The wisdom of tea

Today started with a pot of tea.

Not unlike many a morning, but today was not any other morning.  Today I turned another leaf older. And so as I sat there in bed with the teapot that I gifted had myself last year from the cute little shop in Cape May, and the tea that I had bought at Mariage Freres in Paris, and a small teapot shaped plate holding out the finest lemon cookies, which has become my new favorite tea snack...I began to reflect upon all things I experienced and achievements I was witness to (for myself and for my closest friends) since my last birthday.  Before celebrating the coming of the new year, I wanted to celebrate the passing of the last one. I wanted to be mindful of the days I had enjoyed before rushing forward for all the days that have yet to come.....

There is something in a pot of tea that lends itself to mindfulness. to patience. to quietude.

Tea asks that you be present, holding still, a slow meditation of time and temperature.

There is a wisdom to tea in that it requires us to take our time.

And if time is all we have, then I'll take mine slowly....so that I can savor the flavor of each and every day.

<3

Take Back the Party: Part 2

Ok! That's it!.....I have had it with the Tea Party Movement stealing the spotlight from tea bloggers. All I want to do is talk about tea, a soothing, comforting, culturally-rich and tasty beverage choice....not contend with politics.

To illustrate my point of frustration, if you log onto www.Examiner.com, where I am the Monmouth County Tea Examiner, and where I am one of many "tea examiners" across the US, and you enter "tea" in the search bar, it ONLY brings up politics. I mean, there are people writing every day about the finer points of oolong and the health benefits of green teas, but that never seems to make it up the charts...

You can find more of my original gripe about this subject under: Take Back the Tea Party which I wrote about a month ago. only now...I have a better idea.

It's Time to Take Back the Tea Party...with a simple dose of their own medicine - by way of messing with their internet searches.

ACTION: If you are a tea blogger, use the words Tea Party as much as possible; add links or videos of the Tea Party Movement into your blog entries so as to boost your blog's visibility in news & internet searches; and also, be sure to make passing references to the national situation! Be creative in linking into or simply creating tea party fodder decoys.

Then when searching for stories/info on the Tea Party Movement, people will be accidentally redirected to your tea blogging site! Easy, simple and devilishly fun enough, no?

It's time to give the tea-baggers some REAL TEA!

So...if you start finding links to the tea party in my blog, you'll know why.

Oh, it'll be a Grand Ol Tea Party!
(ha ha!! made you look!)

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(Photo credit by: Amishsteve, Creative Commons)

Opening a Tea Salon

At one time or another, just about everyone has dreamed of opening some sort of cafe, or tea house or perhaps a bar. There's something to having a drink in your hand that creates a social atmosphere. Lately its been a bit of a tagline for me because I've found it's true that "there's nothing like a pot of tea to keep the conversation going."

Tea for me is not about a personal ritual or alone time so much as it is about entertaining people, continuing the party at the end of the night, having a reason to invite people over and/or keeping conversations going for hours.

My salon would be more like the Madam Potts Tea Lounge.
It would be an eclectic blend of styles and people -- after all, everything I do is about blending. I see couches and lots of velvet, ambient lighting and music. It wouldn't open til the afternoon and would be open late into the evening. There would be a Mad Pot of the Day featuring whatever I was madly brewing or discovering at the time, in addition to the usual line up of teas. In the evenings you could order tea-based cocktails or order a shot of something to go with (or into) your tea. And a tapas type menu to keep in step with the mixing. The music too would be a mix of styles, though predominantly either jazz or house music, perhaps live music and of live DJ sets.

I want to bring tea into the mainstream as something that brings people together. Tea is civil and sophisticated and most of all should be fun to explore.

The answer to "What Kind of Place Would You Open Up..." reveals a lot about the person's personal and social identity. After all you're defining how you would ideally like to spend your time if you had to hang out in a room with possible strangers (aka: possible new friends).

