It's a Miracle!

At the risk of coming off completely morbid, I have to share this news article with you. The gist of the story is that a woman in Mississippi was shot in the head by her husband, who then shot and killed himself. By a stroke of luck, or a divine miracle, the bullet passed between the 2 lobes of her brain, causing very little damage. By the time the police showed up at her house, she was holding a towel to her head, making a cup of tea. Being a hospitable southern lady, and surely in a state of shock, she offered the police some tea as well. What the ??!!! It's amazing that this woman is alive - and fascinating that she turned to a cup of tea to calm her nerves following this horrific, yet miraculous, event.
(photo from http://linzworld.files.wordpress.com/2008/03/newspaper.jpg)

Organic Green Twisted Spears

I've been looking forward to tasting this tea for quite some time now--it's been waiting patiently in my cupboard for its turn in the trusty Steepin' Mug. Alas! Its time has come!

It might sound silly, but half the reason I was so excited to try the Green Twisted Spears is due to its shape. The leaves are like mini-jousting lances or swords—long, thin, and pointy. A deep whiff of these dry scimitar-ish twists imparts a noseful of the scent of sweet apricots. After steeping the leaves for three minutes with water as close to 175-degrees as I could get (I measure the temp with my finger, which is surprisingly accurate. But keep in mind I did nothing but drink and serve tea at our now-closed retail location for over a year, so my finger is somewhat skilled at this task). The leaves had only slightly un-spiraled, making it clear to me that this is definitely a tea that needs to be re-steeped many times—as are most green teas.

In any case, the first go of it resulted in a light, floral-smelling liquor, with no astringency whatsoever. Pardon the wax poetic, but the mild, well-rounded flavor reminded me of the way it smells after rain—clean and fresh, with wafts of green vegetation. Much like wine grapes, tea plants tend to exude subtle flavors based on the soil and climate they grow in--so perhaps it’s no surprise then that these delicate spikes come from Sri Lanka--an island with a tropical climate that includes intense heat, heavy monsoons, and lots of subtropical evergreen forests. I swear I can taste all of those things. Round two, which I steeped for an extra 30 seconds, holds up strong to round one. It appears that I will get as many delicately flavored cups as I care to imbibe, as the spirals still have some unwinding to do. This works out perfectly for me, because I do too.

I see your Green Twisted Spear is as big as mine!

Keep On Rocking (The Republic) in the Free World

Just wanted to give a big thanks to Diana from Rocking the Republic for the awesome review of our Vintage Oolong loose tea that she posted this morning. Check her out. She just recently started her tea blog, and is already taking the tea blogosphere by storm.

She spoke poetically on the look and taste... "My cup was soon densely swimming with tea leaves after a minute. Watching tea leaves unfurl is always strangely comforting. It’s like watching the introduction of a familiar story unfold itself. The tea smelled very sweet. It was a warm and inviting cup. The liquor was a pale green and gold... Wow. This is a very nice tea with wonderful body. it’s rich and complex with a slight hint of umami*. The flavour is continuing to linger in my mouth after I have had the tea."

* Side note: Umami (according to the all-knowing wikipedia) is a Japanese flavor descriptor meaning "tasty", although "brothy", "meaty", or "savory" have been proposed as alternate translations. Yay for new words!

Then she spoke of here dad's love of full leaf teas, and it became clear where her love of tea began... "When it comes to tea, my dad loves big leaves, beautiful color, and a bold taste. He’s always fond of showing me the outrageously large tea leaves in his cup after he’s steeped. I think this is one tea that I can finally share with him that he would enjoy as well. Pair this with a good book and you have what I would call a perfect day. I’m glad I started my day with this cup." Thanks Diana! We're glad you did too.

Insider trading secret... our Vintage Oolong is still on promo. Buy 2 tins, get 1 Free! Just enter the total number of tins you want to receive (ie. 3 tins) and your cart will take care of the rest (only charging you for 2 tins). No promo code needed. Enjoy...

