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Today we welcome back to the show Kevin Gascoyne, of Montreal's Camellia Sinensis Tea House, to chat with us in depth about how our choices of teaware impact the flavors, aromas and overall experience of the teas we drink. Kevin is often seen sporting his signature Royal Albert teacup, and that prompted us to ask Kevin what's the deal with this oh-so-English-looking cup. His initial answer inspired us to want to explore more fully how our choice of cup and brewing vessel affect our enjoyment of tea.

In our chat we focus mostly on the effects of the cup on our tea experience (though we also touch on some elements of teapots). Kevin talks with us about how the shape of the cup controls the delivery of the tea to the mouth and the placement of the tea on the tongue, how the material, size and shape of the cup affect the thermodynamics of the tea, and how all of this impacts the flavors and aromas of the tea we're drinking. We chat about some of the design features of teacups that have evolved for comfort, warmth and delivery, and also how the visual elements and aesthetics of our teaware influence our enjoyment of tea. Contrasting tea served in wine glasses and in small tasting cups as examples, Kevin points out how different styles of teaware and brewing create different moods and spaces for our experience of tea. 

We wanted to do these comparisons hands-on, so Kevin served us two teas in very different styles of cups: first with teaware from the Royal Albert collection, and then from the innovative Peter Ting tasting kit. Listen to the episode to hear the results of this tasting experiment.

For more on Camellia Sinensis, including its teaware, teas, online store and locations, go to camellia-sinensis.com.    

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.   

more about Talking Tea 

Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.

 

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.

 

This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

Photo of Kevin Gascoyne and his Royal Albert teacup courtesy of Camellia Sinensis.

Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

We're getting a bit contemplative this time of year here at Talking Tea, as the weather turns cooler and our bodies and minds begin to turn inward. So this December we're offering two episodes exploring the spirit of tea as reflected in chado, the Japanese way of tea. To kick off this two-part series we're looking at the life, work and influence of Kakuzo Okakura, best known for his modern classic The Book of Tea.

As some of you may know, Talking Tea host Ken Cohen narrated and produced an audiobook edition of Okakura's The Book of Tea in 2015. Today Ken is chatting via Skype with Bruce Richardson, of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas and its publishing arm Benjamin Press. Bruce wrote and published an extensive and scholarly intro to the print version of The Book of Tea, and Bruce shares a bit of his own tea journey with us and tells us how he was first drawn to this text. We discuss Okakura's early life in Japan and his exposure to the West, the origins of The Book of Tea and its connection with Okakura's work at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and Okakura's influence on iconic American art collector Isabella Stewart Gardner, American artist Georgia O'Keefe and the design principles of Frank Lloyd Wright. Bruce chats with Ken about Okakura's perspectives on the connections between tea, art, and Zen, and Bruce shares his own perspectives, influenced by Okakura, on tea as an adventure and a creative path, on the importance of the space within and why the way of tea is the way of life. 

 

Bruce Richardson's illustrated print edition of The Book of Tea, with his introduction, is available through Elmwood Inn Fine Teas or though Amazon.

Ken Cohen's audiobook edition of The Book of Tea, published by Spoken Realms, is available at Audible.com , Amazon and iTunes.

 

  

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.   

more about Talking Tea 

Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.

 

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.

 

This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

At Talking Tea we've long wanted to explore the seemingly deep divide between tea and coffee, and between tea drinkers and coffee drinkers. But lately we've come to realize that the divide might not be very deep at all, and that there might be more similarities between the two beverages, and the two communities, than we ever imagined.

To help us look at how the gap between coffee and tea is already being bridged, we're chatting with Nate Cochran of Spirit Tea. Part of Spirit's focus is the introduction of high quality specialty tea to the coffee roasters and cafes, and Nate himself has worked in third wave coffee as well as in specialty tea.

