Steep up a little dust lately?

read on... odds are, if you're a US tea drinker, you probably have :(

I did a double take then I first saw this headline in the Financial Express: "Clean tea, dusts in strong demand" Who's demanding dust, I wondered... but of course - your best-known tea companies!

From Wikipedia: "Dust tea...Traditionally these were treated as the rejects of the manufacturing process in making high quality leaf tea... has however experienced a huge demand in the developing world in the last century as the practice of tea drinking became popular. Cheap tea stalls in India and the South Asian sub-continent, and Africa prefer dust tea because it is cheap and also produces a very strong brew - consequently more cups are obtained per measure of tea dust."
 
Terrific... We Americans and Brits established dust's popularity, and tea bags made it all possible.  I guess there's something to be said for the vertical integration and sustainability aspect to being able to use the whole leaf, even the rejects from the manufacturing process ;)

Even the "clean tea" that was in high demand was - fannings!  Fannings are barely a step up from dust. They're defined in the tea industry as: Dust or very small particles of tea left over after processing. This is the lowest grade of tea.  Some auctions, however, include "dust" as an actual grade of tea, namely the one being reported on in our subject article.

Take heart, however, in that you'll probably never find dust or fanning grade tea in any loose tea product.  From the seven main grades of tea auctioned off, we're the ones who buy up the top 3 grades. So you can drink up and feel good about it :)

Photo Credits:
* Teabag beauty shot from prwatch.org 
* New Moon Darjeeling leaf pile from theteaspot.com

I guess I never realized how spoiled I really am when it comes to tea. Not a tea drinker before working for a loose leaf tea company, I never suffered through the early stages of the tea bag. Luckily I was overwhelmed with a veritable treasure-trove of loose leaf tea my first day on the job. After a snide remark or two about bagged tea from my new co-workers, I fully understood that I was never to waste my time with any tea that was delivered to my cup via a bag. So I never really spent much time thinking about the ground-up tea that lives inside a tea bag and how it, when combined with water, responds differently than the sprawling leaves I've come to know and enjoy. Until yesterday. Our CEO returned from her trip abroad with some loose leaf tea and promptly steeped the crew each a cup. Curious how it became so bitter after only steeping 30 seconds, I began asking questions. So this particular tea was ground up almost into powder form, like the tea in a tea bag. I guess it makes sense that the water has more surface area of the tea with which to connect, essentially speeding up the process. I can't think of a better time to utter the old adage "The best things come to those who wait."

picture from www.bookeyetest.info

Foiled!

In my last post I vowed to force my visiting family (all from central PA) to put down the teabag and pick up a mug of perfectly steeped loose-leaf tea. Enter the Celestial Seasonings Tent Sale. What started out as a guided tour through a popular tea factory turned into a teabag feeding frenzy. Never have I been so bamboozled in my entire life. It was a crushing blow this tent sale. Boxes of any flavor you want for a buck. One dollar. I wasn't there, but I heard some little kids were trampled. Even my mother, who appreciates a good bargain, had to step aside while the rest of the family filled shopping bag after shopping bag with flavors of tea they've never even heard of. I didn't stand a chance. It was over before it began.

What this frustrating experience did help me remember was that converting the mainstream tea-drinking public into loose-leaf connoisseurs isn't going to happen over night. Certainly not over night in my apartment where my youngest visitor built a three-room fort out of all the Celestial Seasonings tea boxes. The first thing you must do when changing someone's habit is to grab their attention and the aftermath of this tent sale was like herding cats. So I decided to flee and live to fight another day. Soon they will tire of all that bagged tea and the excitement will wear off. Enter Bolder Breakfast, Iced Mango Tango and Green Roasted Mint.

photo from www.cbc.ca

Simply Shocking! A week without drinking tea and only ...da da dum...COFFEE!

Yes, it's true. Last week (spanning both weekends) I switched gears from running and was involved in Ride the Rockies which is a 380 mile bike tour for 6 days going from one Colorado town to the next all on your bike. I will get into further details about the trip on my next blog once I've downloaded pictures, but for the time being what you need to know is that while we biked from town to town, we didn't have to carry anything while biking.We were allowed one huge bag (thank you Tea Spot Chef) and then we set up camp at each town's elementary or high schools, were able to use their facilities (as well as all the lovely outdoor porta johns) and the local vendors set up stations for us to get food from.

And each morning, there was "the coffee guy". The coffee station was set up as a portable coffee stand that also drove from town to town to provide us with our early morning drinks. So, every morning I had a glorious cup of coffee to get me energized at 5:30 in the morning, to keep me warm when waking up in 30 degree weather in the mountains and to get me started on my 60-80mile a day ride!


"Didn't the coffee man have tea?" you ask. To this I reply, "yes, he did", but I knew it was only bagged tea and quite honestly that didn't get me all revved up to start on my morning ride.

You need something, scratch that ANYTHING, to help you get up these hills!















So there you have it, a week with no tea. Quite honestly, now that I'm sitting here with my cup of Bolder Breakfast, no longer on a bike saddle, I realize that I have missed my tea and I appreciate it maybe even a little more for the amazing quality that it is. You know what they say "Absence makes the heart grow fonder!"