The Next Food Network Star: Karen's Kitchen

I applied to be the Next Food Network Star and submitted the following video...Although I am flattered I was chosen as a semi-finalist; I was not chosen to be on the show this year but stay tuned...I'm not giving up...

In the meantime, check out my video-recipe and let me know what you think...

GREEN ROASTED TEA SEARED SASHIMI

Ingredients: Fish
• ¾ lb sushi grade salmon
• ¾ lb sushi grade yellowtail
• GREEN ROASTED MINT Tea-soning (Tea + Seasoning = Tea-soning)
Note: Reserve 2 TBS of Tea-soning for stir fry
o 2 ½ TBS GREEN ROASTED MINT tea
o 2 ½ TBS sesame seeds
o 1 TBS wasabi powder
o 1 TBS salt
o 1 TBS pepper
o 1 TBS ginger, grounded
• 1 ½ TBS olive oil
• 4 cup spinach

Ingredients: Veggie Stir Fry
• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1 medium red onion, thinly sliced
• 1 medium red bell pepper, sliced
• 1 medium yellow bell pepper, sliced
• 1 can baby corn, washed
• 2 cups shitake mushrooms, sliced
• 2 cups edamame, shelled
• 1 cup Daikon (Japanese Radish), Julienne chopped
• 1 cup carrots. Julienne chopped
• ½ cup soy sauce
• 2 TBS GREEN ROASTED MINT Tea-soning, reserved from above fish rub
• ¼ cup toasted sesame oil
• 2 TBS fish sauce
• 1 TBS Sriracha, hot sauce
• 1 TBS corn starch
• 1 TBS fresh ginger, minced

Prep Time: 15 - 20 min / Cook Time: 10 minutes
Serving Size: 4
Preparation:
1. Wash and pat dry sashimi
2. Hand craft Tea-soning: Grind GREEN ROASTED MINT tea and blend tea with the rest of seasonings sesame seeds, wasabi powder, salt, pepper, and ginger.
3. Rub tea-soning all over fish and set aside to tenderize, reserving 2 TBS for sauce.
4. Meanwhile, heat olive oil in a large wok over medium-high heat. Add onions and cook until soften, add bell peppers, corn, mushrooms, edamame, jicama and carrots and sauté for 3-4 minutes.
5. In a small mixing bowl, combine soy sauce, toasted sesame oil, fish sauce, Srirachi, corn starch, ginger and reserved GREEN ROASTED Tea-soning. Divide sauce in half. Add half sauce to stir fry and cook for another 2 minutes. Reserve other half of sauce to drizzle over fish.
6. In a medium skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add fish and sear each side for 1-2 minutes, leaving middle raw. Remove from skillet, let sit for 2-3 minutes and thinly slice fish going against the gain at an angle.
7. To plate, place 1 cup of spinach on one side of 4 plates. Top spinach by alternating seared salmon and yellowtail, about 3-4 pieces salmon and 3-4 pieced yellowtail. Place stir-fry veggies on other side of plate and drizzle with reserved sauce.

Call for Essays: a Tea-Themed Anthology

• Have you "taken tea" in a unique place or under unusual circumstances?

• Do you have a story about sharing tea with someone special in your life?

• Have you made an important decision over a cup of tea?

Katrina from Tea Pages is asking people these types of questions and putting together a tea-themed anthology under the working title, Tea Memories: Living Life One Cup at a Time. She told us about this great idea and asked us to pass along this opportunity to our readers.

Full information about the project (including the Call for Essays and Submission Guidelines) is available here. The submission deadline is June 30, 2009.

So get out your laptop, a cup of tea, and your creative juices... and have fun with it!

(image from http://thefuturebuzz.com/pics/writing.jpg)

Looking for a simply great cup of tea? Here's where you can find The Tea Spot teas throughout Colorado!

As some of you may know, our retail location in Boulder, CO has closed. That being said, you can now find our teas being served in even more coffee shops, restaurants, lodges and hotels throughout the state!

So where can you find our teas being served? Check out the list below and stop in anytime to have a great cup of The Tea Spot's teas!