Nate chats with us about his background in coffee and tea, about Spirit's focus and how they create accessible tea menus for coffee environments. We discuss differences and similarities between tea and coffee from the perspective of process, oxidation, terroir and cultivar, but mostly from the perspective of flavor and aroma. We look at what flavor profiles in tea may attract coffee drinkers and how tea drinkers can approach coffee. And we talk about how  education and community propelled the success of third wave coffee, and how they're crucial for the success of tea as well.

 

Spirit Tea's website, including its online store, is at spirittea.co.  

 

Photo of Nate Cochran talking tea and coffee during Talking Tea's February 2018 workshop, at Pilgrim Roasters in Philadelphia, courtesy of Jeremy Zimmerman.

 

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.   

more about Talking Tea 

Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.

 

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.

 

This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

Today on Talking Tea we welcome back Kevin Gascoyne of Montreal's Camellia Sinensis Tea House. If you've heard any of our earlier episodes with Kevin, you'll know that Kevin is a specialist, and one of the world's leading authorities, on Indian tea. Kevin returns to the show today to chat with us about some of the challenges currently facing Indian tea production, and how an innovative new project in south India called the Tea Studio is attempting to address these challenges.

Before we dive into the Tea Studio, Kevin gives us an update on the state of affairs in Darjeeling and tea production there following a lengthy labor strike in 2017. We also sample a black tea from the Indian state of Sikkim and talk a bit about Sikkim tea.

Kevin tells us about significant issues facing Indian tea production today, ranging from climate change to labor shortages, and how the Tea Studio Project was born in an attempt to address some of these problems. We discuss the origins of labor shortage issues in the Indian tea industry, why Kevin feels that the Indian tea industry is not keeping up with the growing demand worldwide for high quality teas, and how the Tea Studio is combining carefully designed mechanization with hands-on skill to produce small-batch artisanal teas in India's Nilgiri region.  

 

For more info on the Tea Studio Project, visit its website at teastudio.info, and for more on Camellia Sinensis, including its online store, locations and now the first teas from the Tea Studio, go to camellia-sinensis.com.   

 

 

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.   

more about Talking Tea 

Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.

 

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.

 

This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

Photo of the Tea Studio courtesy of Camellia Sinensis.

Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

There is an amazement of tea that's hard to capture in words. It can happen when we experience a tea for the first time and are astounded by flavors and aromas unlike anything we've experienced before. Or when we revisit one of our favorite teas and find elements we never noticed before. Or when we find ourselves drinking a tea that's been expertly prepared and artfully presented in a way that awakens all of our senses. 

Today we're at 29b Teahouse in New York City, where the owners and staff strive to create and recreate these moments of tea amazement every day. We're talking with Stefen Ramirez and Andreas Vagelatos, two of the owners of 29b, about their unique philosophy and approach to tea.

We chat with Stefen and Andreas about their backgrounds and the origins of 29b, and how they developed their goal of fostering a sophisticated but easily accessible process of understanding tea for both new and experienced tea drinkers. Stefen talks with us about the inspiration he drew from vertical wine tastings, and he and Andreas share their views on the importance of cultivars, process and oxidation and the role of comparative tea tastings in developing tea knowledge and awareness.

Andreas has a background in the mingei school of Japanese art, and we discuss the impact mingei principles of austerity had on the design of 29b and the selection of 29b's teas and teaware. And Stefen and Andreas share their insights on how 29b has combined a carefully curated tea menu, tea pairings and elements of design to create a deeply inviting experience of tea.

 

29b Teahouse is an outgrowth of Tea Dealers, a tea company based in New York City. For more info on 29b Teahouse and Tea Dealers, including opening hours and Tea Dealers' online store, go to Tea Dealers' website, tea-dealers.com.

 

 

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @kensvoiceken.   

more about Talking Tea 

Sign up for our email list to get updates on new episodes and events.

 

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.

 

This podcast features music from “Japanese Flowers” (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

Photo of a Stefen Ramirez at 29b courtesy of Tea Dealers.

Header image “Raw Puerh mid 1980 Menghai” by Cosmin Dordea, used under a Creative Commons CC By-SA 2.0 license. Adapted from original.

