Ginger Crumb Cake and Thankfulness

I just returned from teaching a cooking and tea class at A Southern Season in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.  This is my third year to teach there and it is always wonderful each time.  The staff is great, the Viking kitchen is amazing, and Caroline in the coffee/tea department does a spectacular job prepping all the teas to serve with the recipes I demo.  If you live in or around Chapel Hill, you will want to stop in, but be prepared to spend some time!

The theme for this class was Tea Around the World-Taste Tea and Food from Around the Globe.  The recipes were all from my book, The World in Your Teacup. We traveled to China, Morocco, France, and ended our journey in England.  For England, I chose to demo my great grandmother's recipe that has been passed down in my family.  The recipe card I have is in my grandma's handwriting as my great grandmother shared it with her to bake, then she shared it with my mom, and my mom shared it with me. Now, I can share it with my family and all of you!

My great grandma Effie Johnson lost her mom at a young age and had to help at home a lot more after that.  She learned how to cook and bake.  When she finished school, she left home and worked as a live-in for several wealthy families as a cook of which one of them was an English doctor until she married in her mid-twenties. This is one of her recipes. It would make a good tea bread for in the morning or to serve as dessert after your Thanksgiving meal.  This will be our family's Thanksgiving dessert this year!

Crumb Ginger Cake

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon powdered ginger

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup salted butter, chilled and cut into small pieces

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

2 tablespoons dark molasses

1 teaspoons vanilla

1 cup buttermilk

Fresh whipped cream to serve with cake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine flour, sugar, ginger, and cinnamon. Cut in butter using a pastry cutter until mixture resembles the consistency of cornmeal. You may also use a food processor and pulse slowly until mixture is the desired consistency. Take out 1 cup of mixture and set aside for topping. Add soda, salt, egg, molasses, vanilla, and buttermilk to the remaining mixture. Mix well with an electric mixer or by hand. Grease an 8-inch square baking dish with cooking spray and pour the batter into it. Sprinkle the reserved crumb mixture over the batter and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until the cake is set. Serve warm with fresh whipped cream.

I would suggest pairing it with a Chinese Black Keemun.  The light smokey and sweet flavor of the Keemun compliments the ginger/cinnamon spices of this subtle sweet cake!

We have a tradition at my house growing up and now I have passed on this tradition with my family.  Before we eat, each person at the table says what they are most thankful for in the past year.  It can be more than one thing, but each person has to share at least one thing.  It is a way of stopping for a moment to remember the spirit of Thanksgiving. 

This year I have so much to be thankful for.  My faith grows stronger through the challenges life offers, my husband and children bring such love into my life and home, and I love my job of teaching, inspiring, and exciting others about tea.  I am THRILLED to share with you that I have been contracted to write my third book on tea with Chronicle Books.  It is a new publisher for me and the book will out Spring of 2013!!!! 

What are you most thankful for this year? 

Happy Sipping, Eating, and Thanksgiving, Lisa

The Personal Side of Tea Part 3

As I shared in my last blog post, tea is not just a beverage or a business to me.  Tea is personal, but sometimes your personal life and your professional life intersect.  If you would like to go back, here is Part 1 and Part 2 for your convenience. This is how the inspiration to my second book, The World in Your Teacup came about.  It was my son's eighth surgery.

"My son was in the hospital recovering from mouth surgery. When we moved him from the intensive care unit to a regular hospital room, we met the night nurse who was assigned to his room. Her name was Shirley. After talking to her about the various concerns I had, I asked about her accent and where she was from. When Shirley told me she was from Kenya, I asked if she had lived near the area where the tea plantations were. Then my son piped up and tried to explain to the nurse, as best he could with his very swollen tongue, that I was—as he likes to call me—a “tea lady.” When I asked Shirley if she liked tea, her eyes immediately lit up. She told me that my questions reminded her of her home and the wonderful memories of family and friends drinking tea. She smiled and said that because of her and a few others the hospital started serving tea in the cafeteria.

As Shirley tended to my son’s medical needs, we talked for more than 45 minutes about our love of tea and the traditions of her native country. She left us for a time and then came back to introduce me to another nurse from Malawi whose father grew tea in that country. We chatted more about tea, and they reminisced about their homelands, tea, and the families they left behind.

