Thanks Xavier and Bram! I appreciate it!
liberteas
,@liberteas
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As a blogger, I don’t be nasty for the sake of being nasty, however, if I don’t like a tea, I will say it in my review. I am as honest as possible with every review that I write. There have been some teas where I simply could not even finish the cup so in those cases I might not write the review because it’s so bad that it’s difficult to continue to taste it to come up with a worthwhile article. I don’t know how many readers would tune in for a review that reads only:
Yuck, I hated this tea.
Kind of a boring review. But when I find a tea that isn’t my favorite, not something that I can say a lot of nice things about, I’ll be honest about it. I also try to acknowledge that not everyone has the same taste buds and what’s good to one person may not be to the next.
When I was blending my teas, I found I was much nicer because I felt like I had to be. I didn’t want to set off customers with my opinions. I think that’s why I make a better blogger/reviewer than I do a tea company, because I can be honest, and I’ve never been really good at holding my tongue (or fingers) from saying things when I want to say them … but I don’t ever try to go out of my way to be nasty either. I am nice until I can’t be.
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I don’t usually give tea as gifts to my family or my hubby’s family although I did one year when I first started my business… nobody really “got” it (tea to them was fannings and dust in the teabags from the yellow box), so, that holiday was kind of a bust.
I am involved in a tea gift swap though, with one of the tea groups I’m involved in, so I am getting someone tea this year. LOL And I always get myself a gift of tea each year, because my hubby nor my children will get me such a gift, as they are under the odd impression that I don’t need any more tea.
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@riccaicedo: a word is a word is a word in my opinion. I don’t think that it diminishes the value the tea’s identity nor the culture from which it originates. I have enjoyed Sencha tea from China as well as from Japan. I have enjoyed Oolong from China and from New Zealand.
I don’t think it matters what it is called, it is still tea, and I’m not going to call it something for the sake of trying to preserve a tea’s “identity.” Should I only consume Matcha (that is, the Japanese powdered Tencha) if it is served during Japanese Tea Ceremony? Wouldn’t it diminish the tea’s identity to also enjoy it outside of the ceremony?
I like to drink Matcha every day. I don’t do the whole Japanese Tea Ceremony. And sometimes, when I have my daily Matcha, it is not green Matcha but, a different color. I prepare it in the same way, and to me it is Matcha. Why can’t it be Matcha?
It seems so silly to put so much importance on a single word.
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*I have tried black Matcha, as well as white Matcha, “red” Matcha, pu-erh Matcha and Oolong Matcha. These just are not as popular as green Matcha and I believe that it is because the green is the original, and the purists usually don’t like it when black powdered tea is called “matcha” (Note, all of these varieties of Matcha are available from Red Leaf Tea)
I have tried powdered Sencha and did not find it bitter. It isn’t as amazingly delicious as traditional Matcha, but, I enjoyed what I tried. I’ve also tried powdered Genmaicha, which is also quite good.
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I didn’t used to like tea … back when I thought tea = bagged tea from the grocery store. That’s probably because tea didn’t really come into my home until I was eight years old, after my father married a horrible woman. She brought with her three children and a house full of wares including a box of tea. That same box of tea was still in the house when I moved out of the household ten years later. (By the way, the fact that she had bad taste in tea was not the reason why she was horrible. It just sort of emphasizes it though, doesn’t it? LOL)
So, that was my whole experience with tea up until that point, except for the occasional glass of sun tea when I happened to be visiting my paternal grandmother’s house (my beloved gramma) – the sun tea was actually quite lovely, but other than that, the only time I drank tea growing up was when I wanted something hot to drink for my sore throat.
However, I always loved tea sets. I collected them as a child, and once grown, I started up collecting them again because they were something from my childhood that gave me joy. Once I had a rather large collection of mini tea sets, I started collecting full-sized teacups and saucers … and eventually, I decided that I might like to drink something from them. I visited a tea house and tried loose leaf for the first time and I loved it.