In Boulder:
Amante - Uptown: 4580 Broadway /
Downtown: 1035 Walnut St
Coffee Sanctuary - 900 28th Street, Ste 1
Foolish Craig's Cafe- 1611 Pearl St
Espress-OH! Dairy Center - 2590 Walnut St
Burnt Toast - 1235 Pennsylvania Ave
The Boulder Draft House - 2027 13th St
Glacier Ice Cream - 4760 Baseline Rd
The b.side Lounge - 2017 13th St

In Denver:
Caffe Sanora - 1245 E Colfax Ave
Studio 6 - 910 Santa Fe Dr
Stella's Coffehaus - 1476 S. Pearl St
Buchi Cafe Cubano -2651 W. 38th Ave
Penn Street Perk - 1300 Pennsylvania St # 101
Coftea- In Denver International Airport
Gallop Cafe (coming soon!)- 2401 W 32nd Ave


In Fort Collins:
Mugs Coffee Lounge - 261 S. College St


In Longmont:
Ziggi's Coffee House - 400 Main St
Little Fig Baking Co- 950 Elgin Ave # B

In Golden:
Noa Noa Espresso & News - 109 Rubey Dr Unit C

In Nederland:
Happy Trails - 101 Hwy 119 South

In Allenspark:
Wild Basin Lodge - 1130 County Road 84 W

In Estes Park:
Longs' Peak Coffee (opening soon for the summer season!)- 150 E. Elkhorn Ave.

In Steamboat Springs:
Amante - 685 Marketplace Plaza # C8

In Manitou Springs:
Miramont Castle (opening soon for the summer season!)- 9 Capitol Hill Ave


We're also starting to spread our wings throughout the nation! In Colorado and throughout the country our tea tins and SteepwareTM can be found in Whole Foods, Pier 1, Bed Bath and Beyond, many gourmet housewares stores and many other locations.

In other states our teas are being served...

In Florida:
Key Lime Cafe- 211 Colorado Ave, Stuart, FL.
The Spice & Tea Exchange- 254 Talleyrand Ave, Jacksonville, FL

In Arkansas:
The Cafe on Broadway- 730 E. Hickory Lane, Siloam Springs, AR

In New Mexico:
Collectibilitea- 7101 Menaul Blvd, Albuquerque, NM.

Want us in a shop near you!? Contact sales@theteaspot.com to let us know what Restaurant, Coffee Shop, Hotel, or Spa you think our teas should be in!!!

Steeping Cup Demo Video

I'm really excited that our Steeping Cup got featured in a video review on the tea-centric social networking site, Hot For Tea - Check it out!


Find more videos like this on Hot For Tea

Miso-Glazed Salmon Infused with RED ROCKS Tea

Succulent salmon soaked in a miso, ginger and RED ROCKS broth slightly seared and baked to buttery tenderness. Served with spinach sauteed with mushrooms makes a tea-licious healthy meal that takes about 30 minutes to prepare. Visit Tea Spot's Chef's blog for spinach recipe.

Miso-Glazed Salmon Infused with RED ROCKS Tea

Prep Time: 10 minutes / Marinate Time: at least 30 minutes / Cook Time: 15 - 20 minutes

Serving Size: 4

Level: Easy

Ingredients:

• 3 lb salmon, cut in 4 - 3/4 lb fillets
• 2 TBS Rice Wine Vinegar
• 1 1/2 TBS Sweet Miso Paste
• 2 TBS Mirin (Japanese cooking wine)
• 1 1/2 TBS Hoisin
• 2 TBS Toasted Sesame Oil
• 1 TBS Dijon Mustard
• 2 TBS Brown Sugar
• 2 TBS Ginger, minced
• 1 TBS Olive Oil
• 2 TBS RED ROCKS loose tea, yielding 3/4 cup tea concentrate*

*Hot to make RED ROCKS Tea Concentrate: Bring 5 oz water to a boil. Place 2 TBS of tea in a STEEPING CUP or an 8 oz measuring cup. Pour 4 oz hot water over tea leaves, steep for 6 minutes and strain tea leaves. **Reserve tea leaves to make iced tea.