So what about you? If you've never thought about what kind of cafe/bar/salon/tea house/lounge you would open up perhaps this will get you thinking. Either way if you've read this far, you have pulled up a seat to the Mad Tea Party and I invite you to share your thoughts and comments about today's Salon topic: What kind of place would YOU open?

Give Peace a Sip....

For many people, finding 10 minutes of uninterrupted time seems like an impossibility.

But then, at first, most every good habit seemed at one time to be impossible. Whether it was the decision to wake-up early, write in a journal every day, work-out or whether it was to quit smoking...

Every new change means taking a small bit of time to arrange one's consciousness around a new activity or a new thought pattern.

I know I have more tea than I do inner peace on most days...
I go through at least a pot of tea a day. I don't always take that time of boiling the water and steeping the leaves and sipping the tea to be an active meditation.

I found this website, Take Up the Cup (while still under some construction) and it gave me pause to consider just how simple it would be to make that time for myself today. To intentionally take in the moment, my day, my breathing, to chill out my thoughts, the noise, the daily schedule of stuff...and what a better time and place to do so then when enjoying my favorite warm beverage?

So, I share this with you today.

In all the Madness, may you find Stillness...
Give Peace a Sip...

Tea Madness: The Cult of the Tea Pot

Now, I have met a lot of tea enthusiasts, tea fanatics and tea freaks in my day. People everywhere, myself included, indeed mad about tea. The religious like devotion to the Camellia Sinensis is no surprise to anyone reading this blog. But what about a revering a Tea Pot?

and not just any Tea Pot - a 2-story cream colored teapot from which the devoted followers come to drink its "holy water".

A religious sect in Malaysia, Ayah Pin, uses the tea pot as as a symbol of the "Healing Purity of Water" and "Love Pouring From Heaven". While the sect claims to promote harmony among the religions of the world, it has the victim of attacks from fervent Muslims which feel the sect is luring believers away from Islam.

Hmmmm....I wonder if I could be a High Prophetess of the Tea Pot?

I had best not let my teapots read this entry, lest they let the sacred ideology go to their heads...not that I don't already revere the sweet and holy waters of tea...not that I am not a devout imbiber seeking to quench my thrist and start my day off with a sacred ritual all my own...

But I wouldn't go to jail for it....

What is a Custom Tea Blend?

With the explosion of tea culture across the country and the expansion of tea options around the world, today's tea drinker has more choices than ever before. And of course that delights me to no end, knowing that there are endless blends of teas to try. A tea drinker has no excuse to ever fall into a tea rut.

As American consumers, we have so many choices available to us with everything we buy. Many industries now offer customers the chance to customize their product - be it cars, sneakers, or shades of house paint. It is one way to stand apart in a mass marketed world.

The choices of "customized blends" I have found online are simply a new way of packaging already blended tea.

For instance, The Artisan's Cup sells you pre-made blends and flavors and then lets you customize an order of either green tea, black tea, or a mix of green & black tea. And while the list of flavors sound good enough to eat (gingerbread, coconut cream, banana bread), you are no doubt getting artificially flavored tea. There is little info about the flavors, but fun explore.

If you head over to Adagio Tea, they have created "custom" teas with an interactive swing! They encouraging their buyers to mix Adagio's teas to create "new" Adagio blends. Customers can then post their "newly named creations" and allow others to rate them, share them and even purchase them. It is a unique angle for an established tea company, and for many people, it may be their first time blending. The names and the blends are a lot of fun (Pirate's Spice, anyone?). Kudos for creating communiTEA and making blending fun for everyone!

Now, as a tea blender I am always excited to see the many ways people are experimenting with blending and sharing and creating tea. Anything that brings tea away from the stodgy reputation is a good thing. The new generation of tea drinkers demand that it be anything BUT stodgy or uptight. and Mad Pots! is all about keepin it fun and creative...

HOW MADAM POTTS CUSTOMIZES TEA...