It then dawned on me that here are three women, all from different countries, who have been united because of their love of tea. We might not have had anything else in common, but we experienced a bond by sharing our thoughts on that single beverage. 
 

With that as my inspiration, I began to research the bond tea has created between the people of many nations, including my own. I found it fascinating to learn about how the very same beverage became so important to each country and how the practices and ceremonies surrounding that one beverage differed from one culture to another."

We just went through our ninth surgery with our son who is now 20. As we walked into the hospital, our trusty tea thermos accompanied us to the waiting room. We took our respective places and sipped our tea as we waited for it to be over.  We love to hear the words from the doctor that everything is fine and the surgery went well!

Tea is for all occasions in my opnion.  I sometimes get a text from my daughter who is now almost 15 that she is having a bad day at school or a text that says she just got a 100% on a test.  It is on those days, that I have a pot of tea waiting for her when she gets off the bus. Sometimes I just make tea for her because its raining, or its cold, or just because.  When she gets home,  I stop working and we chat about the day over tea.

Tea is more than a business or a beverage-that's what I love about it.  It is a way to spend time together, a way to connect, and a way of life.  My faith, my family, and my tea have been through a lot!  I can't imagine life without any of those three.  I would love to hear how tea is personal to you!

Happy Sipping and Fourth of July, Lisa

Taiwan Day 2

My Taiwan experience continued on day 2 after some much needed rest!  I was amazed how fast I acclimated to my new time! After a delicious breakfast at the DongWu Hotel where our group was staying, some friends and I headed out to our first Taiwan department store adventure called Carrefour. It isn't like any other department store I have been to.  The street level is actually the top floor of the store.  On that level is clothing, kitchenware, and cosmetics.  It also had a few small restaurants as well.  I thought the advertisement for the noodle restaurant was interesting. The large plastic noodles actually go up and down on the chopsticks and into the big red bowl to attract customers!

The next level down is a full fledged grocery store which was amazing.  My friends Lynayn, Hoda, and I walked around wide-eyed at all the intriguing foods.  I know the locals thought we were crazy as we all began taking pictures of the seafood.  It was different than what we were familiar with in North America.  My picture isn't the best as I had to rush to take it because they told us we couldn't take anymore photos of the fish.  I am not sure why that was, but we obeyed and moved on as there was so much more to look at!

We all bought some snacks for our extended stay in Taiwan.  We then wandered down the escalator to the third floor.  This escalator was different than any I had been on before.  It wasn't made of stairs, but a large moving ramp so that you could accommodate a shopping cart on it if you desired.  This level was full of electronics, small appliances, and what became of utmost important to some in our group, LUGGAGE!  Several from our group returned later to buy more luggage so that they could take home all their new purchases from Taiwan.  I was close to buying luggage, but ended up okay and within my international weight limits with my one large bag and my carry on!    We then left to get ready to go to Wistaria Tea House...



 As we pulled up in our taxi on the busy Xinsheng South Road in Taipei, we almost missed the tea house. It was very unassuming from the street, but as you can see, once you enter through the gates you feel transformed. There was a beautiful fountain and pond full of fish on the left side, to the back was a quiet place to sit, and to the right was our entrance. I was surprised to see that it was a mixture of Japanese and Taiwanese styles. We were required to take off our shoes and sit on pillows on the floor for our tea at low tables.





As I opened the menu, I couldn't help but notice this lovely saying on the inside. It says, "The Fortuitous Meeting of Strangers Destined to Be Friends." For most of those that are deeply in love with tea, I believe this saying is so true. Tea is a connection to the world and new friends! This rings true with my trip as I traveled with some I knew, some I knew a little, and some I didn't know at all, but all became friends through our tea journey and learning!

I had a wonderful time drinking tea and eating with friends at the tea house.  The generic house tea is served throughout the meal.  I ordered the chicken cooked with tea which came with many wonderful sides as you can see. You could taste the tea in the chicken as well as it sprinkled on the top.  The vegetable mixture up at the top was delicious in a ginger/soy dressing.  The salad to the top right was also a favorite!

 

Lynayn Mielke, East West Tea Emporium, Hoda Paripoush, Sloane Tea Company, and Newman Johnston, Teas Etc



After we finished our meal, we ordered tea from their menu. We selected three teas that were served in the gongfu style. Two of our teas were oolongs-one the house special and the other was a 30 year-aged one! We also ordered a 1960's puerh as well. After our waitress served our initial infusion of our first tea, we each took a turn steeping additional infusions. We infused each tea at least three times. The 30 year-aged oolong and the puerh were delicious. 

