Friday Knows Tea

Today's episode of Behind the Blend may feel a bit out of season, but it's a particularly chill and blustery April morning and I've been thinking a lot about death and seasonal shifts lately. So, for today's foray into synesthetic perception, I would like to introduce you to an old Friday Afternoon fave: Raise the Dead.  Raise the Dead The inspiration: This blend was originally commissioned by our lovely friend Tara ( aka The Geeky Hostess ) to celebrate the release of the movie Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Tara wrote me before the movie launched, asking if I'd like to collaborate on a collection themed around the movie. We had way too much fun with the project! I used my Synesthetic Superpowers to taste up three blends: Darcy's Delight , Mrs. Bennet's Nerve Tonic , and Raise the Dead . Tara paired each tea with her super fun naturally-colored sprinkles (sadly no longer available) and the teas got picked up by Espionage Cosmetics as part of a...

That's how that saying goes, right? Right... Yes, my friends, we have exciting new products in stock! Now available online and in-store for your gifting and personal consumption: The General's Jasmine Keemun Mao Feng Kenyan Purple Tea Single-Estate Matcha Four Seasons Taiwanese Oolong Green Earl Grey We also have some new geeky blends in development. They're a secret for now, but look forward to a shinier, more geek-proud site full of thrilling collections soon! Love, Friday

First, a quick reminder that the tea room will be CLOSED next Wednesday-Friday, April 11-13 as it's time for our annual trip back home to California wine country. 😄 We'll be open again Saturday the 14th at 9am and will resume business as usual from there. There is just SO much happening this month at the tea shop! We've got coming your way... New Products This weekend we'll be getting in stock: Kenyan Purple Tea Keemun Mao Feng Green Earl Grey Four Seasons Taiwanese Oolong (light roast) Matcha (single-garden) Keep your eyes on our Instagram , Facebook , Twitter and Tumblr for product listings as they become available online! Rad Events Art walk (Zan Edson) - 4/6, 6-8pm Live music (Harpsona) - 4/7, 7-8pm Game night - Every Friday, 6-8pm Craft & Chat - Every Sunday, 1-4pm CLOSED - 4/11 through 4/13 D&D mini painting & swap - 4/14, 1-4pm Space-themed open mic - 4/14, 6-8pm RPG night (The Tribunal) - 4/20, 6-9pm French practice M...

In the wake of the recent Adagio Teas scandal , we've received hundreds of new followers and customers over the last two days. Our email is blowing up and I can barely keep up with social media conversations! This is a great problem to have, though I do hope you'll all bear with me if order processing and email response are a hair slower than usual. This seems like an ideal time for an introduction to our new friends and a reintroduction to our longtime friends. So hi, nice to meet you!       Founder/CEO, Friday Elliott I'm Friday, and this is my tea shop. I launched Friday Afternoon in October of 2010 after half a decade of obsessive and passionate tea and business studies. I was raised by huge nerds and hippies (hence the combination of medicinal ingredients and geek themes). When I first started developing blends, I realized pretty quickly that there was high demand for fun themed tea blends, and that tabletop gamers were beginning an exciting transition from u...

To make room for more unusual single-origin leaf and popular blend collections, we'll be retiring a few of our teas at the end of March. Let's call it Spring Cleaning! Teas being retired as of March 31st : Supernatural Love Me Some Pie Teddy Bear Doctor Baby's Blend Kiss Kiss Bang Bang Sega/Nintendo Knuckle Sandwich Supersonic Peachy Dream The Red Plumber Battlestar Galactica Kaboom! Setting Things on Fire  Stock up now before they're gone!

Hello! My name is Harrison and I'm an avid ice cream maker who a bit ago began focusing on making specifically tea infused ice cream. I live in the East Fremont/Wallingford neighborhood and recently was asking some questions about tea while at the shop . After a very helpful exchange, and a returned sample of the results, Friday suggested I make a guest blog post to share my story and give a recipe so people can make tea infused ice cream at home! Before we get into the recipe, I thought I'd share a little bit on what ice cream and tea means to me. I started making ice cream actually as a way to slow myself down. See, I've always eaten a lot of ice cream. Like, a lot. Growing up, my family always had ice cream around the house. We liked to sit and talk while eating a large bowl full. That tradition only expanded as I got older and it became common for dinner plans to end with "so, ice cream?" Ice cream has always been an institution in my life, but at a certai...

Today we'll answer some frequently asked questions in the tea industry. These are queries I have received repeatedly over the years, so don't worry. You're not alone in wondering how to Tea! How much leaf should I use?      Depending on the cut of the leaf, the quantity of water and the method of brewing. As a general rule of thumb, start with a teaspoon of leaf per 8 oz. of water. With larger cut leaf, you'll need a bit more, due to all the air that exists between the curlicues of a bigger cut. With small cut leaf, you can get away with a little less due to the lack of much air space between leaves. The strength of a good cup of tea is highly subjective, so start at the 1 tsp/8 oz. baseline and adjust to taste as you like. How hot should my water be?      Once again, this depends on a number of factors. We always say, "The darker the leaf, the hotter the water." White teas, yellow teas and light steamed greens will scald over 185°F, ...