Steep Stories

Tag: Tea

  • Very Well, Give Him Tea Cake

    I received an e-mail some two months back from Canton Tea Co. wondering if I had interest in reviewing a new sheng (raw) pu-erh. Far be it from me to refuse such an offer, I nodded (and typed) an emphatic, “Yes!” The only question would be where to put the review. I contribute to three…

  • Putting the “Noir” in Black

    Pinot Noir – meaning “pine black” in French – is a type of grape closely associated with the Burgundy region of France. It also has the claim to fame of being a very ancient grape, only a couple of strains removed from Vitis sylvestris. (I.e. Pinot is to it what dogs are to wolves.) As…

  • Four-Eyed No-Horned Flightless Purple Tea Drinker

    Tea is a major cash crop in Kenya. Some of that is owed to Lipton. Thanks to Big L – and others like it – the entire country could be looked upon as one big tea garden dotted with a few cities and wildlife preserves. Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration, but – truthfully…

  • Making Time for “A Tea Reader”: A [NOT] Book Review

    I am a slow reader by design. It takes me an inordinate amount of time to dive into a book. Most can devour a hundred pages in an hour (I would guess?); I can only manage thirty-three. I think that’s my record to date. Attempts to speed read were always met with failure. Suggestions to…

  • Graduating to Guru-ship

    A week or so back, two relatives passed on a pair of Craigslist ads. They were “casting calls” of sorts – a survey company looking for tea gurus and tea fans for paid interviews.  As in, they would reimburse the interviewee for his/her time for pontificating about tea on camera. It took me a day…

  • Damn You, Damiana

    Damiana (or Turnera diffusa) is a shrub native to parts of Texas and just about every Spanish-speaking country south of that. Many Central and South American countries regarded it for its relaxing effects. However, it was Mexico that recognized it for another – less chaste – use. And no one had told my parents. My…

  • Blending Tea and Dating

    This one is for the fellas. About three years ago, I received an invite to go to a bar trivia night in downtown Portland. I usually got the call when a group of friends required a “guy-that-knows-useless-shit”; that was me. Need someone that knows the composer for the “Death of Optimus Prime” scene in the…

  • The Sex Tea Saga

    [This was the first tea blog I ever wrote. It was posted on Myspace in late ’07. (Remember that site?) The entry garnered 30+ responses over a week and even spent some time ranked in the Top 20 “Romance & Relationships” section. I have yet to top it, but I have also never revealed it…

  • Trippin’ on Moonlight

    Some weeks back, I got a message from my cousin. He made an outright demand for “ADVENTURE!” Yes, in all caps. At first, he had a hankering to go to the Oregon Coast, particularly a brewery (or two) we had stopped at before. I suggested something a little more approachable – an idea we’d discussed…

  • Missing the Forest for the Teas

    Yet again, I journeyed to Hawaii. Okay, not literally but at least in tea form. I hope to get to those damn islands someday, but when your wallet’s a moth-colony, you have to settle on a cup of tropical tea instead. This marks the third Hawaiian-grown tea I’ve sampled. The first was a black tea…