Gongfu is a wonderful way to serve tea.  The teapot they served the tea in was a yixing style one.  With each new tea that we ordered, they brought out a new teapot to use.  If you would like to read more about the gongfu way of making tea or yixing teapots, I wrote about it in the China chapter in my book, The World in Your Teacup.   Oh how I wish you could have smelled the teas as they infused.  The were intoxicating.  We enjoyed a full afternoon of eating, talking, laughing, and drinking tea.  Isn't that what going to a tea house is all about?

We returned to our hotel, to prepared for our registration and opening ceremony for the 2010 Taiwan Oolong Study Tour. Our group received our welcome bags which were full of goodies such as our itinerary, cupping sets,  and chopsticks (We were asked to use our chopsticks for our entire trip-I proceeded to lose them immediatly on the first night.  Thank goodness they were found as I didn't want to be the problem group member.)

 

We then proceeded to walk over to the offices of the Taiwan Tea Manufacturers' Association.  They were the sponsors of our trip.  We all introduced ourselves and made a brief statement as to why we decided to come on the trip.  We then studied the six Camellia Sinensis cultivars that we would be seeing over the next week. I am not sure if I could identify them in a blind test, but I did get to be quite familiar with several. We then had a lovely dinner at a Japanese restaurant as we all became more aquainted with each other.  We all walked back to our hotel excited about discovering the tea fields of Taiwan.  A BIG thank you goes out to Josephine Pan and Thomas Shu who were our lead guides/hosts for the entire trip!

In my next few blogs, I will take you to the tea fields of Taiwan! I hope you can join me.

Happy Sipping Taiwan Oolongs, Lisa

Cooking with Tea - Le Cordon Bleu

photo courtesy of John O'Hagan/TeaTime

What a fun day at Le Cordon Bleu last week!  It was time for the "Cooking with Tea" contest that I had arranged with Chef Jae Gruber to help spread the word that tea is more than just a beverage.  This was not the first "Cooking with Tea" contest the culinary college has held.  The idea surfaced a few years ago with Susan McKeen, then editor of Tea Experience Digest.  Susan had asked me to be a judge for the contest she put together.  I not only had the privilege of being one of the judges the contests, but wrote the article featuring the winners of each category.

Le Cordon Bleu was still very interested in having the contest again, but we had two problems: 

• I was in the middle of writing two books in a year and didn't have time to put a contest together.
• Since Tea Experience Digest was no longer in production, there was a need to find another media sponsor.  

This is where TeaTime Magazine comes in. Once I finished with my two books, I had time to contact TeaTime to see if they might be interested in covering the story.  To the delight of Le Cordon Bleu and me, they enthusiastically said yes!  After Teas Etc graciously agreed to sponsor the tea needed for the event, things were ready to heat up. 

I chose 9 teas from Teas Etc wonderful line for the students to choose from.  I went to the school for a tasting of all the teas and did a small tutorial for them.  It was fun to watch their faces as they tasted all the different teas.  They could choose up to four different kinds to play with for their recipe.  They could also choose which category to enter: Appetizer, Entree, or Dessert.

photo courtesy of John O'Hagan/TeaTime

As a tea specialist, it is so exciting to spread the word on tea especially to culinary students.  There was so much excitement in the air as the students gathered in the kitchen for the contest.  They had one hour to prepare their dish.

photo courtesy of John O'Hagan/TeaTime

As the students began to prep their dishes, Lorna Reeves (editor of TeaTime Magazine) and I went around to talk to the students about their dishes and how they were incorporating tea into them.  The excitement for the contest was building. 

It was time to judge the students recipes.  On the judging panel was:  Lorna Reeves, editor of TeaTime Magazine, Chef Mekolites CEC, Chef Crump, Chef Gruber, Evening LCB Evening Deen, and Lisa Boalt Richardson, Author and Owner of Lisa Knows Tea. Each student brought out their dishes one at a time. They explained their dish, the type of  tea(s) they used, and their execution of tea in the recipe.

photo courtesy of John O'Hagan/TeaTime

Each one was very different and delicious, but in the end we could only have one winner from each category.  All the winners received a copy of both my books, Tea with a Twist and The World in Your Teacup generously donated by my publisher Harvest House Publishers. 

