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Tea Musing: The tea drinker’s cheat sheet
Tea Musings No Comments » I recently reflected on my tea drinking and how much it has evolved over the last few years. There was a time long ago in my shameful past when I thought the low-grade tea dust found in your average tea bag was all that was available to tea drinkers. Now, many years later, after having explored more fully the world that is tea and having reviewed over 300 teas for Teaviews, I realize that one could reasonably spend a lifetime devoted to exploring tea and trying every variety out there. Thus, I also realize that for many people, getting into tea could become overwhelming. Add in the increasing number of tea vendors and you could make yourself dizzy trying to figure out what you want and where to get it from. For that reason, I am briefly summarizing what I consider to be some of the best tea options out there. This summary is intended to provide some suggestions to readers interested in exploring more tea types and making new purchases. What follows is all in my humble opinion, and in no way is an endorsement by Teaviews of any particular tea or retailer. And of course, this is not an all-inclusive list, as I am sure that I will have accidentally omitted a retailer or two.
Expanding your horizons: Once you’ve got the hang of tea and you’ve cleared off some shelf space for a greater variety of tea, there are several tea retailers worth checking out. Specialteas, Teas Etc., David’s Tea, TeaFrog, Teavana and Tea Gschwendner each offer a respectable variety of black, green, oolong, white, herbal, and flavored teas. Many of these routinely offer special discounts, free samples, and/or free shipping on large orders. From my experience, these retailers also offer reasonably priced teas, so that you can order lots of different items, and even if one ends up not being your favorite, you didn’t have to break the bank to buy it, so it’s no huge loss.
Selecting superior teas: Tea is a lot like wine or beer. We’ve all thrown back the $5 bottle of cheapo table wine and thought it tasted just fine. But once you’ve tasted the good stuff, the cheaper, more accessible stuff suddenly becomes a lot less desirable. So if you’re ready to start drinking teas that excel in quality, I would recommend you check out any of the following: Zhi Tea, California Tea House, American Tea House (formerly Le Palais Gourmet), Jing Tea, and Teatulia. Many of these vendors have less variety than other tea retailers, but the products they offer are top of the line. Of course, you can expect prices for some (but not all) of these teas to be a bit higher than prices from other vendors, but the saying “you get what you pay for” often rings true in the world of tea (although I will note that some of the best teas I’ve had were very inexpensive while conversely some rather expensive teas failed to meet my expectations).
Finding your niche: Once you’ve dabbled in black tea, experimented with white tea, de-stressed with herbal teas, and so on, you’ve probably figured out what types of tea best suit you. And to that end, you may be seeking out more offerings of your favorite tea type. Green tea lovers should give Maeda-en a try. If oolong is your thing, be sure to check out Naivetea. Herbal tea lovers will be quite pleased with the offerings from Specialteas and TeaGuys. Flavored teas, particularly original blends, are the strong point of The Necessiteas. Darjeeling lovers need look no further than Thunderbolt tea. Chai lovers can find every imaginable blend at Yogic Chai, but Indonique and Adagio also offer some high-quality chai blends. TeaGschwendner, Zhi, and Mighty Leaf all offer some great takes on white tea.
The Bottom Line
As with almost anything in life, drinking tea can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. If you, like me, have a passion for this stuff, you’ll want to explore every aspect of tea and sample as much as possible. To that end, I hope this little guide has been helpful and perhaps inspired you to purchase a new tea or two.
Vanessa
Teaviews.com Reviewer
* Says deal values Diedrich at $26/shr
* Says deal to enter single-cup coffee mkt
* Deal to help earnings after 2010
* Peet's shares fall 4 pct, Diedrich stock up 23 pct
Nov 2 (Reuters) - Gourmet coffee chain Peet's Coffee & Tea Inc (PEET.O) agreed to buy Diedrich Coffee Inc (DDRX.O) in a $212 million cash-and-stock deal, to enter the fast growing single-cup coffee market.
The deal values Diedrich at $26 a share, a premium of 28 percent over its Monday closing price of $20.36.
Diedrich, a wholesale coffee roaster and distributor, makes and sells K-Cup refills for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc's (GMCR.O) single-cup Keurig brewer system through a licensing agreement.
Under the deal, Peet's will acquire Diedrich's portfolio of brands including Diedrich Coffee, Coffee People and the single-serve rights to the Gloria Jean's coffee brand.
Peet's said it will finance the acquisition through a combination of cash on hand and $140 million of debt financing.
The acquisition, expected to hurt earnings in 2010 and add to profit thereafter, is scheduled to close by the end of 2009.
Shares of Peet's were down 4 percent at $33.18, while those of Diedrich were up 23 percent at $25.14 in trading after the bell. (Reporting by Nivedita Bhattacharjee in Bangalore; Editing by Anne Pallivathuckal)
Only 6 days left to enter for your chance to win FREE coffee for a year. No purchase is necessary .... All you have to do is simply sign up for a coffeewiz.com account. It is that simple. So hurry time is running out fast!! You can register here... https://www.coffeewiz.com/members/register.aspx
Green Mountain Coffee Roasters just announced their Donut House collection consisting of 4 exciting new blends/flavors. They include; Extra Bold Donut House Regular, Extra Bold Donut House Decaf, Donut House Chocolate Glazed Donut and Donut House Cinnamon Roll. Look for these exciting new flavors arriving at www.coffeewiz.com by mid October 2009.
