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Tea Blog

Official Blog of the English Tea Store


March 2011

  • Revolutionising the Way I Drink Tea

    Some people are just practical. I know this, I have friends who are. They always have tissues on them, they remember the safe places where they’ve put important document and they tend to put the lids back on things before they knock them over. I am not one of these people. So when I come… Continue reading

  • Butterflies and Tea

    Recently, I tried a tea named Lavender Butterfly Tea. The name gave me cause for pause. Butterflies? In tea? Lavender is one thing, but I draw the line at bugs. And, for that matter, other critters such as monkeys and pandas. Yes, butterflies are free, so they don’t add to the cost of the ingredients… Continue reading

  • Spring Equinox Means Time for Tea

    Losing an hour of precious tea drinking time by setting your clocks forward for Daylight Savings Time (March 13th this year) is a pretty raw deal. The good news is that Spring Equinox (March 20th this year) makes up for it (at least a little bit). That’s when the hours of daylight and darkness are… Continue reading

  • If St. Patrick Had Had These Teas…

    First, my apologies for the title and the awkward English (“had had”), but it was the best way to express how tea could have changed history in Ireland. Not to mention our modern day celebrations of St. Patrick’s Day here in the U.S. Patrick (Patricius) was a Romanized Gaul living in what is now England.… Continue reading

  • In the Leaves for March

    It is time again for us to part the murky brown water of time and peer in to the tea cup of the future. Here is my mystical wisdom to guide you through the remainder of the month. The first portents from this months excellent cup of Assam were a cat, two hills and a… Continue reading

  • The Civilizing Effect of Tea

    Tea stimulates. Tea relaxes. Above all, tea civilizes. From the earliest days, when this beverage was reserved for royalty to modern times when “high tea” has morphed from being an evening meal for the working class to a fancy pinky-pointing expensive affair at the local tearoom, we all experience the civilizing effect of tea. Drinking… Continue reading

  • Celebrity Tea Bags, Tea Bag Art & Fragrances

    The tea gadgeteers never rest, or so it would seem, and the tea gadgets and gimmicks just keep on coming. Here are a few of the most recent innovations and strange uses for tea and tea paraphernalia that have come down the pike lately. If you really, really like the smell of tea and the… Continue reading

  • A Passion for Tea

    I had something of an epiphany in a restaurant the other day. We were served by an example of the kind of sommelier so over the top that they’re completely immune to parody. His explanation of one particular glass of wine easily doubled my knowledge of the entire subject. Wine isn’t really my thing but… Continue reading

  • Tea Books: The Latest Crop

    Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. – T.S. Eliot –   Where’s the link between tea and great literature? Glad you asked. A little while back the New Yorker examined those links… Continue reading

  • Famous “Tea” Expressions

    Expressions about tea abound. Not surprising. Tea is becoming of more interest, and we humans tend to fold our interests into our vocabulary, sort of like folding chocolate chips into cookie dough. They make the cookies sweeter, and the expressions make our daily speech more interesting. Probably the first expression that comes to your mind… Continue reading