All Posts
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Why Does My Tea Taste Like Coffee?
Every coffeemaker I’ve ever used is unable to produce decent tea once it’s been used for coffee. The oils in the coffee may clean off of the glass from the carafe, but they will impregnate the plastic parts of the coffeemaker. Read more
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Fun Blends: Coyotes of the Purple Sage
With new tea blends, sometimes we come up with the blend first and struggle to think of the perfect name. Sometimes we come up with a cool tea name and work on a blend that matches. And then we do the logo. Sometimes, however, everything comes together in a flash. Read more
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Book Review: 20,000 Secrets of Tea
I read a lot about tea (what a surprise, eh?), and try to carry a decent selection of tea books in my bookstore. When somebody recommended the book 20,000 Secrets of Tea: The Most Effective Ways to Benefit from Nature’s Healing Herbs by Victoria Zak, I decided to give it… Read more
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Rooibos: The African Red Bush
How have I been at this blog for so long without writing about rooibos? Oh, I know this blog is about tea, and I did write a post about green rooibos last year, but I haven’t covered straight red rooibos yet. Rooibos comes from a bush called Aspalathus linearis, which… Read more
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Sweetening Tea with Stevia Leaf
I rarely sweeten my tea, with a few notable exceptions. That doesn’t, however, mean I have a problem with you sweetening your tea. What does bother me, however, is preparing a cup of a new and interesting tea for a guest and having them sweeten it before they taste it. Read more
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Keurig K-Cups and Tea
Frequently, hotel rooms have coffee makers, but I don’t like having my tea water taste like coffee, so I don’t use them. In one hotel room, however, was a Keurig that uses single-serving K-Cups. They had four coffees, one tea, and one herbal blend. I gave the tea a try. Read more
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A Nice Cup of Tea
On January 12, 1946, the Evening Standard published an essay by George Orwell entitled “A Nice Cup of Tea.” Like almost everyone else in my generation, I had to read his books Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm in school. They told us a lot about society and a lot about English culture, but… Read more
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Complicated drinks, education, and consistency
Is there some particular tea concoction that’s “your” tea drink? Is it something complicated? You’ll hear people every day in Starbucks ordering coffees that take twenty words to describe, but we don’t run in to that much in the tea bar … yet. Why is it that more coffee drinkers… Read more
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Tea and caffeine part III: Decaf and low-caf alternatives
This article is the second of a three-part series. Part I: What is caffeine?Part II: Exploding the mythsPart III: Decaf and low-caf alternatives So you’ve decided you like tea, but you really don’t want (or can’t have) the caffeine. What are your alternatives? Well, first there’s decaf tea. As Part… Read more
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Tea and caffeine part II: Exploding the myths
This article is the second of a three-part series. Part I: What is caffeine? Part II: Exploding the myths Part III: Decaf and low-caf alternatives It’s amazing. It seems like the more I learn about tea, the less I know — and the more I have to unlearn. Over the… Read more
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Tea and caffeine part I: What is caffeine?
