The Tea Trade Quartet

It’s been three months since I last wrote a tea blog post, which is about three times slacker than my longest previous gap. Over seven years and many words – this will be my 395th blog post on this site (after about 8 on my first location, and there’s about 20 on Beasts of Brewdom, […]

Milking The Tea Clock

Today is Lady Devotea’s birthday, so there is no better time to talk about the tea issue that sometimes divides us: milk. I tend not to take milk and she tends to. Of course, I’m not adverse to a sweet, milky masala chai and we both love some lovely whites and greens that you’d never […]

The Lowest Common Dunkinator

Humanity never fails to disappoint me. Just when you think that only good things are happening, like racing cars being launched into space*, you see something that, like a Hall and Oates Christmas Album**,  takes what literally should be sheer joy and metaphorically locks it in a rusty box full of spiders. In the tea […]

Tea Soul

For those who have been wondering why I have not written for over a month and feel that means a whole part of your life is missing, well, sorry about that. I do have 5 jobs, there’s an election on here and I’m writing scads of political stuff, and it’s Mad March, where every major […]

Théabulia

Preamble: Right, pay attention, I’ve just coined a new word for a certain condition. I haven’t gone for the time honoured naming-it-after-oneself method (as did Hans Asperger) or after the victim (e.g. Lou Gehrig), because often it’s not appropriate. This is not unprecedented: Lyme disease is named after the town where it was first found, […]

Awake At The Wheel

In my first post since Christmas Eve – that’s pretty well a month – I am going to attempt to cover a bunch of things, using my own tea Roulette Format for the third time. If you have not read one of my previous efforts of this kind (shame on you!) it’s where I make […]

Dunkism 101

One of my more popular posts ever, Dunk!, explained some of the science and social effects behind dunking biscuits in tea. You can read it again now, if you want. I’ll wait. In it, I said “My short summary here is just an overview, there is obviously a lot more to be said on the […]

Don’t Overthink It

“Tea is nought but this: first you heat the water, then you make the tea. Then you drink it properly. That is all you need to know.” – Sen Rikyu A week ago, the World Tea Expo’s 2017 “Best Tea Brewing Device” (and 2016 “Innovation Of The Year”) ceased sales, ending one of the most […]

The Sharing Economy

“The Sharing Economy” is one of those phrases that kicks around at the moment, along with the Gig Economy, the Social Economy and The Beard-Oil-Led Recovery, which basically all imply that hipsters know what is good for you. A better term is “Collaborative Consumption”, merely because of the possibilities of working it into a hip […]

Making an Inception

If you loved the movie Inception, then you’ll love the fact that I am going to go on a rant about a guy who went on a rant about an article. In it, he bought his own arrogance and prejudice to the fore, and hey, I’m comfortable with doing the same. In fact, I rarely […]

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