Grillin' & Ice Cream Steeped with Tea - Sipping Notes from KTeas

              The World Tea Expo must be the biggest Tea Party in one spot, ever! KTeas is so excited and pleased to have attended in June 2010. In truth, we are still assimilating all that we discovered and learned, there, but we'll go ahead and share just a taste:

Hawaii Grown Tea: Why Is It So Important? presented by Eva Lee, Teaist, of Tea Hawaii & Company, was fascinating and exciting to attend. Eva, through Tea Hawaii & Company, represents a number of smaller Tea Gardens on the Hawaii Islands. We talked to several Hawaii Tea Growers in the exhibition hall and began our relationship with them. We are enjoying the samples of their teas that we brought home from the Expo, and we are looking forward to bringing in our first shipments of Hawaii Grown --- another U.S.-grown---Tea to join the ranks of KTeas selections!

            Furthermore, also in the exhibition hall, we were able to strike up relationships with the representatives of a few more tea estates around the world. Again, we enjoyed the teas we sampled at the Expo and the teas we brought home for further sampling, and as a result, in the coming weeks and months, we are so excited that we will begin bringing in Low-Grown Ceylon Teas from Morawaka Tea Estates Ltd in Sri Lanka, and marvelous Darjeeling, Assam, White, and Oolong teas from the Glenburn Tea Estate in Darjeeling, India!!

Cooking With Tea: The Tea Ice Cream and Tea Glaze recipes are not from this presentation but are fortuitous finds to share with you and introduce you to the concepts central to one of the most delightful sessions either of us attended at the Expo, presented by Robert Wemischner!

Another happy session was Tea Sommelier Cynthia Gold's Pairing Tea & Cheese. We met Cynthia at our first professional conference in September 2008, and she cemented our fledgling interests both in both Custom Blending teas and in Cooking With Tea. In fact, not only was the workshop magnificent, but we got word that Cynthia's book, Culinary Tea, which she was working on when we first met her, is due to be released in September! Cannot wait!

            We have these pie-in-the-sky dreams of teaming up with some of the local establishments with whom we'd love to partner, such as Ida Roselle's, Savannah's Room, and BacInTyme in Fort Mill, SC, and Amelie's A French Bakery & Café in Charlotte, NC, to do some Special Events, perhaps Fundraisers, where we would supply the appropriate teas so they could prepare some recipes with their expertise and facilities. Who knows, if we're lucky, these partnerships might emerge as contracts with them to supply largely tea-based menus for Teas at The Celebration Cottage. . . . Pie in the sky right now, as we said, . . . but we enjoy the aroma of these fresh-baked pipe dreams.

Pairing Tea & Chocolate was another great session which is abundantly useful since Kathryn likes to do Tea & Chocolate Pairings at The Celebration Cottage. This workshop was presented by Lisa Boalt Richardson, author of Tea With a Twist & of The World In Your Teacup, another tea celebrity we met in September 2008 and who we hope to invite to The Cottage sometime for a book signing and/or Tea Talk.

Tea and Cocktails - Flavor Fusion proved to be another fascinating session in which we learned about making tea-infused cocktails, whether with already-steeped tea or by cold-brewing tea leaves in the aloholic liquid. The presenter, Chris Cason, as it turns out, has several of his own Tea Cocktail recipes appearing in Cynthia Gold's book. In addition, Chris is putting together his own book of his own recipes, and believe us, we will keep you informed as to when it appears!