Welcome to my blog. I hope you will join me for a cup of tea!
Happy New Year, dear tea lovers! I wish you a wonderful 2018, filled with sips of delicious tea enjoyed together with friends and loved ones! To kick off the new year I have a very exciting interview for you! My tea friend and fellow tea blogger Georgia, author of the NYC based blog Notes on Tea, kindly agreed to answer my questions about her own tea journey. Last year, it was such an honor to be featured in her teaware series on her blog! Without further ado, let me introduce you to Georgia.
2017 is almost over and I’m looking back and taking stock. It’s been a great year for The Tea Squirrel and I am truly honored to be part of such a lively, inclusive and positive community of tea bloggers and tea professionals. We inspire, support and motivate each other and I’d like to thank each and every one of you personally. Here's a roundup of the tea blog posts of 2017 that I found most inspiring.
‘Tis the Season for holiday cookies! Did you know that historically cookies were meant to be displayed as decoration on the Christmas tree? How fascinating! Unfortunately, you won’t be able to decorate your tree with these cookies, they’re too delicious, they’re gonna be gone in no time!
Last week my friend and fellow tea blogger Mike (The Tea Letter) and I met for a gongfu tea session. Mike brought the tea, I brought the teaware and my camera. We had had tea together before at a tea house in San Francisco but this was the first time we got together with the intention to work on a “tandem” blog post. I’m glad to report that the input and inspiration I got from our tea session stretches far beyond that. This post has been particularly challenging to write, maybe because that input stirred inward reflection and assessment of my tea journey so far.
Last October, during my European trip, I got to visit Trieste, an Italian town that holds a special place in my heart. I had not been there in 5 years and I didn’t know what to expect. I had certainly not anticipated that I would find great tea.
Dear tea friends, the gift giving season is upon us! To thank my existing newsletters subscribers and to welcome new ones, I'm hosting a giveaway!
With the holiday season officially in full swing, I look forward to holiday parties! I will attend an Alice in Wonderland themed party in December and I hope there will be plenty of tea. I will very likely host some holiday dinner parties too and I’m making a point of introducing everybody to the magic of tea and food pairings. If you, like me, want tea to be the star of your holiday celebrations, I have tried and tested some combinations that will sweep everyone off their feet, from appetizer to dessert.
It's 9:30 on a Sunday morning. On a regular Sunday, I would still be in bed, snoozing. But it’s not a regular Sunday. A line is forming in front of the San Francisco Ferry Building. I join it with a sigh of relief, virtually patting myself on the back for getting there early. Passers-by approach the volunteers who are managing the line, they want to know what event people are standing in line for (and what they are missing out on). They are stunned that tea is the reason drawing such crowds.
Fall is an enchanted season and I was lucky enough to be in Europe for two weeks and got to experience it again after a long time. I was way less thrilled when I got home after my trip and had to edit the 877 pictures I took! As always, I was looking for tea, sometimes actively, sometimes less so and I did find it, in Germany and in Italy. Along the way, I found something I didn’t expect. Enchanted places, straight out of fairytales, so beautiful they were almost surreal.
San Francisco might be known for its vibrant craft coffee scene, but did you know that a tea renaissance is underway in the Bay Area?Forget unexciting, mass-produced tea bags. Tea is worth geeking out over - as a tea blogger, I’m guilty of that. Think high-quality loose-leaf tea, so good it doesn’t need milk, sugar or flavorings. That’s the beverage with a growing following, people who care about origin, tea leaves to water ratio, temperature and quality of water, steep time and traditional preparation methods, like gong fu cha, the Chinese way of brewing tea with skill. It’s a niche, but it has seen some exciting developments lately. What makes San Francisco and the Bay Area the place to be for tea lovers? Why is the tea scene here so unique? I gathered the thoughts and perspective of some local tea professionals to help me answer these questions.
Fall… the most nostalgic, sweet, smoky and luxurious of all seasons. The grape harvest, the weather turning chilly, we go back to craving hot tea, even though we never really abandoned it in the summer. When I was a child, fall meant collecting edible chestnuts with my dog, playing in the fallen leaves and trying to avoid the spiky chestnut pods (ouch, those spiky pods sting!). Chestnuts are delicious roasted on an open fire, they become soft, sweet, smoky and earthy. For me smoky and earthy flavors are the embodiment of fall, which is why I’ve created a tea based cocktail that brings all those notes together.
How do you taste tea? I’ve realized that I need my “tasting environment” to be conducive and, most importantly, I need to be concentrated, especially when taking tasting notes. I’m very sensitive to sound and a quiet environment is essential for me. Also, a minimalistic and de-cluttered environment can help me focus on the task at hand. You want all your senses to be alert and not distracted by what’s around you. What do you think? What’s your experience?
Last weekend I was in Seattle for one of the most anticipated events of the year, the Northwest Tea Festival. I will tell you more about my experience at the festival in a separate post, but now I want to focus on the Tea Bloggers Roundtable panel discussion I was invited to participate in. It was such an honor and a great experience to sit on the panel. Read on to discover more.
I have a confession to make, something keeps me up at night... I have yet to find the ideal storage solution for my loose leaf teas. Deterioration looms large. Right now my cabinet is in complete disarray (I keep my loose leaf teas in the resealable bags they came in, which is not bad but not ideal). You wouldn’t want to stick your hand in there (and neither do I - sigh). I know exactly what’s in there by keeping detailed records in an excel spreadsheet, but it doesn’t look good and it’s hard to find what I’m looking for. I’m confident the ideal storage solution for my loose leaf teas is out there. Here is what I am looking for.
Despite being located in California, San Francisco has little in common with the rest of the Golden State when it comes to its climate. Summers in San Francisco should not be called summers. Can we all agree on a different name, please? What do you call a foggy, overcast and cool season? Fall? Oddly enough, fall in San Francisco is the best time of year. We’re experiencing a heat wave right now and warm and sunny weather is expected to last until early November. No pumpkin-spiced anything for us, at least until then. To beat the San Francisco heat, I’m making plenty of ice cream. The best way to pair any ice cream with tea? Read on to find out!
Oriental Beauty is a “bug-bitten” oolong tea from Taiwan. Let's take a moment to appreciate a tiny insect, the tea green leaf hopper. The plant defense mechanism against the attack of leaf hoppers makes the tea delicious by releasing chemicals which contribute to its flavor. Read on to find out more.
The most British thing there is doesn’t seem to be doing well at home, but is thriving on our side of the pond. Last month, British daily newspaper The Guardian reported that “the US currently seems to be enjoying a tea party to which Britain has not been invited, with tea bars popping up across the nation and sales of the hot drink shooting up 15% in the past five years”. Good, high-quality tea is not hard to come by here on the West Coast but what is happening exactly in the UK?
Last week, fellow tea blogger Nicole Martin shared 5 things her readers might not know about her on her blog Tea For Me Please. I really enjoyed getting to know her a bit better through that post! She challenged fellow tea bloggers to write their own versions of this post, so here I am with mine! Thank you, Nicole, for sharing such a fun challenge!
