Following up on Maria’s most informative post regarding Assam tea (a UK favorite), we’re excited to be pushing the envelope even further with a new tea set. “Blokes & Dames” contains 3 British essentials: our famous Earl of Grey, Shagadelic English Breakfast (yeah, baby!), and a new lavender earl grey that’s sure to please. What is there left to add, you ask? Well, something for the dames.

Lady Lavender combines the unique, flavorful citrus, bergamot & vanilla notes of our Earl of Grey with the uplifting, floral scent and taste of lavender. It’s a dream in a cup, a perfect new rendition for the black tea fan in summer. Take a look at the full British Tea Collection for more information!

If you’re familiar with us here at The Tea Spot, you know that we often characterize our tea blends as “handcrafted.” Today, I’d like to show you exactly what that means and how our blends come to be.  

Our teas come from all corners of the world–traditional regions like India, China, Sri Lanka and Japan–into our warehouse where we turn them into our own creations. Our herbal and botanical blending elements come from a whole host of other places: Washington mint, South African rooibos, Moroccan rosebuds, to name a few. These ingredients are hand grown and picked at the source, but when they arrive here at our warehouse on the eastern slope of the Rockies, we try to turn them into something more. Our blends are our babies, carefully formed through rigorous (and largely enjoyable) taste testing sessions where we sometimes butt heads, but often agree exactly when we’ve produced the best cup.

When we’ve agreed on a recipe, we bump up the scale. This is when I roll up my sleeves and get to work. Typically, I’m blending a batch for packaging and sale that comes to about 30 lbs. It’s a simple but careful process of combining just the right amount of leaves, in the right order, so that the blend comes out even and smooth. Donning my hairnet, gloves, and trusty large scoop, I dole out the leaves and ingredients into a weighed container, pound by pound. Then comes the fun part: the physical blending. I use something I call the ‘badger method,’ but that’s far too embarrassing to comment on at length. Suffice to say it’s my way of making sure every cup has the perfect ratio of flavors, so that you can come to expect consistency from your favorite teas. Today we’re producing our Organic Jasmine Petals tea, a blend of a lovely Chinese Green and whole Jasmine Flowers (from Oregon). A simple but elegant blend. You’ve seen the before, so here’s the after:

Have questions about how we do things here at The Tea Spot? Post a comment below, or come say hello on our Twitter or Facebook!

Tea lovers, rejoice! The holiday season is just around the bend, and we’re preparing ourselves by bringing in the season’s finest flavors: cinnamon, orange, and a whole host of wintery spices. Our Holiday Spice black tea blend is back for the season, but we’re also adding a new blend to the line up: Red Hot Chai. Nothing serves to remind us of the holidays quite like the aroma and flavor of these teas. They both take incredibly well to milk, brew strong and compliment the season’s charm with every sip. When I brewed myself a cup of this season’s first batch of Holiday Spice, it felt as though the holidays had really begun out here. More below on these delicious seasonal blends:

HOLIDAY SPICE TEA

This limited-edition spiced tea blend soothes the body and excites the taste buds with its heavy notes of cinnamon, orange and clove. Our Holiday Spice Tea pairs perfectly with cold winter mornings and evenings by the fireplace. It carries an aroma reminiscent of mulled spices and cinnamon candy emerging from a full body and dark liquor.

RED HOT CHAI

This strong and spicy blend kicks the cold away with the season’s boldest flavors: red rooibos, cinnamon, chai spices and a kiss of vanilla come together in this complex yet balanced tea. Naturally caffeine-free and high in antioxidants and minerals, Red Hot Chai’s rooibos base provides health benefits and a mild honey sweetness to compliment the bold flavors of a traditional chai. Great prepared with or without milk, our Red Hot Chai is sure to please palates at any time of the day.

Greetings, friends. Maria, Jessica, and I are back into the swing of things after attending the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas. It was great trip (pretty darn hot though), we had a lot of fun and met a lot of people. Overall, it was wonderful to put faces to the names of our customers, importers, and friends in the industry. I think we were all reminded of how lucky we are to be working in the tea industry, where nearly everyone we do business with is a friend. The Expo had more the air of a cocktail party than a business meeting–everyone was excited to see what others brought with them.

Highlights for me include: tasting oolong with Devan Shah and the ITI team, trying out a delicious white tea grown in Hawaii, and tasting perhaps the best gyokuro of my life (my favorite cribbing) brewed by the man who farmed it himself.

At any rate, the World Tea Expo provided us with an excellent chance to premiere two new products. The Mod Teapot (pictured on the right), in stunning new colors, will be out soon, and was received quite well by those who stopped by. Not only is it a gorgeous and sturdy teapot, but it’s got a gigantic infuser. If you know The Tea Spot well, you know we’re all about large volume infusers, and this pot is no exception.

Our second exciting release was the Brewlux, which we’re distributing exclusively. I could ramble for days about how revolutionary this product truly is, but I’ll try to be brief here and link you to the Brewlux Video we just put together. Long story short, it’s a large volume infuser designed for to-go tea service in coffee + tea shops. That’s cool, but let me drop your jaw a little more: Brewlux is completely biodegradable, made from US grown corn, and produced locally. You know those cool compostable to-go cups you’ve been seeing around? They’ve got a new best friend.

I’d like to wrap up by congratulating Steven Donner (a customer of ours) of Sipping Streams Tea Co. on his win in the Tea Sommelier competition at Expo! We’ll have to try his matcha sometime…

We’re more than pleased to be teaming up with our farmer’s market neighbors Breadworks at their bakery/cafe in North Boulder! They’ll be carrying a few more of our teas as time goes on, but are currently serving our Red Rocks and Coconut Oolong. If you’ve ever had either of these teas, you know they’re a real treat.

I’m on the fence about whether or not they’re quite as tasty as Breadwork’s amazing baked goods, sandwiches, soups (oh my, that tortilla soup) or salads. There’s just got to be a multitude of fine food and tea pairings on hand over at Breadworks, which I’m excited to taste as I help them build their tea list. So go go go check out Breadworks at 2644 North Broadway in Boulder, have a cup of tea and a treat, sit outside and look at our beautiful mountains!