Preparation:

1. Clean and pat dry salmon.
2. Make RED ROCKS tea concentrate. While steeping, in a medium mixing bowl, combine rice vinegar, miso paste, mirin, hoisin, sesame oil, dijon, brown sugar and ginger. Whisk tea concentrate in miso mixture. Set aside for 15 minutes so the ingredients meld together.
3. Cover salmon with miso marinade and chill for at least 30 minutes
4. Preheat over to 350 degrees.
5. Heat olive oil over medium-high heat in a large pan. Sear salmon 3-4 minutes on each side.
6. Place salmon in over for 8-10 minutes or until opaque in middle.
7. Garnish with lemon and fresh dill or cilantro and serve with sauteed spinach & mushrooms.

If you don't like salmon then try the same marinade over black cod, chicken or pork tenderlion.

Organic Mate Limon Chai

This has been an interesting week for me--one that's worthy of some back-patting, in the form of delicious tea.

A grad student's/unpaid intern's work is never, ever finished. Next week is ship week for the magazine I work at, so the past three days have been filled with fact checking, research, and nearly going permanently cross-eyed from starting intently at hundreds of different websites with phone numbers, addresses, and names, all in a variety of fonts, colors, and layouts. Then, the phone calls--disconnected numbers, PR contacts, leaving messages. Off to the side sits another project to recruit college seniors from various schools for a photo shoot. More phone calls, more e-mails, and impending deadlines. Add an interview with a relatively well-known bassist, a midterm, a book jacket design project, and fall registration, and now you know why I

 need a damn cup of tea already! Nevermind that I only have saltines left in the cupboard, and a fresh crop of projects for the coming weekend. One day at a time, right? That's right. And today, it's teatime.

I prep my water to near boiling before I steep my Mate Limon Chai for 4 minutes. There are varying opinions that it is better to use water that's not fully boiling, as there have been studies that show yerba mate contains carcinogens. But never fear. I am of the sound mind that the key to most everything in life is moderation (except when it comes to '80s movies and sweet dance moves). If you drink yerba mate every single day, you may want to so some more extensive research and decide if it poses a health risk, but drinking mate every now and then won't kill you. At least not before any number of a million other things will.

This blend contains organic mate blended with several herbs and spices. It smells lightly pungent, the way citrus fruits do. It has a very herbal scent and a smooth, earthy flavor with overtones of ginger and lemon. After my week-o-insanity, I'm elated to have a medicinal concoction that soothes my nerves. This tea would be perfect for soothing a sore throat. It may feel like spring in Boulder, CO (jealous!), but here in Boston it's freezing in my house at the moment, so I take my favorite black Steepin' Mug into the corner of the room where a rather large heating vent is cut into the floor. I turn the thermostat up a few degrees, grab a blanket and sit underneath it while the warm air from the heating ducts, as well as my tasty tea, warm me up with no delay. Approximately eight minutes later, I've somehow curled 

onto my side with my head in the cat's bed, and fallen asleep. I've completely, and blissfully disconnected from the world at 7:30 p.m. on a Thursday evening. Glorious. Thanks, TeaSpot! 

She looks how I feel!

Red Steeping Cup Steeps Red Clover Tea Loose!

Even with all the love and care we give our products, their packaging and presentation on our website, quite often, when we see our products presented on someone else's blog, they're described far more eloquently than we feel able to say ourselves... one such example is yesterday's post about our Red Steeping Cup on the fashionable "Well-Heeled Society's" blog, where the stylish Felicia Coley's saying is: Sometimes life's destiny does not include you being swept off your feet. Sometimes it's just standing in the light of your completeness... wearing fabulous shoes. She thanks us for our donation of a Red Steeping Cup and says "I am now able to get a warm hug with style every morning in red. I have since let my tea ball down easy, proving that it's best not to cry over spilled milk. Or tea... Lose that Ball & Chain! Modern Teaware for Loose Leaf Teas". Thank you Felicia, for understanding and articulating exactly what we want to communicate with our products!
Thank you to NY Post Fashion Blog for Photo