As an artisan tea blender myself, I do my part in taking tea in a progressive direction. What makes Madam Potts and her Mad Pots of Tea different is that I work to create a blend based on the sipper's personality and preferences. I have developed a PersonaliTEA system that asks the sipper a variety of personal choice questions. Those answers become the inspiration and the basis for the blend that gets created.

I work with you, to understand your preferences and even solicit tasting feedback during the process as this work of art is created for YOU! Nothing is pre-made. No artificial flavorings. My blends are 100% Natural, if not completely Organic (labeled accordingly).

In the 2+ years I've been doing this, my feedback has been 100% positive.

The form is downloadable (see Top Right Side of Blog). Payment is simple. For only $19 (plus shipping and handling) you get either 4oz loose or 15 teabags, artfully designed, packaged and labeled. Once your blend has been created, I offer substantial discounts on re-orders!

This process cannot be mass marketed. I can not teach anyone how to do it. I have taken years to learn about teas and herbs. I cannot pass down this ability. I can only share with the adventurous and the curious this passion for creating something truly unique.

It's what I do.
It's why I'm called MADam POTts.

Drink it, Sip it, Make it Yours....

The "What's in Your Pot?" Swap

Time for...
The MadPots Tea Swap

This year we ask you
"What's in Your Pot?"

We specifically want people to swap a sample of the tea they are most often drinking, with a note as to WHY it's their Mad Pot of Choice. This year we are dedicated to increasing the sense of the MadPots Community...

NEW THIS YEAR: With the swap, please include:
* a note about where it was bought (so they too can buy it!)
* personal tasting notes
* and why you like that particular brand or type of tea
* and....only if you feel so inclined - your email address, in an effort to create communiTEA with other tea lovers

Start: Immediate
End: April 15th

What is a TEA SWAP? A friendly exchange of tea among friends who have never met.

How much tea do I send? This varies based on the passion of the person. Some people have sent 1oz (typical sample size), or an unmeasured amount of loose tea in a ziplock baggie, some people have sent full canisters, and some have sent 5 or so tea bags. Sharing is what's important.

Does it have to be an unopened box or sample? No. The idea of sending a swap inherently means that it is something you are sharing from your tea shelf. There is no expectation of a "new" swap.
May I request a specific tea swap? You may, although no guarantees are made that requests can or will be fulfilled. The point really is to have fun. Getting tea in the mail, regardless of what type, is better than electric bills and credit card offers.

To whom should I send my tea? First, email me with your name, address, and tea swap to share, and if you have any request of tea you'd hope to receive/try. In about a week, I will email you back with the name and address of the person to whom you will be sending your Mad Pot Swap.

Rest assured that at the same time, I have given your info to someone else to send YOU tea!

What if I don't get my tea? In the 3 years I've been sponsoring this event, this has only happened once. Should this happen, email me immediately, as I maintain a record of each swap/swapee. I always make sure 100% that a tea is always received for each sent swap, even if I have to send you something myself.

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NOTE: if you fail to send your swap, you will not be allowed to participate in any future swaps. By joining the swap, you are committing to sending your Tea Swap within a week's time. Like eBay - don't promise and then not deliver - that's so not cool.

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So What's In YOUR Pot?....really, we want to know!

Email your name, address, tea to swap and any preferences to: madpotsoftea@aol.com


Let the Swap BEGIN!!!!

And this Year I Will....

::pours cup of tea::

Ok, let's begin....

I am grateful for the people in my life - for without them,
where and what would life be?

I am grateful for all that has happened in my life - with the knowledge
that everything that happens is connected to the choices I have made.

I am grateful for new days, new years and new ideas.

I look forward to meeting new people, traveling to new places,
trying new things, and achieving new goals.

*** *** *** *** *** *** ***

Now if you'll join me, I'd like to share with you a New Year's Ritual
that I started a number of years back...

Picking a theme for the Year.

