anything else, I like this idea it gives you the loose tea experience without having to remember your tea ball or have an infuser. Its 9.99 for a pack of 14, which is a bit pricey, and you can find it at whole foods; I am not sure where I can find it being in Manitoba.
tea swap program
The group over at tea escapade has come up with a pretty neat idea it’s called the co-op tea swap. They’re setting up a mail service that will allow people to sign up to a mailing list and then trade and receive tea samples. Here are their rules:
“Rules & Regs: Each member of the swap must mail 1 tea package (that includes 2 samples) every two weeks, and can expect to receive 1 tea package every two weeks. Your package has about 10 days to be received; if you do not mail your sample you will not be permitted to participate in the next swap.
You can receive bonus samples from Jessica (Authori+ea) for submitting a short review of your tea(s). You will receive one additional sample per review (limit two per swap, obviously). Please include pertinent information including name, brand, etc.
The Co-op Tea Swap is for personal purposes only; not for commercial use. Solicitation of members is not allowed. Those who do use this group for solicitation will be removed from the swap.”
This is a good idea and all but I just don’t think its set up that well there is a lot of grey space in this system but I would like to see it work. Some of my concerns are you don’t really know who your getting the tea from besides a return address, there needs to be some kind of already tasted list or something so that a person doesn’t try the same tea a bunch of times. I would like to see some kind of price system so that you swap teas of the same price range not that one person sends an expensive pu’erh and then the other person sends a regular old herbal blend. Allergies are addressed in the page but not enough and there isn’t enough safety taken into account at all. This seems like a cool idea but I think it’s still not a finished product ill check back on it in awhile to see if they have made any improvements.
