A Teapot? Time for THE MOMENT

There’s a client I go to see once a month. He is the local rep for a national company, so he is their only person in this state. He works from a home office, so when I see him, we sit around his kitchen table. Usually, he has the kettle on when I get there, and two of those godforsaken yellow tags […]

A Real Tea Party. Virtually.

Readers of my previous post Tea and The Art of Friendship may recall it had a central theme that was a bit mad. Essentially, it suggested a Tea Party where anyone from around the world could join in at the appointed hour, via Skype. I chose a date and time – it was actually 6:30am on a Sunday in Adelaide, South Australia where I […]

New Kid on The Block

A new tea shop opened in Adelaide yesterday. I know most of the international tea community will assume that meant that a limo pulled up at TDSSTL* to collect Lady Devotea and I – whisking us off to cut a ribbon at a swanky tea affair, but that’s not what happened. In fact, I found out about it on Twitter […]

Family Feud, and a Mild Conspiracy Theory

Behind me is a generation of Australians that believes that “British is Best” , where a Prime Minster quoted poetry about Queen Elisabeth II and where it was considered that our other great ally, the USA, was a hulking, whoring illiterate. Get hold of some old radio tapes, you’d swear it was the BBC. Ahead of me there is a generation that […]

Inspiration!

“Inspiration have I none/but to touch the flaming dove” As I have the world’s best memory for song lyrics (sadly teamed with the voice of a half-mad donkey), I can tell you I dredged that up from the memory of an album I last heard maybe 25 years ago, Bowie’s “The Rise and Fall of […]

Tea and the Art of Friendship

I’ll be having a tea party shortly. I’m thinking myself and five others, though theoretically some of those others might be couples, so that extends it a bit. It’s going to cost me $5 to hire the venue. Not bad, I think. I’ve selected Darjeeling as the tea of choice. Which Assam? Actually, that’s up to the participants. I don’t want to […]

Pouring Different Cups

{EAV_BLOG_VER:c7ec48f0cf469c95} Above is a meaningless stream of characters. Unless you’re a verification engine, searching for that exact stream, in which case I say “hi”. The reason it’s there is because quite a few people have recommended “Empire Avenue” to me, which is an odd site, where you attempt to define the value of your social media efforts. Five people have endorsed my […]

A quick infusion

I’ve been sitting in a tea shop for 6 hours. My office is about an hour south of the CBD, so I tend to meet people in tea shops. Today, and most of tomorrow, I’ll be here. Here I am, hard at work. Note the enormous quantities of tea behind me. So far I have […]

She Blows Hot and Cold*

I’m pretty observant. For a male, that is. Also, I like to think I can consider all sides to an issue, before I decide who is sweetly innocent and who needs to be tased. So, let’s talk about Princes. Even today, it’s permissible for a little girl, growing up in the Western world, to dream of marrying […]

Now is the Shoulder Season of our Discontent

Readers of my blog of late have found it turned mostly into a tea travelogue. Not because I’ve changed focus, but because I tend to write about what I’m thinking of, and I think about my next decent cup of tea a lot. I have completely covered my efforts to source good loose leaf tea […]

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