Do you want to know the winning recipes? Look for them in the January/February issue of TeaTime Magazine along with more details about the contest.  You won't want to miss it! 

Do you have a favorite recipe using tea as an ingredient?  I would love for you to share it!

Happy Sipping and Tasting, Lisa

Is Green Tea BAD for you?

Well Miss Matty (Matilda Jenkyns) thought so in the film, Cranford, set in the mid 1800s in England.  I think I may know why she and others from England may have thought that way...

A couple weekends ago, I rented and enjoyed watching Cranford.  It is a movie by the BBC that was featured on PBS a while back.  It is set in a small fictitious town in England called Cranford which is filled with mostly spinster ladies who love to gossip based on the novels by Elizabeth Gaskell.  If you are a fan of period English films, this one will not disappoint. 

In the story, one of the lead characters is Miss Matty.  Due to unforeseen financial difficulties, she is faced with having to bring in extra money.  She is advised to open a tea shop in her living room because,

"Tea would be ideal.   Tea is really a genteel form of trade.  It is purchased by people of every class, industry, and the most superior." 

She reluctantly agrees to start selling tea but states, 

 "I will stock any kind of tea but the green kind-so fearfully bad for the digestive!"

Some might just pass that off as a bad encounter with green tea. However, there was a time that green tea was bad to drink in England.   In my book, The World in Your Teacup, I have a chapter on England which goes into the tea history of the country.  Here is an excerpt which explains one of the reasons why the English did not prefer green tea and eventually became a nation that mostly drinks black tea.   

  "Tea caught on among all the classes, but the taxes on tea were so high in that day that it was unaffordable to most.  This led to smuggling....  To make matters worse, smugglers began compromising the purity of the tea by mixing it with leaves from other plants; thus, stretching their supply and increasing their profits.  

Green tea was easier to adulterate than black tea.  Often additives, which included poisonous chemicals, were mixed in with the tainted green teas.  For example, after diluting the green tea with other plant leaves, smugglers used a metallic paint to make sure the tea was the correct shade of green.  The public soon caught on to this trickery, and black tea became more popular than green.  Some of those who complained about the effects tea was having on their nerves were probably being poisoned.  "

I think it is fascinating to learn about different countries and their tea drinking practices.  Learning why one country favors one type of tea over another is intriguing to me.  If you want to learn more about tea drinking practices of other countries, my new book, The World in Your Teacup, is a great source.

So is green tea bad for you? 

No, it is actually really good for you NOW, but the health benefits of tea is for another blog!  What are some of your favorite green teas?

Happy Sipping - Dragon Well green tea in my cup today, Lisa

Celebrating Summer with Iced Tea

June is National Iced Tea Month.  Even though the official start of summer isn't for a couple more weeks, I always thought anything after Memorial Day is summer in my mind.  I grew up in south Florida and it felt like summer in April.  Growing up, we always had a pitcher of iced tea in our refrigerator and since my parents were "Yankees", it was never sweetened.   I hadn't heard of sweetened iced tea until I moved to the South after graduating from college.  I now like my iced beverage somewhere in between "Yankee" and "Southern" style most of the time.  If you are interested, I share my story in Tea with a Twist about my first experience with "sweet tea."

I LOVE iced tea and find it really refreshing in the summer. It is good all on its own, but it is also good to mix with fresh fruits too!  Good iced tea made from loose leaf tea is easy to make.  In The World in Your Teacup's United States chapter, I share how iced tea became popularized.  To my knowledge, the U.S. is the only country that drinks iced tea on a regular basis.  In fact, most of the tea Americans drink is iced-about 85%.  I guess, the rest of the world doesn't know what they are missing out on!

The recipe below for iced tea is in both Tea with a Twist and The World in Your Teacup.  I also share many variations on iced tea in Tea with a Twist. such as Tea Sangria and my mom's Beach Tea. 

To brew one gallon of gourmet iced tea with loose leaf tea

 

1. Use spring water or fresh, cold water from the tap. Do not reuse water you have already boiled because the oxygen will have evaporated and this affects the taste of the tea.

