Category: Tea Features
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Indi’s Awesome Mustache (and Tea)
Imagine a college student discovering tea for the first time, and finding a teashop to frequent. After many visits during his college tenure – and following many dialogues with the owner – he mentions in passing, “I’m going to make a trip to India.” The owner of said teashop then says to the college student,…
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Bug Bites, Tea Huts, and Sipping Wisdom
Early on in my tea writing “career”, there was one name that always popped up – Lindsey Goodwin. She was one of the tea writers on the scene, managed her own consultation website, and was the resident caffeine guru for About.com. And at one point in time, she was also a Portlander. As one might…
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New Tea on New Year’s Eve
It was New Year’s Eve . . . and I slept in. No major surprise there; I always sleep in on my days off. The only plans I had for that day were helping my brother with some housework and a friend’s party later on. In the meantime, I had a moment to myself to…
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Greek Mountain and Growing Pains
Two things have been very consistent the last couple of weeks. I’ve written a lot about weird herbs lately, and I’ve been spending a lot of time at my parents’ house. I was starting to wonder if both were somehow – cosmically – connected. Proof showed itself on Saturday. My sibling/roommate failed to tell me…
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When You Pine for Yaupon
Yaupon is a species of holly native to the southeastern United States. It is a close cousin to two other holly species – guayusa and yerba mate – and, like those, it is also caffeinated. It was used as a common ingredient by several Native American tribes in an herbal concoction called asi – or…
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Cuckoo for Ko’oko’olau, Mad for Mamaki
Roughly four years ago, I wrote about a unique Hawaiian herb often used for herbal infusions. It was called Mamaki, but its science-y delineation was Pipturus albidus. The herb was a cousin of stinging nettle, and I felt some of those traits showed up in the taste. However, the product I had was blended with…
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Tea and Tubas
I picked a helluva month to quit drinkin’. Okay, not “quit”, per se, but definitely a self-imposed sabbatical toward beer. A beerbatical, if you will. Over the last couple of years, I’d naval-gazed my relationship with alcohol. Sure, I didn’t overdue it often, but questionable decisions had been made. That and it was no longer…
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Three Teas, Two Trips, and One Garden
Over the course of the summer, I saw repeated updates that frustrated the hell out of me. Tea drinkers, far and wide – from California to New York – were taste-testing a new, Oregon-grown oolong. The folks behind Minto Island Growers had finally soft-launched their own outfit, dubbed Oregon Tea Crafters. They commissioned a gentleman…
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With Open Eyes
While it has never been expressly stated, it’s common knowledge that I don’t usually write about tea blends. If and when I do, it’s usually if they have a story behind them. About a year ago, Stacy Lim of Butiki Teas had urged me to try some of theirs, but I was hesitant. Then she…
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Feeling the Universe’s Misty Peaks
Ever hear the one about the young American wanderer who traveled Asia in search of meaning? Okay, that sounds like a lot of people. But this story has a twist. There was this guy who gallivanted about from place to place – from India to study with Yogis, to learning meditation further Eastward. The journey…