More than 130 articles showcasing visual arts, design, and aesthetics of tea
What My Tea Says to Me: Ichigo Ichie
Ichigo Ichie one time, transience. moment. delicate. precious. life. one meeting, serenity. chance. nature. exposed. time. J.R. Cook Image...
What My Tea Says To Me: Love
Love Forgive easily, Be invincible, Share, Care. Love yourself, while you still have a Chance! Image provided by and copyright held by author
What My Tea Says To Me – October
Life Is Now Be life. Let your senses see. Breathe the gentle fragrance. Like a bird – aware. You are here. Unwrapping your gift. Now is life. Image...
Inspired With Japan: How to Create Your Own Personal Tea Room
Guest contribution by Hannah Thomas The word "Zen" is what first comes to mind when we think of Japan. Japanese design is characterized by...
10 years, 2 weeks and 10 days to make one teacup
I’m sure you would agree that a drink tastes better when it’s served in an appropriate cup or glass. Would you even think of drinking Dom Perignon...
How to host a perfect tea tasting party
Afternoon tea is a practice that simply calls for socializing. A nicely set table with charming porcelain teacups on saucers, a steaming pot of tea...
Blending Japanese Tea
It’s typhoon time in Japan, which I actually don’t mind, because it gives us some relief from the suffocating heat! So for the next several weeks,...
Tea Steeping Innovation
I have bashed the tea bag for years. “Let your leaves dance,” I say…but I may have just met my match. Chiki Tea has agreed to a licensing deal to...
New Consumer Innovations in the ‘Hot’ Tea Marketplace
Because I do the social media for our own tea company daily, I come across articles on new loose tea innovations for the consumer. This Summer and...
Changing Our Tea Habits, One Cup at a Time
Creatures of habit that we are, it’s often refreshing to shake things up, step outside of the box a bit, and loosen our grip on the familiar and the...
Magical Tea Houses
Photo by Shuya Sato - Photographer - Arata Co.,Ltd. - Browse eclectic home design ideas I'm a lover of design and regularly read the blog Houzz....
Comparing Tea and Chocolate Tasting
Comparing tea and wine tasting has come up quite a bit, but what about chocolate? Of course, I mean specialty bean-to-bar-chocolate, the kind of...
Flowering CreativiTEA: An Illustrated Review
Illustrated reviews are a pleasure to create, with tea, coffee, wine and whiskey my creative muses. They each inspire and engage the senses in a...
Artisan Glass Teaware from Rochester Glassworks – Part 2
I began the development of my custom teacup with tremendous excitement and minor trepidation if I’m being completely honest. Here’s where my...
Artisan Glass Teaware from Rochester Glassworks – Part 1
I’m often approached to sample tea or tea ware to review for T Ching. I recently got an intriguing email from Robin Hamm who had a proposal that I...
Praise the Pot: My Experiences with Japanese Cast Iron Teapots
As a lover of all things tea, the teapot is a necessity in my life. I have often found myself collecting teapots while also looking for the perfect...
Gong fu tea tips
Do you remember the very first gong fu experiment we ever did? It is an important one, and as we have mentioned many times it is important to repeat all these experiments several times. In our first experiment, we poured tea into a cup and then poured half of that into an identical cup, and half of that into a third.
Backyard tea growing
A few years ago, my sister gave me a dozen Indian tea seeds as a Christmas present. I had no idea how to go about growing a tea seed and I let them sit in my tea cabinet for 6 months. About that time, I started hearing about US grown tea
Flashback Friday: tea and breakfast!
Many of us love to start our day with tea. Just tea! The variety of choices here is as wide as the world of tea! Many people like to start their day with a green or an oolong tea, but there are others of us who prefer to hit the morning hours with a nice strong pot of Pu’erh, Assam, or Breakfast Blend. Some of this choice has to do with flavor preferences,
One book = many books
Do you have a tea story you’d love to see published? Have you ever thought about publishing your own book? 81% of Americans say they want to write a book! Isn’t that a startling statistic? Is 81% of the population actually doing it? NO!
Going to tea
You’re going out to tea today,
Be careful what you do;
Let all accounts that I shall hear,
Be pleasant ones, of you.
The Huntington Revisited
The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens, or simply the Huntington, has been featured in several T Ching posts. Even poems in the style of the seventeen-syllable haiku were composed to commemorate its Japanese Garden’s 2012 reopening.
Marriages made in tea and dessert heaven
During my recent presentation at the World Tea Expo in Long Beach, CA., I paired five teas with five sweets proving that sometimes our preconceived notions can be turned upside down. I know implicitly that smoky black teas work beautifully with dark chocolate in a dessert and delicate white teas bring out the best in fruity baked concoctions like the
Ten years of tea lovin’
Los Angeles is well known for hosting events, galas, extravaganzas, concerts, and festivals, but the TEA LOVERS FESTIVAL can now boast an entire decade dedicated solely to tea lovers. Kulov Communications did it again the first weekend in May in Pasadena, Ca with grand success!
A brief outline of standards for Specialty Tea
Since last November, I have been talking to a broad spectrum of people about standards for quality. Through these discussions, I have interacted with a wide and varied demographic – from consumers to producers and every group in between. What has been most surprising to me is just how many people had only a vague idea about what
Importance of seedling
There are an infinite variety of tea bushes found around the world. With the aid of modern science, planters have been looking at harvesting tea from certain types of bush found desirable for their specific needs. Some of these specifics are:
The next wave for tea?