This article is the first of a three-part series. Part I: What is caffeine? Part II: Exploding the myths Part III: Decaf and low-caf alternatives In his excellent book, A History of the World in 6 Glasses, Tom Standage selected the six beverages that he felt had the greatest influence on… Read more
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Tea and relaxation
If you’re looking for a whole afternoon of spirited discussion, ask an herbalist, a tea expert, and a doctor about the relaxing properties of tea. Any such discussion is immensely complicated by the dizzying variety of tea available, the thousands of herbal blends (“tisanes”) that herbalists call tea, and the… Read more
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The Lady Greystoke logo
Does it seem like I’ve got a theme going lately? I’ve had quite a few posts about the fun we’ve been having with logos for our house blends. Now, the latest in the series: Doug Bailey (Suzanna’s husband) made us a logo for our Lady Greystoke tea. Read more
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Steeping Times
The World Tea Expo in Las Vegas has been a phenomenal (and somewhat overwhelming) experience. It will take quite a while for everything to sink in. There were some fascinating trends discussed at the show, and I also learned a lot about just how differently people enjoy their tea. As… Read more
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Fun Blends: MaterniTEA for Morning Sickness
I am not trained in the healing powers of herbs, but I know what people ask for at the tea bar. We seem to have a lot of pregnant women in town these days, and most of them come in requesting either ginger or mint for their morning sickness. Read more
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Yet another new logo: Mr. Excellent’s Post-Apocalyptic Earl Grey
Such a delay! It was about eight months ago that I came up with the Mr. Excellent’s Post-Apocalyptic Earl Grey Tea blend (see my blog post about it here), and we finally have a logo for it! This one was drawn by my daughter’s friend from college, Brandon Pope. I’ve… Read more
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Lady Greystoke
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, we decided to rename our Lady Grey tea. I put the word out to friends on all of the social media, and a former fellow moderator at the Straight Dope Message Boards who goes by the moniker of “Czarcasm” came up with… Read more
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Another new logo: Honey Mint Tea
Back in October, my friend Al drew a logo for our Hammer & Cremesickle Red Tea blend. Today, he put his artistic talent back to work and came up with another logo for the Tea Bar. This time, it was for my caffeine-free “Honey Mint” blend. I developed this blend… Read more
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Free mystery tea (Tieguanyin)!
A friend stopped by the tea bar the other day and brought a bag of tea from China that a friend had given her. She didn’t know what it was, and she’d had it for five years, so she asked if I’d like to have it. Read more
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Meatballs in Lapsang Souchong Cream Sauce
I’ve written about cooking with lapsang souchong here before, but we decided to try something new for the Chamber of Commerce party at the bookstore/tea bar last month (the same one where we served the Hipster Hummus and the Orange Spice Carrot Cake Muffins). If you’re not familiar with lapsang… Read more
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Teavana: That was a disappointment
I love visiting other tea shops and other bookstores, especially shops that carve out their own niche. When visiting other people’s shops, I get great ideas for our own tea bar, learn new things, taste new teas, and get an opportunity to chat with other people who share my obsessions.… Read more
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Orange Spice Carrot Cake Muffins
As promised, here’s the second recipe from our recent Chamber of Commerce party. Our food theme was cooking with tea, and this was a variant of a recipe that Bigelow Tea originally published. Obviously, we substituted teas that we sell at our Tea Bar for what they originally suggested. In… Read more
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Hipster Hummus
Tonight, my store (Red Lodge Books & Tea Bar) hosted a Red Lodge Chamber of Commerce mixer event. My wife, Kathy, and I decided that we’d make all of the appetizers with tea. I cook with tea quite a bit, but most of the time I use tea in entrees… Read more
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New toy! A Russian samovar
I just purchased a Russian samovar (literally translated: self-boiler) made in 1980. Traditional metal samovars in Russia date back to the early 1700s, when they used charcoal or other fuels to heat the water. A “chimney” ran vertically through the middle of the samovar, where the fuel generated the heat. Read more
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Spicing up couscous
I have played around quite a bit with tea as a flavoring for vegetables, rice, fish, and other dishes. A few months ago, I was trying to decide on a good tea combo for adding some extra flavor to couscous. Most of the time, I use actual tea (made from… Read more
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Tea Styles
This article first appeared in the May 2010 issue of the Local Rag newspaper, describing a tea tasting and class I held at our bookstore before we added the tea bar. When I was a kid, tea was something that came in bags with a little tag that said “Lipton.”… Read more