To kick off Talking Tea's fourth season, we're at Té Company, an exquisite teahouse in New York's West Village, talking about an exquisite tea - the aptly named Oriental Beauty. 

We chat with Elena Liao and Frederico Ribeiro, owners and founders of Té Company, about the origins of their teahouse, how they've created a cohesive whole between tea and food, and the unique ways they help their customers gain an understanding and knowledge of tea in an easily accessible way.

The uniqueness of Té Company is mirrored in Oriental Beauty, a remarkable Taiwanese tea with a signature sweetness. Its unique flavor and aroma are created in part by the tea plant's interaction with an insect, the tea jassid, and Elena chats with us about how this interaction, along with cultivar, climate, terroir, oxidation and roast, come together to create a truly amazing tea.  Elena also gives us tips on how to identify the quality of an Oriental Beauty by looking at the dry leaf.

 

For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea.

To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com.

Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken. 

 

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.

 

This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

 

Photo courtesy of Té Company.

 

Earlier this year, TJ Williamson of the World Tea Podcast invited us to join him in leading a session on industry-specific podcasting at Podcamp Toronto. And when the nice folks at Podcamp also gave us the opportunity to record a Talking Tea episode in front of a live audience at Toronto's Imperial Pub,  TJ graciously agreed to join us as a guest on Talking Tea, to chat about the backgrounds of our two podcasts, why we do what we do, and about TJ's work in tea outside of his show.

TJ tells us a bit about his own tea journey and some of his experiences working at a Japanese tea farm, and then we respond to one of the questions we received several times after our panel talk: why neither of us include a focus on herbal infusions in our podcasts. TJ's views on herbals are somewhat different from our own, and we chat about our differences as well as our two approaches to tea and tea podcasting.

Of course, since we were recording this show in a bar, we had to talk about TJ's line of alcohol-aged teas (shown above), as well as the tea tasting logbook TJ produces.  And that brings us back to the focus we share: exploring tea's amazing spectrum of flavors and aromas, and delving into the science, artistry and craft that goes into producing them.

World Tea Podcast is at worldteapodcast.com, and you can also follow TJ on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. If you're interested in hearing what we had to say in our seminar on industry-specific podcasting, check out a recording of our session on TJ's site here.

 

For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea.

To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com.

Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken. 

 

The views and opinions expressed by guests on Talking Tea are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Talking Tea or its staff.

 

This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

 

Photo courtesy of TJ Williamson.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Most tea consumers never have the opportunity to visit the source of the teas we drink - the tea growers and tea makers in the various tea-producing regions around the world. So here at Talking Tea we've been wanting to hear an insider's take on sourcing trips, to get an idea of what sourcing trips are like and what tea retailers look for when they source their teas.

Today we welcome back Shiho Kanamaru of Montreal's Cha Do Raku, to get that insider's look at sourcing. Shiho tells us how she began Cha Do Raku by developing a network of sourcing connections in Japan and then Taiwan.  We chat about sourcing trips as a form of tea self-education, about the cultural differences between networking and sourcing in Japan versus Taiwan, and about Shiho's use of instinct and sensation to find high quality, unusual and extraordinary teas on her sourcing trips. Shiho also talks with us about some of the challenges of gaining entry into the world of tea growers and producers, about the hard work and rewards of going to source, and shares an example of how she's "arrived at" extraordinary teas through a combination of connections, spontaneity and experience.

More about Cha Do Raku, including its online store and info on its Montreal shop, can be found at Cha Do Raku's website, cha-doraku.com, and on its Facebook page.

 

For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea.

To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com.

Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken. 

 

This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

 

Photo of a tea farm in Taiwan's Pinglin District, courtesy of Shiho Kanamaru.

As temperatures begin to drop outdoors and autumn settles into early winter, the scent of smoke rising from chimneys fills the evening air in just about every place we visit in the cooler climates. But the unmistakable aroma and taste of smoke is not something many of us actively seek out in our teas, and the famously smokey Lapsang Souchong is often overlooked by serious tea drinkers.