This morning I read an article by Jacob Jeber, son of Phil Jeber of Philz Coffee. If you haven’t heard of Philz yet, you probably will very soon. They just received a huge infusion of venture capital from people who normally invest only in technology, people like top executives in companies such as Yahoo.
Birthdays
Wu De is fond of saying that with the medicine of one plant, it is possible to tap into the medicines of all plants. I wholeheartedly believe this to be true. I’ve also found that my interactions with various medicinal plants has fueled my dialogue with Tea and that, conversely, my interactions
World Tea Expo Excitement!
Here we go again! Education, enthusiasm, entrepreneurship, and yes, excitement as the World Tea Expo approaches once again in Long Beach, California!
The tea boat to China
Today I sold my car. Tomorrow I’m going to pack up my house and put all my belongings in storage. At 9 AM the following day I’m going to get on a plane for Taiwan. I plan to spend several days there finding tea farms and teaware, and then take an actual boat across the Strait of Taiwan to mainland China.
Let your voice be heard
t’s that time of year again. The World Tea Expo is holding its nominations for the BEST in 10 distinct categories:
Turkish Delight
There are many perks associated with having a successful tea blog. I think my favorite is the often requested inquiry to review teas or tea related products. When I got the inquiry from Table Rose, I was delighted.
Hello kitty con 2014
During this past holiday season, a handful of my friends asked me if I was aware of certain facts about Hello Kitty: Hello Kitty is not a cat, but a girl. Hello Kitty was born in London and is 100% British.
Dear Teabuachery: child’s tea party
Dear Teabauchery,
My daughter will be ten in just a few weeks. She has asked that I put on a tea party, inviting four of her friends. The children are going to dress as their favorite character from “Little Women.”
The twists and turns of taking tea
Don’t you just love how our devotion to, and fascination for tea, amazingly seems to be never-ending? I sure do!
Innovative water heater for single serve
Every once in a while a new idea is put into action and the result is nothing short of miraculous. Miito has an innovative prototype that I can’t wait to get my hands on. This ingenious induction wand marries form and function to create an
Biodynamic tea at New Moon Farm
Lunar planting has long been practiced within the realm of agriculture. Planting by the cycles and rhythms of the moon is simple, tangible, and connecting. The influences can easily be seen in animals, plants, and soil. These effects remind us of the interplay
The Amazing Bonavita
Do you ever forget how much you love and appreciate an appliance . . . until it stops working? I have been thoroughly enjoying my Gooseneck variable electric tea kettle for over a year.
Gifts for the tea-o-phile
Giving gifts can be wonderful for both the recipient and the giver. Think about some of the cherished gifts you have received . . . isn’t it delightful how a thoughtful gift brings to mind the one who gave it? On the other hand, when you think of silly – or thoughtless – gifts
Appreciating teacups – reprise
My earliest memory regarding the design of teaware comes from one of my chores as a young boy in the 1960’s. I don’t remember how old I was when Mom decided that my brother and I were going to help with housework (alas, no girls in the household).
My tea flower
For a few years now, I’ve been nurturing a tea plant. It sits in my kitchen bay window, doing its thing. Over the last year, it hasn’t been looking very good. Despite new shoots, it keeps losing leaves.
Dongdasong
Dongdasong東茶頌 Translation and Analysis(1): Song頌, is a type of poem in praise of things such as nations, people or natural things. It might be translated as a Eulogy or Hymn. Thus, this title could be translated as Hymn in Praise of Eastern Tea.
One-minute tea brewers: part 2
The first post I wrote on this subject talked about brewers currently on the market and the one we are getting ready to introduce to foodservice.
Building a teahouse
I’m at a very exciting part of my life, because I’m getting to do something I’ve always wanted to do – create a teahouse. After a year of rapid growth my tea import company,
Tea poetry: radio’s contribution
One long summer in Honolulu, Oahu, I spent the morning hours watching old movies on a local television channel. In addition to adaptations of literary works such as David Copperfield and The Count of Monte-Cristo,
Taiwan tea drink culture
This is the take-out drink store that is just next door to my apartment in Taichung, Taiwan. It also happens to be my favorite of its kind. The main
By-the-cup commercial brewers – here they come!
It went something like this: The Affinitea, the Teapresso, the SteamPunk, the BKon, the Trifecta, and now several more on the way. From big companies to small – not necessarily in chronological order – but close.
Back seven: the princess and the tea
Well, I have just about heard it all now. We all know that there has been growing research about the relaxing and soothing effects of tea, something those of us who drink tea have anecdotally known for a long time.
Innovative tea space
Retail establishments are getting more creative. In the Pearl district of Portland Oregon, there is a terrific shop called Christopher David. It’s an interior design shop, and a floral market, and a cafe. It’s such a great space
American Chinese teaware
The art of gong fu cha, the Chinese tea service, is generally practiced using a specialized tea set. Collectively called cha ju (or equipage by people who insist on using French), the instruments of gong fu cha encompass a whole spectrum of diminutive, elegant, precisely-crafted little bits and bobs.