First, choose a Word. Maybe it's something you would like to invite into your life, like: Love or Self-Confidence or Trust or something you'd like more of: Adventure, Focus or Freedom.

Sit with this Word as you watch the steam rise and disappear from your tea cup or mug of tea. Now finish your tea with this Word in mind.

This is your Word. Listen for it, watch for it, write it down, find ways to support this Word, to make it happen, to spread this word, notice it when you read something or watch TV. Remember this Word months from now, after you've forgotten all about it. May you suddenly hear it and may it ring a bell in your heart, which leads you back to this quiet moment that you just might take to do this today.

May your life be a never-ending teapot of warmth and goodness that is shared with friends and family at the table of Life.

Happy New Year!

With Love, Warmth and Gratitude,
Madam Potts

My Passion is....

So in one of our classes in school, each of us have to present a "Passion Project".

What is a Passion Project? (you ask)

It's the chance to share with the class anything (and I mean ANYthing) that moves and grooves you. Some people have shared their artistic pursuits of photography, or singing a song on the guitar, or talked about a trip or shared a mythological story. One girl who loved houseplants brought in a plant for each of us (I am not a proud geranium owner!)....

so...naturally...when it was my turn, I shared my passion for TEA!

I confessed to the class, who have known me all of 2 months, that I have an alias...Madam Potts...(that got a some giggles of glee and surprise) and that I make customized blends of tea for people. I shared how I got into tea, and how I go about creating a personal blend for someone, and took questions... I then brought in my Red Hot Chili Tea blend and brewed a pot for the class -- which received much praise from my classmates ;)

I have had lots of questions and interest about herbs and teas since then...I am now officially the Tea Maven and Aspiring Student Herbalist of Finger Lakes School of Massage.

I honestly haven't had the chance to blend for the sake of blending....but I always honor all personal requests and orders for tea. If anything, a custom order is probably just what I need to get me back into the Mad Lab....until then, I'm just drinking it all to myself.

so there.

Live your Life....Drink it in....and may it always be sweetened by passion.

An ideal communiTEA...

Here I am, now in Ithaca, NY -- this place is idealism in practice...meaning the people and businesses are mindful about what they do and how it impacts the earth AND the community.

"What if we recycled everything and cut down on garbage?"
"What if if supported local farmers"....
"What if we ran the gorcery store or the credit union or the movie house as a not-for-profit, how could we serve the interests of our customers instead of our own pockets?" ...

So far I am loving everything....except for the fact that the tea house I had found a year or so ago is no longer here. Looks like there is an empty niche to fill....this could be a job for Madam Potts.

What if I could use my tea knowledge in a way to help others meet their personal needs?

What if I could use local herbs to make fresh pots of herbal infusions?

How can I use what I have to offer to help my communiTEA?

Going Green - and I don't mean tea...

theMadam has always been a natural minded person. Taught by my mother to be a good steward of the earth, which meant everything from using cloth (not paper napkins) to reusing bottles and the back sides of paper, recycling, composting and turning off lights. I'm glad to see the rest of the world is waking up to the idea that we should be protecting resources and not taking for granted things we have - be they the clothes on our back or the products we buy....

The term "going Green" is finally being taken seriously and is seeping into corporate policies and changing products. And contrary to the line of trash that Mr. Prez says, going green will not hurt the economy - it will not cause less jobs (offshoring will cause a decrease of jobs much faster, no?)... and should we keep polluting the earth (and ourselves) in the name of "economy".

I woke up this morning to hear about the first solar power trash compactors now being used in Brooklyn. Imagine this technology that's been around for years is finally being employed for the good of everyone. I couldn't have been happier and more encouraged....

Maybe you saw the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" - if you didn't, go and see it -- really, you should know and understand that all of our actions effect the world. All the garbage we create, the emissions from the car we drive, the choices of what we buy and what we give back (if anything) leave what people are calling a "carbon footprint".