But, at that time, I was a coffee drinker, so I was only the occasional tea drinker … drinking it only when I had a chance to visit a tea house because I didn’t think I could recapture that flavor at home properly. Eventually, though, I came to realize that coffee was making me sick. I’d start each day with a cup of coffee and by 11 am I was feeling quite nauseous. I quit drinking coffee but still needed something to help me gain some sense of alertness, so I started drinking chai lattes. Since I had the local coffee house make these for me, they were too sweet, so I started looking for better alternatives … and eventually started really discovering tea.
Before that, the only tea I had at home was a chocolate tea blend that a local (well, local at the time) antique shop crafted. When they went out of business, I was out of my tea, so as I was at my “discovering tea” point, I was also in need of a good chocolate tea blend, so I started also learning everything I could about flavoring and blending teas so that I could recreate that chocolate blend. I ended up not just recreating it, but, making something even better. 🙂
Which is how LiberTEAS got started.
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I’ve been rather unsuccessful with converting others as well. My husband drinks soda and the occasional cup of coffee… that’s it. My daughters occasionally drink tea, but they are hardly what I’d call “tea drinkers,” as my oldest has maybe two or three cups of tea a week, and my youngest has maybe one cup of tea every three months or so! haha
Sorry I couldn’t be of more help there!
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@tarastyme: I should have also mentioned salt in the brine… Lots of salt. Salt, brewed tea, rosemary, peppercorns (I usually crack them roughly, but not complete grind the pepper), and ginger. I usually use candied ginger instead of fresh.
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@tarastyme I don’t remember now which type of Oolong. Basically, when I make a brine, I usually use a lot of vegetable broth but when it came time for me to brine my bird, I didn’t have any vegetable broth on hand and my husband was working a lot of odd hours so I didn’t know when I might get to the grocery to get more vegetable broth, so I “winged it” – I had an Oolong about a week before that was very “brothy-like” … reminding me a bit of a vegetative broth so I used it, together with peppercorns, rosemary and ginger. It turned out awesome.
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I have not done a lot of baking with tea – although I have incorporated some matcha in some butter cookies that I’ve made. I do use it in cooking though – Last year for thanksgiving I brined my turkey in a salty Oolong and spice brine, and it turned out phenomenal. I don’t really have a recipe for this … I just kind of winged it.
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This is a difficult question for me to answer… which is why I avoided answering it the first time I saw it. 🙂
The hardest part for me is creativity. Even though I pride myself as somewhat of an artist and a creative person, sometimes, I don’t feel creative and that interferes with… or rather, causes a lack of desire to actually write.
To overcome that, I try a different tea. I usually set the teas out that I want to review for one day (I do try to stay organized), but, if I’m not feeling creative, it means that I need something a little different… so I reach for a different tea, and that is sometimes enough to inspire me to write. Or, maybe I’ll just take a little break and do something else … sooner or later, I’ll find the words developing in my mind and have that desire to write again.
Did that even answer your question? I feel like I’m babbling.
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One of the sample packages that I usually offer is called the “Foodzie Box of Samples” because I am reusing the box I receive on a monthly basis from Foodzie. These boxes are a nice size, fit well in my mailbox (which means I don’t have to make a trip to the post office to get it in the mail), and I really like the box. I’m weird that way, I guess, but, I’ve always had a thing for boxes. I love the shape and the intrigue of them (what’s inside?) and they just bring out a certain part of me that I like about myself … and so I don’t like to break them down and put them in the recycle bin, so whenever I can reuse a box, I will. And these boxes from Foodzie are very sturdy and nice and are large enough to fit a good number of samples.
There is no need to worry about coffee having been in my box, though, because I avoid that stuff! 🙂 (Coffee Bad, Tea Good!)
Edited to add: I guess, to answer your question, I do not mind when a company reuses boxes, so long as they’re in good shape. I’d rather a company reuse a box than to send me a new box that is too big (which is something I took issue with when I received some teas a while back, they put five small samples into a HUGE box, seemed so wasteful to me). But I would want to know that the box used wasn’t previously housing something that would not be tasty if accidentally coming in contact with my tea. As long as the tea is securely packaged and the boxes are in good shape… YES please reuse boxes! Better that than to waste!
