Over 450 articles discussing every level of the tea industry
Price bubble in Dan Cong tea?
The Dan Cong market may now be experiencing an economic bubble like the Puerh tea bubble that burst in 2007 and damaged the Puerh tea industry. Two years ago, you could buy a very nice Dan Cong variety for $20 dollars/kilogram. In today’s market . . .
Tea is always in season at the Boulder Farmers’ Market
Well, it’s that time of year again. The weather is beautiful – most often sunny – and everything appears to be a fresh shade of green. Come mid-Spring, we’re enjoying the year’s first Farmers’ Market here in Boulder…
Tea + coffee: A love story
A coffee lover and a tea lover follow their dreams and set up a specialty café, Smitten, together. They also happen to be husband and wife…
Collaborations: Continuing to spread the tea love
Over the past few years of working directly with the U.S. tea industry, I have observed that tea companies do not really collaborate when it comes to their marketing to and education of tea lovers / consumers…
Enlarging the audience for tea
As a long-time convert to the pleasures of drinking tea, I have been thinking a lot lately about the best way to introduce tea to a new audience. We each have our own story of how we came to tea…
Why LinkedIn is good for tea businesses
According to Wikipedia, LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site used primarily for professional networking. Many business opportunities have become available to me and my business via LinkedIn…
Developing a tea-drinking culture in Mexico
It has been almost a year since I began working in the tea industry and during that time, I have managed to persuade a few people to change their drinking habits. The most important person I have influenced is my wife…
Back from Narnia
It was certainly much more than I had expected it to be – an eye opener, to say the least. It was every child – young and old – steeped in tea…
Elephants, crocodiles, and deer, oh, my!
The island nation of Sri Lanka is perhaps better known to tea lovers as Ceylon. Before the rust blight of 1869, Ceylon was known for its coffee plantations. Commercial tea production had only just begun…
Fulbright scholar interviews guayusa tea farmer
Chris Jarrett is a Fulbright scholar conducting research on the Amazonian Kichwa language and culture in Ecuador’s Napo province. Chris has been sitting down with some of the farmers who grow guayusa to learn…
When less is more
There are few consumer product sectors that – when reduced to their most basic form – offer you a significantly better experience. Imagine walking into a car dealership and telling the salesperson you want to buy new wheels…
Lots brewing in San Francisco at the inaugural International Tea Festival
There was a buzz in the air resounding on the second floor of the stately hall and it wasn’t only due to the tea that nearly 1,000 enthusiasts of the leaf were imbibing at the first San Francisco International Tea Festival…
Should WiFi die so that tea can live?
When the culture of tea plugs into the lives we lead today with our always switched-on collection of gadgetry, is the tea drinking experience enhanced or marginalized? Lately, as the growth of tea houses follows…
Green tea coming out of the faucets?
Where would you expect to see such a thing? In none other than the “Green Tea Capital” of Japan – Shizuoka prefecture! Although I did not see green tea coming out of faucets first hand, if I’d have known…
The rise of tea in Mexico
I have been drinking tea since my childhood in the State of Bihar – in India, the land of Buddha. My mother has a good recipe for Chai, which is the most favored drink on the Indian sub-continent and gradually being commercialized around the world. I often had chance to visit Kolkata…
ITFA and Foodex 2012: Journey to the East
In 2009, we participated in Japan Foodex for the first time, although our first contact dates as far back as 1986 when young Nobuyasu Muira of Mitsui Norin…
Focus on Assam
Sixteen “cuppers” all over the world lifted their tasting spoons together during the International Tea Cuppers Club’s Darjeeling First Flush Cupping Event, during which premium tea samples from ten estates were tested, evaluated, and enjoyed…
Importing tea into Mexico
In August 2010, I took the bold step of starting a tea business in a coffee-drinking nation – Mexico. My plan was to import a small quantity of tea from India and sell it retail in my tea house…
Not a Lipton in sight
For the first time in my work experience, I spent more days traveling on business this January than I did at home. Of course, there are always a few sacrifices one makes when traveling – particularly on business…
Thomas Love
When my 7-year-old niece comes to visit, one of the things she loves to do is swim and drink tea with her uncle. Her first choice for a swim is the ocean, but up here in Canada in January, swimming in the sea…
2011 – The year of tea festivals
I remember reading with fondness Kulov’s explanation of what a tea festival is on T Ching last year and swelled with pride knowing that one of my friends, Dianna Harbin, took part in the Tea Lover’s Festival…
A family in harmony with tea
Long before organic was trendy, Toshiaki Kinezuka, from “Setoya” in Fujieda City, Shizuoka Prefecture, in Japan, took a stand against the chemical companies in the mid-1970’s…
Window of opportunity
When you open a retail store, you have about six months before your new neighbors don’t see you as “the interesting new store on the block,” and the hype you had when you first opened your door decreases…
In China, people say “good mountains and good water produce great tea”
In India, we need to amend this Chinese saying to “a good political situation, good mountains, and good water produce great tea…
Is your biodegradable tea bag really biodegradable? I think not.
Many years ago, I designed a new tea bag delivery system. It was aesthetically beautiful, yet simple. My goal was to provide a product...
Spreading the tea love in festive ways
“So what is a tea festival?” This is a question I get asked all the time, but I guess what we do must be quite unique, as I have to...
Protecting your tea business’ intellectual property
Whether you have a business or plan on starting one, begin thinking now about how to safeguard your intellectual property. The way Colonel Sanders...
Turkey’s tea industry – The long and winding road
Contribution by: Erika Cilengir Consistently ranked among the Top 10 tea-producing countries in the world and frequently in the Top 5, Turkey today...
Happy second birthday to us: A tea retailer’s saga
July 16 was the two-year anniversary of our Temecula store - California Tea & Coffee Brewery. We opened in the worst economy in my lifetime, in...
An interview with Tavalon Tea’s CEO John-Paul Lee
While investigating the potential of a business in specialty tea retailing in the mid-2000s, one of the companies I kept coming across was Tavalon...
Getting an education in tea
I was at the Fancy Food Show in San Francisco a couple weeks ago, and had a great time talking to tea people and foodies who are tea curious. I...
Passion tempered
This week an espresso vendor we had carefully selected and just begun buying from "looked us over" and decided we could not place a second order...
The Charleston Tea Garden: deepen your roots in U.S. Grown tea & sip a bit of our History
It floored me a little when I actually thought about it. Eleven years of all things tea and I had yet to visit an actual garden. They remained...