In order to make this concept a visual reality, there is a a TV program called "The Human Footprint" - which stages a variety of stunts to depict what consumption (the driving force behind our economy) really looks like. Check the link for the story and cool pic to boot!

Today, April 25th, they have lined up 75,000 cups of tea (the amount of tea an average briton will consume in a life time, or the amount of tea MadamPotts consumes in a year) in London's Trafalgar Square. I really wish I was in London today. But I'm not...but I did find this picture:

Snuggling with Tea

So this past weekend I got to take care of my Sweetie who, like everyone else around me, has gotten sick. So a majority of my weekend was spent brewing copious amounts of tea. I surprisingly have not gotten sick, which I attribute to the drinking of burdock root infusion every morning. Normally I'm the first to get sick! I only like being sick when it means I get to stay home from work and snuggle up with a funny movie and drink tea!

Warm Thought

"People are like Teabags. You don't know how strong they are until they're in Hot Water"

Tea Cup Roll Call

I had mentioned a few posts back that I would keep you posted on what types of teas and unfusions I am drinking....the WHAT'S IN YOUR CUP? is akin to learning about a person by asking "What's on your iPod?"...so for those terribly interested..I shall attempt to recap the last few days worth of sipping:

Monday
woke up with: Essencha's GenMaiCha with Matcha
en route to work: my own Chili Tea
That night: more GenMaiCha w/Matcha

Tuesday
woke up: GenMaiCha
en route to work: my own blend of Chili Tea
at work: Harney & Sons' Cinnamon Black Tea
that night: (the rest of my) Rou Gui oolong - must buy more!

Wednesday
at work: my own blend of Black Ambrosia
(peach ceylon, toasted coconut, almonds, nutmeg)
that night: GenMaiCha w/matcha (I'm really into this tea!)

Thursday
woke up with Metro Teas' Lapsang Souchong
(with added bit of cinnmon bark)
en route: Chili Tea (it's a great throat warmer)
at work: Black Ambrosia

Friday
woke up with: Yerba Mate
left my tea for the trip to work sitting on counter.. :(
at work (2) cups of Celestial Seasonsings Green Tea (hey..I'm at work...)

That's all for now...I'm sure I'll have more when I GO home...which I think I'll do right now. If you feel so moved to comment, you may certainly feel free to add to the Roll Call.

Happy Sipping!

More Tea Please

People often ask me why I spell Madam Potts with 2 T's, to which I say, "Well, who wouldn't want more Tea?" And it precisely that question which led me this entry today. What with the heatwave finally breaking, I immediately found myself in the kitchen making merry with the tea.

Having received some samples from the Metropolitan Tea Company, I was excited to finally taste what they had sent me. I brewed my water and did a sampling of 3 green teas. Sencha. Jasmine with flowers. and last but not least, Genmai. I liked each of the 3 (QUICK PLUG: Metro Teas - good stuff). Having noted the distinct and varied properties of the 3, I went back and brewed a second cup, and I must say that I like each of 3 even better the second cup.

While this is not a moment of Aha!, having brewed plenty of tea multiple times, but I did think about it in a new way today... as to WHY I usually enjoy the 2nd cup better. Like Prepping the Teapot or cups with hot water, making them ready to receive and hold the tea, so it is with one's own mouth and tongue. The first cup prepares you to enjoy the deeper, richer, fuller experience that I find is delivered with the second cup.

This is not to say that the first cup is without merit or should be promptly poured into the household plants - Not at all! Just that the second T is unique...

I feel like I have come full circle. I have understood myself through the tea and have understood the tea through myself. It's a very enlightened mement I'm experiencing as I write this....must have something to do with the copious cups of green tea.

Zenfully,
Madam Potts

Tea with Haiku

Blending with simplicity.
Sipping in deep thought.
The pleasure of a green tea.

A Higher Class of Tea

There are so many teas and many methods of preparing tea. So why then are we still using either a tea cup (English or Asian) or the utilitarian mug?

