Friday Knows Tea

The shiny cut jewel that is the tea industry has many many beautiful facets. We see plants as art and have hearts open to the new and unusual. Science and innovation intrigue us and a connection to the earth drives us. We are in a line of passion that naturally lends itself to compassion and hospitality. Overall, tea people are wonderful!  Unfortunately, there are also flaws in the jewel of our community, the most glaring of which is a tendency toward gatekeeping. The art of tea can be intimidating to new explorers, and many shy friendlies have come into our shop sheepishly admitting that they are "bad tea drinkers" or apologizing for not already knowing everything about every way that every tea has ever been brewed. Please allow me to assure you first and foremost: If you enjoy your tea, you are doing it right. That being said, allow me to impart what I hope will be valuable guiding points to begin your tea journey. I'll outline here the baby basics (and throw in a few p...

  Before we get into this dreamy perky explosion of teen magical girl flavor, a word about synesTEAsia:      Synesthesia is a neurological cross-wiring of the senses that leads the individual to experience sound as color, numbers as personalities, words as flavors and so on. There are a lot of different forms of synesthesia, and it is not uncommon for synesthetes to experience multiple forms to varying degrees. Polysynesthetes such as myself make up 2-3% of the world's population.      My dominant form is called Lexical-Gustatory Synesthesia (I literally taste words) and is the root of my blending work. While being a tea blender certainly requires skill and knowledge of ingredients, flavor and texture profiles and palate matching, it doesn't hurt to have an intimate relationship with flavors and the stories they evoke. I imagine a word, an idea, a lyric, a feeling or a memory, then pick apart what I taste in my brain-mouth using my decades of experie...