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Tasting purple tea
Today, I received my first shipment of the purple tea that I blogged about back in August. I opened the bag with no preconceptions, as I haven’t read anyone else’s tasting notes. The leaves look like pretty much any black tea. Not surprising, as the purple tea plant (TRFK306/1) can… Read more
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Chris Kilham responds
A few days ago, I posted an admittedly rather snarky article entitled “Coffee vs. Tea: Do your homework, Fox News.” The main subject of the article was Chris Kilham, the “Medicine Hunter” from Fox News. Chris responded to the article in email, expressing an interest in carrying on a dialog. Read more
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Coffee vs. Tea: Do your homework, Fox News
Last Friday, Fox News ran a “Q&A with Dr. Manny” segment to address the question, “Coffee vs. Tea: Which is Healthier?” Dr. Manny Alvarez handed the question off to someone named Chris Kilham, who I assumed was a scientist or another doctor. I was wrong, but we’ll get to that… Read more
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Hammer & Cremesickle Red
Isn’t it fun how names develop for tea blends? The naming process is almost as much fun as the blending process itself. For weeks, I had been trying to come up with a tea that invoked the taste of the creamsicles I used to enjoy so much as a kid… Read more
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Copywriters and tea marketing experts
These days, you can’t be too careful what you say on a tea website. Last year, Unilever was warned by the FDA for claims they made about “Lipton Green Tea 100% Natural, Naturally Decaffeinated.” A week later, they warned Dr. Pepper Snapple Group about claims they made concerning “Canada Dry… Read more
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Mr. Excellent’s Post-Apocalyptic Earl Grey Tea
After my blog post a couple of weeks ago about Twinings changing their Earl Grey formulation, I went to my favorite online forum (the Straight Dope Message Boards) and started a poll to see what people thought about it. I never thought at the time that it would lead to… Read more
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Twinings changes their Earl Grey. Stop the presses. Or don’t.
The tea world is all a-twitter because British tea giant Twinings has changed the formulation of their Earl Grey tea after over a century and a half. This is being likened to the “New Coke” fiasco. It’s difficult to address a subject like this without puns, so let me get… Read more
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How important is the word “organic”?
About 40% of the teas we offer at our tea bar are certified organic. Generally speaking, those teas run about 50% higher in price than the non-organic alternatives. In most cases, however, they outsell their non-organic counterparts by a fairly healthy margin. In tough economic times, that says something. But… Read more
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Kenya will be growing Purple Tea
According to Business Daily in Africa, farmers in Kenya have been given permission to start growing purple tea, a varietal they’ve been developing for the last 25 years. The new varietal, called TRFK306/1, was developed by the Tea Research Foundation of Kenya (TRFK), and is expected to provide dramatically higher… Read more
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Cooking with Lapsang Souchong
Lapsang souchong is a fascinating tea. People either love it or hate it. I’ve been winning some converts for it, though, by recommending a use other than drinking it: cooking with it. Give this salmon souchong recipe a try and you, too, may be a smoked tea convert. Read more
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Ice, Ice, Baby!
When starting up a new venture, it’s a good idea to minimize the amount of cash you put in until you’re sure it’s going to work. In keeping with that philosophy, when we started our tea bar at the bookstore, we bought what the health inspector said we had to… Read more
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I’ll have a green red tea, please
I’ve been drinking rooibos (a.k.a. “African redbush,” a.k.a. “red tea”) for years, and stocked our tea bar liberally with varieties of it. All of them use the same base plant — Aspalathus linearis — prepared with an oxidation process similar to what’s used for black tea. The plant is naturally… Read more
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Traveling with tea
As we packed for the book signing tour and convention, my wife and I carefully plotted what to bring along. Obviously, some good loose-leaf tea was a part of the process. My choices were my own Scottish Breakfast blend for first thing in the morning, our house Earl Grey (one of the… Read more
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Tea Absolutists (a.k.a. Tea Nazis)
There are a lot of types of tea people. Tea purists, tea snobs, tea ceremonialists, tea sippers, tea guzzlers, tea herbalists, tea totalers (okay — just kidding on that last one). Today’s commentary is on the tea absolutists. I, like most tea drinkers, have my favorite way of preparing each… Read more
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Our boba tea (“bubble tea”) experience
As my friends discovered that we were opening a tea bar at the bookstore, special requests began to pour in: Can you get me a first-flush Darjeeling? Will you have lapsang souchong? You’ll have gunpowder tea, right? Will you be stocking silver needle white tea? Are you going to have… Read more
Tea With Gary 