Photos found at http://www.ridetherockies.com/media-room/photo-archives/

The "Greening" of our Tea Habit

It seems like our culture is really starting to promote all the "little" things we do on a daily basis to be more ecological and "green". The idea is that even the seemingly small things add up to significant amounts when we all contribute to them frequently. This concept is really driven home lately with the reusable bag, especially promoted for grocery shopping to *reduce* the amount of paper & plastic bags used. Even the last shopping bag I got from the shoe store Steve Madden was a huge reusable cloth bag, and the small bag I got from the yoga apparel store Lululemon is a plastic-coated cloth bag that I now use to bring my lunch to work everyday.

In this light, we are looking at the "greening" of our tea habit.

Loose leaves are more ecological than tea bags, because:

1. there is no tea bag to go into landfill.
2. the leaves can go right into your garden compost or your city's Compost & Green Waste recycling bin.
3. the leaves of high quality loose tea are often hand-picked and processed rather than machine processed as many tea bag leaves are (using the CTC process - Cut, Tear, Curl or Cut, Tear, Crushed). These CTC machines are powered by fossil fuels.
   

In addition to the tea leaf processing & steeping, it's important to look at their packaging too. Our tea tins are fully recyclable. But since it's even better to *reuse* than *recycle*, it's most ecological to buy in larger quantities (1 lb bulk bags), and refill your tin as you go, or just use the large resealable bulk bag on a daily basis. (You can find all bulk options for sale in the drop-down menu on the right side of each individual tea page. See screenshot image below.) Buying in larger bulk quantities also gets you the best deal on a per ounce, and per cup, basis. The stats for per serving costs are listed in the Features section of each tea page - listed for both buying by the tin and by larger bulk quantities. This makes it both ecological & economical!


You can also *re-use* your current collection of tea tins for things around the home and office, such as:

• a holder/organizer for pencils, pens, paper clips, rubber bands, etc.

• a planter for small plants and herbs (poke holes in the bottom for drainage if needed)

• a container for home-made candles (use the lid to make it a great travel candle, shown in image to the right, made by one of our customers - so cool!)

• a container for holding herbs & spices bought in bulk

Please post comments with your ideas for used tins... I'd love to compile a huge list for our website.

And *that* my friends is the greening of our tea habit, from the tea leaf processing, to the steeping & composting, to the packaging. All questions, comments, and feedback welcomed... let the conversation continue....

Simple Steps to Improving your Rooibos Tea

If you're new to loose leaf tea, seeing particles of your tea floating around in your cup isn't necessarily appealing to look at let alone drink. We're a culture that is used to bag tea, no muss, no fuss, nothing floating around in your drink.

The tea, or rather teasane, that is the worst culprit of this problem is Rooibos tea. Rooibos is not actually from the tea leaf, but rather is an South African herb that is very flavorful, has tons of nutrients, is caffeine free, but is VERY difficult to filter when making a cup of tea. It seems that no matter what strainer you use, a metal ball, mesh plastic, a Tuffy Steeper, etc. little bits of Rooibos get out and not only settle at the bottom of the cup, but many of the bits of tea feel the need to float right at the surface, ready to enter your mouth upon first sip. I no longer mind having the tea leaves or herbs floating in my tea, but for those of you who do, I am going to explain to you a fantastic and very simple way of steeping your Rooibos, like our Red Rocks, so that you can have your cup of tea without choking on any tea bits.

Step 1) Boil your water.

Step 2) While the water boils, put your Rooibos tea in an infuser/steeper, like the Tuffy Steeper pictured here.

Step 3) Leave the infuser off to the side, aka. do not put inside the cup, mug or teapot.

Step 4) Once the water comes to a boil, pour the water 2/3-4/5 of the way up the mug.

Step 5) With the water already in the mug, take your infuser with the tea in it, and slowly lower it into the mug.

Step 6) Wait at least 6 minutes for the Rooibos to steep.

Step 7) Pull the infuser out and you have a practically Rooibos free cup of tea!

The important step in this process is #5. Typically with loose leaf tea, our infuser with the tea is already in the mug and we pour the water over it. Normally this is the best way to steep. However, by doing this with Rooibos we're forcing the already fine tea bits right out of the holes of the infuser. Instead what we're demonstrating is that when you slowly lower the infuser into a cup or mug mostly filled with water, the water comes rushing into the holes and pushes the tea into the middle of the infuser. What you end with is a cup of tea with hardly anything floating it in.

I must give credit where credit is due, it was not me, but rather my coworker who came up with this idea and described this simple change in procedure and therefore we can all thank him for a better cup of Rooibos tea!

Simply Inexpensive- In rough economic times, how loose leaf tea is an affordable luxury!

The economic crisis is scary and far reaching. None of us are impervious to its affects. In these times of budget crunching and watching every penny it is hard to continue the lifestyle we would like.

I'm here to tell you that, at least in the world of tea, that healthy, tasty loose leaf tea is still affordable! Tea bags: Lipton, Red Rose, Celestial, Tea Forte, etc. can range anywhere from 12¢ - 47¢ a cup, averaging around 18¢ a cup. Did you know that loose leaf tea is on average 22¢ a cup!? That means, while the initial cost seems like more, loose leaf tea is actually a luxury that you can enjoy that costs about as much as a tea bag! So even while the economy is hurting, you can still enjoy a healthy, high quality cup of tea!