Welcome to my blog. I hope you will join me for a cup of tea!
All tagged tea
If you’ve seen my previous posts about tea chocolate, you know that I am obsessed with bean-to-bar chocolate maker Fossa from Singapore and their single-origin tea chocolate bars made in collaboration with tea curator Pekoe & Imp. I was able to find two bars I had not tried yet, Duck Shit Dancong tea chocolate and Himalayan Royale Tips Hongcha tea chocolate.
I came across a tea-infused chocolate bar by bean-to-bar chocolate maker Fossa from Singapore. It is infused with Honey Orchid Dancong Oolong from China. Read my thoughts and tasting notes.
I came across the recipe for a mocktail called A little bit Russian by Julia Bainbridge. I had heard of Julia Bainbridge before, she’s a writer and the author of Good Drinks, a recipe book on non alcoholic drinks. A black tea concentrate is shaken with coconut milk, simple syrup, bitters and ice, then strained and garnished with orange peel. I tested out this recipe to see if it would meet my tea-centric expectations and slightly adapted it to make the tea flavor shine.
The other day I was at a specialty wine store and stumbled upon a few interesting artisanal chocolate bars, including two tea-infused ones. On a whim, I decided that I needed to try them and purchased them. I was already familiar with both brands but had not tried either of them yet. Were they any good? Read on to find out!
When I think of tea and food pairings or using tea as an ingredient in a dish, Italian food does not come to mind as the first, most obvious choice. And I was born and raised in Italy. That’s the reason why, when I came across chef and tea lover Christian Nicita and his tea room/restaurant Acquamadre on Instagram, I was immediately captivated. Imagine my reaction when I found out that he was serving gongfu-cha-steeped tea alongside fine-dining dishes in Sicily! Mind-blowing! And tea found its way into the dishes as well, together with local seasonal produce. Unfortunately, Acquamadre has shut down permanently due to the pandemic but Christian is already working on more tea-infused projects. Here is my conversation with him.
You might be familiar with cold brewing tea but have you tried ice brewing it? I’ve only ever seen ice brewing applied to Japanese green teas and I was curious to experiment with it, which is why I decided to test this method for different tea types from different origins.
A few days ago, I asked my Instagram community the following two questions. Do you wash your teaware? Do you wash your teaware with dish soap? I thought you’d be interested to hear what works for me.
After drinking caffeinated teas for most of the day, I find myself craving something refreshing later in the afternoon or to enjoy at sunset. I invented this thirst-quenching, insanely flavorful iced herbal infusion/mocktail by total chance. Picture yourself on a tropical vacation and that is exactly what the pink drink à la Tea Squirrel tastes like.
Today I’d like to share with you some of my favorite tea creators, tea bloggers and tea podcasts. Some are new discoveries, some have been inspiring me for years!
A few weeks ago, I was interviewed by doctoral students Ashley Miller, Joslyn Williams and Hannington Masereka Kule who are taking a global leadership course within an educational and organizational learning and leadership program at Seattle University. I had never thought of myself as a global leader and I am honored to have been interviewed for their project. Their questions made me reflect on many interesting topics that often get overlooked when thinking about tea.
That is the question that I asked myself while holding a nondescript pouch I had just retrieved from the back of my tea cabinet. It was still sealed, unlabeled and had a long code handwritten on one side. I knew exactly what it was. A micro-lot Korean green tea I had purchased at a tea tasting two years ago. Unintentionally, I had been putting off opening it, waiting for the perfect occasion. Honestly, my first response to the question “can you age green tea?” would be a resounding “no”, but I was about to find out firsthand anyway.
Because I haven’t been able to travel in over a year now (thank you, pandemic) and I miss traveling more than anything right now, I thought it would be fun to round up all the best tea experiences I’ve had around the world. Honestly, I’ve had more than 7 (at least 12) and I could write chapters about them but I’ll keep those for my memoirs. What are the best tea experiences you’ve ever had? Please let me know in the comments below, I’m curious!
As a tea lover and cat mom of two (but also an animal lover in general), I’ve always wondered whether there is a connection between being a tea drinker and being a cat lover. There seems to be a recurring pattern but is it true or is it a misconception or a stereotype? I asked my newsletter subscribers and here are the results of that survey.
Hello, tea lovers and welcome back to The Tea Squirrel! This is episode number three of my series on tea and mindfulness. Being present in the moment, enjoying the beauty of little things, being intentional with one’s thoughts and actions are all things that tea lovers can easily teach themselves by cultivating a tea ritual, however simple or elaborate. My goal for this series is to practice mindfulness more consistently and explore it in a creative way.
Hello, tea lovers and welcome back to The Tea Squirrel! This is episode number two of my series on tea and mindfulness. Being present in the moment, enjoying the beauty of little things, being intentional with one’s thoughts and actions are all things that tea lovers can easily teach themselves by cultivating a tea ritual, however simple or elaborate. My goal for this series is to practice mindfulness more consistently and explore it in a creative way.
This year in the spirit of drinking the teas that I already own, I DIYed my own tea advent calendar with teas from my collection. I got a large envelope and decorated the front with a dot for each day leading up to Christmas. I’m very proud of myself because I reused scraps of paper I had saved from a previous DIY project. Then I selected 24 teas from my collection, printed out each one on a separate strip of paper and put all of them into the envelope. Each day I was randomly drawing one and voila’, I had my DIY tea advent calendar. Each day I posted on Instagram what tea had been randomly selected.
Italian tea expert in London Alessandra Rovetta is going to give us a behind-the-scenes look at a one-of-a-kind custom tea blending service and tell us all about her tea journey and tea dream job in London! She’s going to share her top afternoon tea recommendations in London along the way too!
Self-care is about figuring out what makes us feel good and practicing it consistently. By gifting tea you can help someone discover their own self-care ritual or you can give it to yourself and carve out some time to feel good! Let me walk you through some tea gift ideas and how to create the perfect tea gift set for self-care.