So it's been quite a pleasant surprise discovering that high quality Lapsang Souchongs can have great levels of complexity and depth of flavor. Joining us today to chat about Lapsang Souchong are Zhen Lu and Phil Rushworth of Zhen Tea, an online tea company specializing in Chinese tea. We chat over two interesting varieties of Lapsang Souchong carried by Zhen Tea: we first sample a non-smokey version of Lapsang Souchong, which allows us to explore the base of the tea without the influence of the smoke, and then a top-grade Lapsang Souchong (pictured here), made by the same family that invented the Lapsang Souchong process several centuries ago.

Zhen and Phil talk with us about the origins of Lapsang Souchong and what distinguishes it from other teas, and especially from other smokey-tasting teas, in terms of its cultivar and processing. We discuss components of aroma and taste in both the non-smokey and top-grade versions. And Zhen and Phil also share some of their own tea journey with us and tell us a bit of how Zhen Tea came into being.

ADDED VIDEO COMPONENT: Phil and Zhen wanted everyone to be able to see as well as hear about brewing techniques for Lapsang Souchong, so after we finished our audio chat Phil switched on his camera and added a video component to this podcast. You can hear (and see) us talking about brewing this tea on Zhen Tea's YouTube channel by clicking here.

More info about Zhen Tea, including their online shop, is at the Zhen Tea website, zhentea.ca. You can also follow Zhen Tea on Facebook and Instagram at Zhentea, and on Twitter at @zhentea2014.

 

For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea.

To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com.

Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken. 

 

This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

 

Photo courtesy of Zhen Tea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

What did Talking Tea do this summer? We went to summer school, of course. Tea summer school, that is. In August we attended one of the English-language Summer School workshops offered through the tea school at Montreal's Camellia Sinensis. After the workshop we sat down with Kevin Gascoyne of Camellia Sinensis to chat about current and emerging trends in tea education.

Kevin talks with us about Camellia Sinensis' model for tea education, how its tea school began with a goal of giving consumers better access to tea knowledge and how it's evolved to include programming oriented to tea industry professionals as well as consumers. We discuss the Summer School and the benefits of small, seminar-style workshops where students and instructors have the ability to share first-hand experience. Kevin also shares his perspectives on what students should look for in choosing a tea education program, identifying a student's goals and finding a program to fit those goals, the pro's and con's of certification and the ability of tea education to empower consumers and industry professionals for their own tea journeys.

We also sat down in the Camellia Sinensis tea house with four participants in the Summer School workshop to chat about their perspectives on tea education: Tea researcher/educator/author Selena Ahmed and chef Noah ten Broek talk with us about increasing awareness of the nuances of taste and sensory experience, and tea sellers Zhen Lu and Phil Rushworth discuss addressing misinformation within the tea industry and the importance of educating tea vendors as well as consumers.

More info about Camellia Sinensis and its tea school is at the Camellia Sinensis website, camellia-sinensis.com. To inquire about next year's Summer School, contact Kevin Gascoyne at info-en@camellia-sinensis.com

More on Selena Ahmed, her work and publications, are at Montana State's Food and Health Lab website. More on Zhen Lu and Phil Rishworth's company, Zhen Tea, is at the Zhen Tea website, zhentea.ca.

 

For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea.

To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com.

Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken. 

 

This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Since we launched Talking Tea in 2014, one of our main areas of focus has been the continuing growth of tea enthusiasm in North America. We've chatted with tea sellers, educators and writers, but we haven't had the chance to talk with anyone actually farming tea in the US or Canada. Until now.