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I’ve tried this Japanese black tea: Shizuoka Black Tea from Den’s Tea and it was amazingly good.
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I would definitely say follow your dreams, but – and I say this from my own experience – know your dreams. What I mean by this is that when I started out in the tea business, I did so not really knowing what the heck I was doing. Basically, I was trying to recreate a chocolate blend that was no longer available to me, and somehow I got it in my head that “hey, I’m a creative person, I can figure out how to do this myself.” As an aside, this happens to me often, like when I’m shopping. I talk myself out of buying all sorts of things because I say to myself “I can make that myself.” But then I never do.
But I digress.
Anyway, I was working with trying to recreate a chocolate blend, and I didn’t like the different teas I was trying … they just didn’t measure up to the chocolate blend that I wanted to recreate, so I was working to do it myself. I got my business license because it opened up the world of wholesale sources to me and eventually, I had a whole lot of tea on hand that I was using to flavor and blend, and I couldn’t possibly drink it all myself. So, I started selling it online.
Some years later (and just a couple of years ago) I realized that the business end of things were taking over, and I was no longer this “creative person who could do that” … instead, I was running a business with no real desire to do all the stuff I had to do (ie: paperwork, marketing, etc), and I wanted to get back to the creative person, because that is who I am inside. I am an artist not a business person, and I realized that I’m better off writing about other people’s tea than creating my own blends and trying to sell them and keep a business running.
The teas that I do sell now (well, not NOW because I’m on temporary hiatus) are not “my” teas (as in, my creations), but teas that I’ve tried, written about, and have become part of my massive stash that I’m trying to lighten so that I can … what else? Buy more tea. 🙂 And I’m much happier.
Anyway… what I’m trying to get to is this: Know your dream. Then once you’ve decided what it is you want to do, what your dream IS, then, pursue it and give it 100%. Don’t be afraid of risks. I know you said you tend to be cautious, and cautious is GOOD but don’t let it get in the way of doing something that is going to be beneficial to your business. Sometimes risks pay off… but only risk when you can afford to lose whatever it is that you’re risking.
I would also say… you’re going the right way by making a plan. If you don’t map out your strategy, how do you know you’ve gotten where you want to … or need to … go? It becomes more difficult as time goes on to make the decisions if you don’t have a clear cut plan in force. It is also important to be flexible enough to change things if they’re not working and find another way around toward your goal.
I’m sure by this point, I’m just babbling and saying stuff you already know, so I guess I’ll shush now.
Best of luck to you, Rachel! I look forward to seeing how you grow your business!
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I think I’m with @thedevotea on this one, the only way one learns is to glean from those who are in the know. I was in the tea business for about eight years, and have been drinking it longer than that, but I still do not know all there is to know.
On the flip side, I would hope that others do not feel intimidated by what knowledge I do possess. We were all “newbies” at one point, and as much knowledge as one may or may not have, that person is bound to eventually come in contact with someone who is more knowledgeable.
So I would say, ask questions and glean that information. Learn whatever you can, because it will only enhance your love and appreciation for tea. 🙂
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Also:
Another form of blending is the act of blending two or more different types of tea. Like a breakfast blend for example: Take some Assam and some Ceylon, mix them together and you have a blend. This is also what Adagio does with their custom blend service. They take their already flavored teas and combine them with other already flavored teas: Take a chocolate flavored tea, add some almond flavored tea and you have a chocolate almond tea.
This is the easiest way to achieve different flavors, and for someone who is just starting out, it is probably a good place to start.
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Also, I did want to add, if you do wish to flavor/blend at home … and you wish to eventually sell these blends to the general public, I do advise contacting your local health department to learn their requirements. Some states require that you have a licensed kitchen, some do not. Even for the small guy out there who is wanting to just make small, handcrafted blends in tiny batches, if the health department catches up to you, you may end up with some not so small fines to pay.
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