2. Measure 1/3 cup tea leaves into an infuser. For teas or herbals that require a heaping teaspoon for one cup of tea like Rooibos, use 2/3 cup leaves. For this large quantity, use a large infuser so the leaves have room to expand and steep properly. You can also put the leaves directly in the teapot and strain the tea when you pour it into the gallon container.


3. Heat the water until it reaches the correct temperature, generally 160 to 180 degrees for green and white tea, 190 to 200 degrees for oolong, and a full boil for black teas, herbal infusions, and fruit blends. A six-cup teapot is a good size to use. Pour the hot water over the tea leaves immediately and cover your teapot.


4. Steep the tea for the time instructed on the tea package, generally 1 to 3 minutes for green and white teas, 3 to 5 minutes for black teas and oolongs, and 5 to 10 minutes for herbal infusions and fruit blends. Over steeping can also cause the tea to taste bitter.


5. After the steeping, remove the leaves.


6. Transfer the tea to a gallon-sized pitcher and sweeten if desired. Then add enough cold tap or filtered water to make one gallon.

I am off to the World Tea Expo this week.  I am teaching a class on Tea and Chocolate Pairing and I am also a part of the Authors Circle and doing book signings.  It is exciting to visit with all my tea friends again-like one big tea party for three days!  I will be posting on my adventures in tea, new finds, and favorite products when I return.

Happy Sipping and Summer, Lisa

Tea Twist or Tea Travesty?

As an author and speaker, I realize that I am not going to please everyone.  That is why there is room for so many in this world because everyone has their own style and those that like that style.  My approach to tea is one of study and learn all I can about it in certification classes and on my own, but also to have fun with tea. 

I recently received an email from a disgruntled reader of Tea with a Twist.  Here is what she wrote:

"I was quite disappointed with your book, I'm sorry. I too love tea and was raised around Tea Parties, etiquette and traditional tea parties of which salads and salmon steaks were never on the menu. Why do you and so many other "Tea Experts" not stick to the right information about tea and turn it into such a travesty. No wonder "High Tea" is so misunderstood in the USA."

I thought the reader's comments would create a great blog and an opportunity for explanation, education, and hopefully great feedback and discussion!  Now, I don't think anyone loves a traditional English afternoon tea party like I do!  In addition, early on in my tea career, I was trained and certified by the Protocol School of Washington in Tea and Etiquette and teach classes still to this day on the subject matter. I do think proper protocol and etiquette is very important and varies on the level of formality!  For instance, there is a difference between a BBQ dinner at your local rib shack and a dinner at a five-star restaurant. 

Having fun with tea was my inspiration for writing Tea with a Twist-hence the word "Twist". I wanted to create tea parties that were a little outside-the-box as some might consider me to be-especially my kids!  My inspiration was "a tea party can be all sorts of things as long as you are sipping tea".  I also wanted those that didn't own china and silver to still feel like they could entertain with tea without the expense of having to buy those items!  My philosophy on teatime is that it is anytime so, creating parties for all different events and incorporating tea in them was exciting!  I realize this is might not be everyone's "cup of tea" though.

My love of learning about this beverage took me on a quest to discover traditions in other countries other than my own. That is why I wrote The World in Your Teacup.   Culturally speaking, I would be remiss if I stated that there was one "right way" to have tea as each country celebrates tea differently.  However, for most Americans, a tea party is fashioned after the English tradition of finger sandwiches, scones, and desserts which is properly called an "afternoon tea" not a "high tea". 

To help get the message out about the proper terminology on tea in the "English style", I purposely did a high tea menu for my second book in the England chapter.  A high tea is a "meat tea" or a "supper tea" served in the evening and it is much heartier than an afternoon tea.  I also featured many "high teas" in Tea with a Twist, just with a little "twist" of course.  If you want to learn more about a traditional English high tea or how tea is celebrated around the world, you can read more about it in The World in Your Teacup. 

Well, salads or scones, salmon or sencha, travesty or twist, I do hope we all just enjoy TEA!

Tea Travesty or Tea Twist?  I guess it is up to the reader to decide. What do you think?  I would love to hear!