Today on Talking Tea we welcome Eliah Halpeny and Cam Muir of Big Island Tea, a pioneering tea farm and producer on the (you guessed it) big island of Hawaii. Eliah and Cam have created an ecologically complex forest environment for growing tea on the fertile slopes of Mauna Loa volcano. They chat with us about how they came to tea production, their model of sustainable tea farming in a self-replenishing forest and how that model impacts the flavor, aroma and quality of their teas. We also chat about Hawaii's budding tea industry and about how the artistry and science Cam and Eliah bring to their work go into creating what Cam calls a "symphony of flavors" in their teas. And from our perspective, that symphony is a masterpiece.

 

More about Big Island Tea, including retailers and restaurants carrying its teas, can be found at its website, bigislandtea.com. Additional images are on its Instagram feed. For info about private purchases of Big Island teas, contact Eliah at eliah@bigislandtea.com.

 

For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea.

To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com.

Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken. 

 

This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

 

Image of the Big Island Tea farm courtesy of Big Island Tea.

 

 

 

 

 

We’re back in Montreal this week on Talking Tea chatting with Kevin Gascoyne of Montreal’s famed Camellia Sinensis Tea House.

Kevin, a co-owner of Camellia Sinensis, is known around the world as a prominent tea taster, educator and author. We talk with Kevin about his passion for Darjeeling teas, how classically grown Darjeelings compare with newer clonal teas, and current trends in tea processing. Kevin also discusses fair trade and labor conditions at tea gardens in India and elsewhere, and shares his perspectives on the future of tea’s popularity and growth, both in North America and worldwide. And, as an added bonus, we chat with Kevin about Camellia Sinensis’ groundbreaking studies on caffeine and anti-oxidants in tea.

 

More info on Camellia Sinensis, including its online store, shop hours, blog and upcoming seminars and events, can be found on its website, http://camellia-sinensis.com, and also on its Facebook page and Twitter feed.

 

Among Kevin Gascoyne’s many publications are two acclaimed books he co-authored with his partners at Camellia Sinensis: Tea: History, Terroirs, Varieties (the original French version is Thé: Histoire, Terroirs, Saveurs) and Green Tea: A Quest For Fresh Leaf and Timeclass Craft (in French Thé Vert: A La Rencontre D’Un Art Millénaire). Both are available on the Camellia Sinensis website.

 

 

For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea.

To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com.

Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our Libsyn episode page, or email us.

  

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken. 

  

 

This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

Photo courtesy of Camellia Sinensis Tea House.

This week on Talking Tea we chat via Skype with Chris Olsen of Teatulia, an organic tea producer based in Bangladesh founded on principles of social responsibilty and sustainability.

You may be familiar with the unique flavor profiles of Teatulia's teas and blends, and Chris and I discuss the influence of the Bangladeshi terroir on the complex flavors and aromas of some of Teatulia's award-winning teas. But what most impressed us at Talking Tea was the positive impact Teatulia has made on the environment and society surrounding its tea garden. Chris talks about Teatulia's transformation of a formerly desert terrain into a lush tea-growing region, and how Teatulia has not only created jobs but also fostered literacy programs. schools, and economic opportunity through better working conditions and its unique cattle lending and farm sharing programs.

You can find Teatulia's teas and information about Teatulia's programs at www.teatulia.com. If you're interested in purchasing tea through Teatulia's website, be sure to listen for the discount code for Talking Tea listeners toward the end of the episode. You can also find Teatulia on Facebook at facebook.com/teatulia, on Instagram at instagram.com/teatuliateas, and on Twitter @teatulia.

 

For more information on Talking Tea and updates on new episodes, visit our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/talkingtea.

To inquire about being a guest or having your organization featured, please email us at talkingteapodcasts@gmail.com.

Have something in mind you'd like to hear discussed on Talking Tea? Leave us a comment on Facebook or on our blog page, or email us.

  

Talking Tea is produced and hosted by Ken Cohen. You can follow Ken on Twitter @Kensvoiceken. 

  

This podcast features music from "Japanese Flowers" (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii/japanese-flowers) by mpgiiiBEATS (https://soundcloud.com/mpgiii) available under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/). Adapted from original.

 

Photo of Teatulia's tea garden courtesy of Teatulia.