As the newest member of the Tea Spot team, I’ve been given the opportunity to post some ‘behind the scenes’ information about what it’s like working at this unique loose leaf tea company located in Boulder, CO. My first month has been non-stop action, and I am excited to share some insider tips with you!
Some things you might not know about the Tea Spot: for starters, we literally sit around drinking tea all day long, on large bouncy exercise balls nonetheless! This familiarity with tea adds up to a whole slew of tea knowledge and experience among the staff. I have been trying one new tea per day and have discovered a few teas that have completely rocked my world (more to come on that later!). We also sample a tea each week during our team meetings and sit around talking about the tea itself, its tea family, tea history, and on and on. The first thing that becomes apparent as a new employee at the Tea Spot is just how knowledgeable and passionate these folks are about… you guessed it, tea!
Part of our new-employee training program includes studying up on our Tea 101 book, which we’ll include here just for you! This is a fantastic introduction to loose leaf tea, brewing guidelines, tea history, and tea types. You can check it out here:
Link to the Tea 101 book
While there is no shortage of things to learn about tea, I am happy to report that the whole process can be quite enjoyable if you incorporate tea tasting into the learning process. Recently a fellow employee, Joice Li and I tasted all of the teas mentioned in Tea 101 side-by-side. This list includes:
- Black Tea & Pu’erh: Bolder Breakfast and Mango Tango
- Green Tea: Green Roasted Mint (now Thin Mint Green) and Boulder Blues
- White Tea: Meditative Mind and Monkey-Picked White
- Herbal Tea: Red Rocks and Chamomile
From left to right, Katie, Teas from Tea 101, and Joice!
After this side-by-side taste test, we dedicated one day to each tea category and sampled the two teas listed there together. All these teas are so flavorful and unique, a must try for everyone from tea fanatics to newbie’s and everything in-between!
My personal picks so far:
1) For Earl Grey fans, ours is not to be missed!
2) Favorite iced tea: Mango Tango
3) Best nightcap tea: Red Rocks with delicious hints of vanilla and almond