Happy Sipping, Lisa

Big Announcement - Exciting Partnership

Bringing to you on a Silver Platter the Announcement:

 Lisa Knows Tea and The World in Your Teacup

have partnered with

Heart for Africa

Before I became published, I made a commitment that I wanted to give a portion of the proceeds of all of my books back to charitable organizations. (And yes, I believed I would be published, although I received lots of rejection letters and it took about 7 years to do-so I hope that is motivation to not give up on your dreams either!) In a later blog, I will share my partnership for Tea with a Twist! 

While I was researching and writing The World in Your Teacup, I just felt and knew my charity had to have something to do with Kenya. 

I looked into several organizations before choosing Heart for Africa.  The way I discovered Heart for Africa was interesting.  Although I was an active participant in the photoshoot for my first book, Tea with a Twist, I didn't produce it.  My title, however for The World in Your Teacup  is not only author, but producer as well.  That meant I not only wrote the book, but I was also in charge of the photoshoot.  I had to create a shot list for the photographs for the book  and also source all the correct tea items that would be used for each country written about.  I even became the assistant food stylist for the week since our budget was tight (it always seems like budgets are tight, doesn't it?) 

I was trying to source items made in Kenya that we could use for the photoshoot, when I came across Heart for Africa.  It was mentioned by one of the member's moms of my daughter's small group from our church.  Although they didn't have anything at the time that I could use in photos, my interest in the organization grew and I researched their mission and how they were helping Kenyans.

It was a wonderful feeling to drop off my first check from my advance of the book just last week.  It will be even more wonderful to continue dropping off checks as I receive my royalties from The World in Your Teacup and hear how it is helping Kenyans!  I plan on wearing some of the jewelry from HOW (Helping Orphans and Widows) at my speaking events and book signings . 

You can read all about my partnership with Heart for Africa and HOW by clicking the link below:

The World in Your Teacup and Heart for Africa Partnership

I would love to hear back from you about what you think of my new partnership and better yet, how you could have a heart for Africa too!

Happy Sipping and Giving,

Lisa

What time is Tea Time in Kenya?

Next week, I will be announcing a very exciting partnership with
Lisa Knows Tea and The World in Your Teacup

so stay tuned..... 

Any time and all the time!

Kenya not only grows tea like I stated in my last blog, but they love to drink it too.  The introduction to tea in Kenya was by a European man named G.W. L. Caine in 1903. The tea plants at that time were brought in for ornamental purposes. Some of them are still alive and growing strong to this day. The first tea grown for cultivation and consumption was started in 1918 on a plantation called Kiambethu Farm. Kenya’s growing region has expanded over the years. The Great Rift Valley runs north and south and is just west of Nairobi. Tea grows in what is called the Eastern Rift Valley and the Western Rift Valley. 

Tea in Kenya is made in different ways depending on where you are in Kenya and what tribe or social class you are from. It is served and consumed as a part of showing hospitality to your guest, so to serve tea Kenyan style make plenty and enjoy!  If you want to learn more about Kenya, their tea,  or how you can tour Kiambethu Farm,  please be sure to check out my new book, The World in Your Teacup: Celebrating Tea Traditions Near and Far. 

As promised from my last blog, here is the yummy recipe you must try. 

SAVOURY HONEY SCONES:

1-1/4 teaspoons finely chopped rosemary, divided

1-1/3 cups each flour and semolina

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon each baking powder and coarse salt

6 oz chilled soft goat cheese, crumbled into bits

¼ cup honey

1/2 cup heavy cream, divided

1 egg


Mix 1 teaspoon rosemary with all the other dry ingredients then mix in goat cheese keep aside. Whisk together honey, half the cream and egg. Stir into the dry mixture put aside until a soft dough forms, make into a ball. Put onto floured board, pat into a round about ¾-inch thick. Cut into 8 wedges. Arrange separately on waxed paper or baking sheet. Brush tops with remaining cream and sprinkle with remaining rosemary. Bake at 425 degrees F until golden brown, about 10 to 12 minutes. Makes 8 Scones.

Make sure to pair it with some wonderful Kenyan tea for a real treat!

After you try the recipe,
I would love to know what you think.....

Happy Snacking and Sipping!

Remember to check back next week for my announcement!!!!

Out of Africa

One of the questions I get asked as an author is, "What is the inspiration for your books?  For The World in Your Teacup, it was a serendipitous meeting with a Kenyan nurse while my son was in the hospital for a surgery on his mouth.  While she was caring for my son, I noticed her accent and asked where she was from.  When she told me it was Kenya, I asked if she lived near any of the tea fields or liked tea. She not only said yes to both, but went on to reminisce about her country, her love of tea, and her tea traditions. 