I like boiling my water in a glass kettle, and often I use a glass tea pot to steep my tea. But rarely is my choice of drinkware made of glass. They do make glass tea cups, but I don't happen to own any. But being the MAD tea lady that I am, I decided I would experiment in employing some of my more stylish barware as a substitute to my usual teacups.

It can be said that the appreciation of tea is similar to that of wine -- the unlimited varieties, growing regions, complexities, descriptions are all very similar - which makes it accessible for people to understand. So, with that, I tried using a wine glass with a Lapsang Souchong the other day. I loved the way in which the wine glass offered me the ability to inspect the the color and liquor of the tea, the shape of the vessel allowed for true olfactory stimulation, allowing me to take in the full smokiness of the tea.

*Suggestion: Please make sure your glassware is made of tempered glass or is not "too delicate". To mitigate cracking, prep the glasses as one would with a teapot (that is to run and fill with hot water. Also, I would insist that the water temp not be above 180 degrees.

Surely, this was a successful experiment in sensory experience.

So then I tried a different type of tea in a different type of glass.

I took a more delicate floral Jasmine Green. I brewed it in my gaiwan set, and then sipped it out of a martini glass. An inspired pause took hold of the moment. The delicate nature of the glass and the tea. Really, you must try it - I'm not saying I'd start off my morning sipping from a martini glass, but I would jazz up my evening pots with a touch of class or when the occasion called for it...

Ideas are most certainly brewing....

Mad Mad Mad MAD!!!!

There are days I wonder about just how much energy and time I spend thinking about, writing about and actually drinking tea.

I must truly be MAD

I guess if one is to be mad about something, then tea is as good as anything...to be consumed by that which you consume....you are what you drink...so I guess it only follows reason that I am Mad Potts...

WhAT ThE???

Tea is hot! Tea is Trendy! Tea is the "It" beverage!

You can just say the word TEA and heads will turn and wallets will open....and if you feel I'm exaggerating, then why would Sanpple be jumping on the bandwagon?

Snapple (yes....Snapple!) will be offering teabags....mixing tea with pieces and bits of fruit and of course fruit juice. ACK!

This is just the beginning of the corporate entrance into the tea trend....or perhaps the beginning of the end...the first step in the downward spiral that happens with over-saturation and over-exposure. Like anything in our pop culture, once the big guns take their shot at something that a select percentage of the population were finding well enough on their own and then brand it for the masses, it loses is authenticity and luster. Mass-marketing implicitly means erasing the delicacy of detail. It means taking the sacred and making it pedestrian. It means taking an idea and making it an image.

Sigh...I can't say with all the hubbub about Americans drinking tea that I am all that surprised that some conglomeration would catch on.

Tea has been around for 1000's of years. For the rest of the world it is wrapped in a ritual or culture that appreciates tea from the province it's grown in, and the way it's harvested and processed to the way in which is brewed and enjoyed.....And then there's America....the fast-food nation....Snapple: the McDonaldization of tea.

Tea and Pizza

There's been a lot of talk about food pairing. 'Food Pairing' is among the many popular new phrases talked about so often, it feels like we've always used it. From wine to desserts, the idea of 'food pairing' has gotten the attention of magazines, cooking shows, gourmet chefs and foodies everywhere.

This is also true with tea.

What food is complimented by a cup of darjeeling? or maybe sencha green tea? a palate cleansing herbal? and such suggestions are given freely like so. and so.

An so, the dilemma was my own to solve as I stood in my kitchen wondering what type of tea would best be paired with pizza. Stop smirking. As a New Yorker living in the outer boroughs, delivered pizza happens. Proudly not often, but when it does, my inner tea wench still hopes to deliver the best beverage possible.

So it happens that I opened a tin of Song Yang White tea. And I must say, that it makes delivery much nicer.

And for all of those who want their tea right ON the pizza, click here.