While I was in San Francisco in June, just before my visit to Hawaii and World Tea Expo, I fitted in a couple of other tea visits around town to recently opened tea places.  I went first to Samovar’s fabulous restaurant/tearoom at Yerba Buena Gardens and then, the next day, I spent time with Pauline and Keith Mai at their amazingly pretty, brand new DarTealing Lounge

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The fashion for enjoying cakes with comforting cups of tea to raise funds for charity is spreading fast.  After the success of the London Cake Committee (see my earlier blog, 9th September 2009), new ‘Slices’ of

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I am just back from a learning trip that, for a change, taught me about an important herbal infusion rather than about tea.  My 10 day trip took me up into the Cederberg Mountains in South Africa to find out more about rooibos, the red bush herbal that is becoming so popular in the US and Europe. 

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 Last time, I wrote about three new tea companies in Bristol but didn’t have enough room to include a fourth called TART - named for the savoury and sweet tarts that are the speciality of the house.  Great name - short, memorable and to the point!  I had known for… read more...

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 As I write, I am sitting in the cool and calm of Babington’s Tea Room in Rome.  Outside in the Piazza di Spagna, the temperature has soared to well over 30° C but inside I am quenching my thirst with a glass of refreshing iced peach tea.  I am here… read more...

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May has been a whirlwind month for me this year - two days after returning home from Las Vegas and San Diego, I flew out to Japan for a week of events in Tokyo and had a wonderful few days in some of the city’s best-known tea locations

After 20 years of interest, Japanese women are still fascinated by British… read more...

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As I leave home today to travel to Chicago for the House Wares show there, I am sad that I shall not be in London for the memorial service on Monday next week for my lovely friend Amber McCarroll who so sadly died from cancer at the end of last year. Amber and I did so much together… read more...

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I said last time I wrote that I would tell you about some of the teashops and tearooms that I visited while I was in South Korea. So here’s just a little about some of the traditional teashops and the Western-style tea rooms where I sipped tea with friends while I was in Seoul.

When I discovered… read more...

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