"teaware" news and stories

Rishi is putting Milwaukee on the world tea map

Rishi took home seven first place awards at the recent World Tea Expo. They are definitely doing something right, and I personally recommend their Jade Cloud tea.

Cup of tea may ease memory problems

It turns out that the flavinoids in tea may actually help ease symptoms of neurodegenerative diseases, and there seems to the possibility that flavinoids in tea may help repair the damage, not just stop it.

A test in the art of gimhae style tea bowls

Teaware geeks will enjoy this write up by MattCha about Korean style gimhae tea bowls, complete with a brief history of this teaware style and several pictures of some very nice bowls.

32 Gongfu Tea Tables

This is a great article on gongfu tea tables, with in-depth comparisons that you really won't find anywhere else. It's very cool of the author to share all the info collected while on his own quest for hte perfect gongfu tea table. Bookmark this one if you ever want to get into gongfu tea preparation!

Quality iced tea (i.e. iced tea made from quality loose leaf tea) can be confusing because it's made in different ways by different people. I've been reviewing teas for several months now, and even I haven't been sure of the best way to make iced tea until very recently, when I finally decided (through necessity of the hot weather) to try it on my own.

The first thing you should know is that you should not make sun tea. This is a long-used method of throwing the tea in a pitch of water and then letting that pitcher of water sit out in the sun... at exactly the perfect temperature to breed bacteria and potentially make you sick.

Yes, your grandmother's made it since you were a kid or your mother says it's fine, but trust me. Sun tea is a bad idea, and even if it weren't, there is very popular method of making iced tea that eliminates any need to leave your tea in a jar out in your yard all day.

Looking to start your kids on tea early?

Mlive.com has some great tips for hosting a tea and garden party for children. From the kid-friendly peanut butter or cheese filling for finger sandwiches, to the cupcake decoration station and the small kid-sized gardening projects, this sounds exactly like something I would have loved as a child.

The article mentions having caffeine-free teas for children, and I think this is an excellent idea as well. When having a party for children, it's generally not a good idea to pump the kids full of anything that's going to very suddenly make life stressful for you as the host, and caffeine-free is usually a good policy for kids in general. Fruit or mint-flavored tisanes (herbal teas) would be an obvious choice for refreshing flavors that won't be too far outside a younger child's typical flavor palette

I also think that for kids, painting their own personalized tea cups at a place like Color Me Mine (most of you probably have a similar "paint your own pottery" studio in your local area) would make a tea party a lot of extra fun. Most kids love an art project, and then they can all drink their tea while showing off their one-of-a-kind painted tea cups. Keep in mind that the pottery takes time to complete after being painted, so remember to plan two separate afternoons: one for painting and one for drinking tea out the finished artwork.

Even the more casual tea drinkers know these days that loose leaf teas provide a better quality cup of tea, lacking in that "paper bag" taste that can often be experienced when drinking bagged tea. More and more companies are providing nylon mesh tea bags that impart less of that flavor, but there is still the issue of the tea leaves having little room to unfurl.

One of the most common excuses for not jumping into the realm of loose leaf tea is that most people who've been making bagged tea for the entire span of their tea-drinking existence don't know how to conveniently and easily make a cup of loose leaf tea, which is all about knowing what equipment you need.

Traditional teaware varies, depending on the type of tea, but basic teaware to start off a journey into quality tea is less complicated. Many start with a tea infuser (often called a tea ball or sometimes a tea egg), but really, the typical tea infuser is still quite small and confining, and will likely hinder the proper diffusion of the tea leaves as they try to properly expand in the hot water.