From that encounter and then others,  I realized that tea is more than just a beverage.  It is a way to connect.  We were two women from opposite sides of the world, yet we connected over our love of tea.  

Kenya is a huge tea drinking nation as well as a tea growing nation.  It competes for number one exporter of tea in the world.  You have probably had Kenyan tea and not even realized it as many teabag companies use it in their blends for tea. 

For those that are really interested in tea and where it comes from, you might want to take a look at a video I came across from Lipton's website.  National Geographic shot Kenya's beautiful tea fields and the way that Lipton is trying protect the land by certifying their tea gardens as Rainforest Alliance Certified.  I am not endorsing their tea or the Rainforest Alliance, but I think it sounds like a wonderful program to protect not only the land, but the growers as well.

National Geographic's Journey to Kenya

In my next couple blogs, I will feature my goat cheese and honey scone recipe from the Kenya chapter of The World in Your Teacup.  I will also be making a big announcement of a partnership Lisa Knows Tea is working on with The World in Your Teacup.  You won't want to miss it. 

What is in your cup today?  Do you know where it comes from?  Would love to hear...

Happy Sipping, Lisa

Is Green Tea Good for your Hands?

With the busyness of my new book, The World in Your Teacup launching, I didn't have time to go through the products I discovered while in Boston at World Tea East and the Natural Products Expo East Show in September.  I am a consumer of many natural products out of a "want to" and "necessity" due to allergies!  I am now going through my information and wanted to share with you a few of my favorites from the show.  I am always on the lookout for new natural products and I love when they have tea in them.  I will be blogging periodically as I try the products! Here is my first review!  (A quick disclaimer:  I have not been paid by this company  for a review.  I just love to share interesting products with people-especially products with tea in them)

I have been using a product I keep in my glovebox in my car for a while and I really like it.  It is called Natural Hand Refresher from a company called Green Tea Goods.  I am a bit of a germaphobe and like to keep my hands clean.  If I can't wash them, I like to use a hand sanitizer, but they tend to dry out my hands, which is a big problem in the winter with my hands already so dry.  This Natural Hand Refresher doesn't dry out my hands and has a nice clean fragrance!  The glove box is a perfect place to keep it for the quick clean up on the road.  Here is what the company says about it:

"Naturally cleanse and refresh your hands with our hand-crafted blend of natural Chinese herbs that cleanse, heal, soothe and moisturize your skin. Our Natural Hand Refresher is hand-crated with purified spring water, green tea, licorice root, Green Tea Goods Special Herbal Blend and only 12% alcohol."

Although I am not a scientist, I do know that studies have found natural antibacterial properties in tea and it is great for oral health.  In talking with the sales rep at the show, the company has done studies on their product and states that is does clean your hands and keeps a low alcohol content as to not dry them out.  You might want to try it and see for yourselves! 

Until next time, Happy Sipping!

Did you Know that January is National Hot Tea Month?

Well it is!  It is the perfect time of year to sip on some hot tea and read a good book.  Don't know where to start with choosing your tea or your book?  I have the perfect solution.  My new book just came out called The World in Your Teacup: Celebrating Tea and Traditions Near and Far. 

It is a beautiful book photographed by the talented food photographer, Lauren Rubinstein.  In it, you can read and see how eight different countries celebrate tea.  You can learn how to make tea all different kinds of ways and then make recipes that pair with it all from the same country.  It is perfect for a trip around the world, from the comfort of your own home. 

I just returned from the America's Mart in Atlanta, Georgia where my book premiered for the first time.  It was wonderful to share the book with customers from around the country and see their reaction to the book.  Here is a picture of Lauren and me celebrating and signing our new book at the Mart!

Do you know what type of tea is famous in Morocco?  Do you know tea making in France is called "the art of tea"?  Do you know why the Russians like tea from a samovar?  You can learn all of that and more in my new book.  If you have the winter blues and your travel budget is low, pick up The World in Your Teacup for an international excursion of food and drink!

To get started on learning how to make the perfect pot of tea, go to http://www.lisaknowstea.com/ for easy instructions.

Happy Sipping!