Steep Stories

Author: lazyliteratus

  • My 40th Un-Birthday Mad Hatter Tea Party

    Back in June, my friend Aaron asked me, “Why haven’t you ever thrown a tea party?” To which I responded with, “Huh . . . why haven’t I thrown a tea party?!” Then the ol’ mental gears started a-turnin’. In a few short months, my 40th birthday was coming up. I didn’t drink alcohol anymore,…

  • A Tiny Bit of Canadian Oolong in a Tiny Gaiwan

    In 2003, husband and wife team—Victor Vesely and Margit Nelleman—purchased an old cattle and horse farm near the small town of Westholme. It was located in the Cowichan Valley on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. Their first inspiration was to create an “Artfarm”, where they could grow herbs and produce, as well as sell…

  • A Kanchan View Darjeeling Pairing

    The Kanchan View tea estate in Darjeeling has a rough history. The garden was first established in the 1880s, where it first went by the name “Rungneet”. At the peak of its hundred-plus-year production, the 250-acre garden accounted for at least 100,000 kilos of tea a year. Now? It only does about ten percent of…

  • Reading the Coffee Leaves

    In the spring of 2013, I tried a tisane made from the dried leaves of a Hawaiian coffee plant. And I wasn’t a fan. The flavor was not overly offensive, just . . . herbal. And nutty. Nutty-herbal. Okay, on “Internet” paper that doesn’t sound too terrible or unappetizing, but it wasn’t very palatable, either.…

  • A Totem Tea Story

    The definition of the word “totem” is thus: “A natural object or animal believed by a particular society to have spiritual significance and adopted by it as an emblem.” It is derived from the Native American language, Ojibwe; the word, dodaem. The concept, however, is not limited to just Native American cultures and religious practices.…

  • Japanese Black Tea . . . from Brazil

    It may be a surprise to a lot of people, but Brazil used to produce a lot of tea. As early as 1812, even. The ugly truth of it was, though, most of those old plantations were dependent on slave labor. When slavery was abolished in 1888 . . . tea production collapsed. Enter the…

  • The Great Guan Yin Duel

    Over the years, I’ve had some fun at the expense of Guan Yin—the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Whether portraying her as having an illicit affair with Scottish botanists, or depicting her as a scorned goddess seeking vengeance against the writer of the illicit affair (me), I can’t say I’ve dealt with her fairly. Hilariously, yes .…

  • Summer Time Tea Montage

    It’s officially the first day of September. The outside temperature has dropped twenty degrees. Skies are gray, and big-ass raindrops are falling. Yep, summer time is just about over. And I couldn’t be happier. Not that I bear summer any ill will in general, and not that this summer was bad, but—y’see?—I’m a fall kid…

  • Tschanara, Germany’s First Tea Garden

    Growing tea in Germany . . . of all places . . . Blame Wikipedia for putting that fantasy in my head. I remember reading up on tea customs in European countries, and there was a sub-section on East Frisia. It was one of the few regions in Germany that even had a tea culture…

  • On the Back Roads of Vegas with Bootleg Botanicals

    In mid-June, I made a trip to Las Vegas for World Tea Expo, 2016. (As you, fair reader, already know.) It fueled at least six blogs that took me all summer to write about. (They can all be found on my tea blog.) But there was one tale I forgot to tell. It only .…