Senseo Kona coffee coming to coffeewiz.com. That's right, we are anxiously awaiting the arrival these new pods from Senseo. Expect to see them listed on our website right after Labor Day. The official Senseo description is;
Kona Coffee: Known as a perfectly proportioned coffee bean. Volcanic soil and tropical breeze creates coffee that is clean, mild with a hint of milk chocolate and fruit to provide just enough acidity. This coffee is a dark roasted coffee.
Research shows that most people search out and enjoy Kona coffee over all other blends. We are thrilled that Senseo has developed a Kona coffee perfect for their machines.
Green Mountain Pumpkin Spice and Autumn Harvest Blend Arriving Soon
Indulge in the fragrance and flavors of the season! Pumpkin Spice offers the experience of fresh-baked pumpkin pie — redolent with warm spice notes and creamy body — in this luscious Limited Edition coffee.
"Pumpkin Spice is nice! It makes a lovely holiday dessert coffee, when you add whipped cream or vanilla ice cream."
Each month we send out two newsletters featuring sale items, coupons and specials. We also include in our newsletters new product announcements so you can be the first to try a new machine or exciting blend of coffee or tea.
It really is a win win ... a chance to win a brand new Dolce Gusto Coffee System and also receive exclusive discounts and sales not shown to the general public.
We do not redistribute, sell, loan or give your email address to anyone at anytime and we only use your email address for this program.
To date we have given away over 80 coffee systems, could you be the next one?
Please welcome the July winner for our Newsletter giveaway and the proud new owner of a Dolce Gusto Coffee System..... Majorie from Buxton Maine.... Congratulations
For Your Keurig Platimun, Special Edition, Ultra, and Elite brewing systems;
A. Prepare
Step 1: Make sure you have 48 ounces of white vinegar on hand. You will also need an
empty sink and a ceramic mug(Do not use a paper cup).
Step 2: Empty the water in the reservoir.
B. Fill And Clean
Step 1: Pour the vinegar into the Water Reservoir and fill it to the top edge of the clear viewing area.
Step 2: Place a ceramic cup into the Drip Tray and run a brew cycle. DO NOT USE A
K-CUP....Just press the Large Cup Button. Pour the contents of the cup into
the sink.
Step 3: Repeat the brew process until the Water Reservoir is empty, pouring the
contents of the cup into the sink after each cycle.
Step 4: Now fill the contents of the reservoir with fresh water and let the brewer stand for 4 hours while still on.
C. Rinse
Step 1: Ensure the Water Reservoir is filled with fresh water.
Step 2: Place a ceramic cup on the Drip Tray and run a regular brew cycle. Pour the
contents of the cup into the sink.
Step 3: Repeat the brew process until the water reservoir is empty.
Step 4: You may need to perform additional brew cycles if you notice any additional.
tastes.
So there you have it... :)
The chemical that makes tea bitter is called tannin. It’s a chemical compound with an astringent quality. It has a drying effect and is the element that can make your mouth pucker when you drink tea. The tannin is released when you put hot water on the tea leaves. To prevent your tea from being bitter, you need to minimize the amount of tannin released into the tea you drink. Here are some factors to consider.
The tea: the first thing you want to consider is the quality and type of tea you are brewing. Teabags are usually made from the “fannings” and dust of the tea that has been processed in larger pieces for loose leaf packaging. Smaller pieces make a larger overall surface area for the tea to release tannins from. In other words, you will get more tannin per second from teabags than from loose tea. Furthermore, the tiny pieces expose more surface area to the air during storage, making it more vulnerable to getting stale faster. In addition, many teabags are often made with inferior quality tea to begin with.
Cleanliness: Did you ever notice those brownish stains on the inside of your teapot? That’s traces of tannin. If you let it build up, it will eventually start to affect the flavor of your tea. To prevent this, rinse out your teapot with warm water as soon as it’s empty. After it’s cooled, wash it inside and out with baking soda on the corner of a washcloth. Soaps can leave a lingering residue that affect the taste of your tea, but baking soda rinses clean and is the natural enemy of tannin since it is alkaline. Use the brush for cleaning the nipples on baby bottles to get down into the spout and clean it.
The water: Taste the water you are using to make your tea. If you wouldn’t drink it, don’t make your tea with it. You can use a good spring or filtered water, but don’t use one that is distilled. Distilled water has an absence of minerals altogether and will make you tea taste flat like pasta does when you cook it without salt.
The brewing temperature: No this is a tricky bit here. In general you brew black teas with water that has come to a “full rolling boil” and green or white teas at 140o to 175o F. But. There are some teas that don’t follow that general rule, so read the label on the tea container and follow the directions recommended by the tea company. They want their tea to taste as good as possible so their directions are probably going to be right.
The amount of tea used: This is another tricky one. In general you want one teaspoon or one teabag of tea for each six fluid ounces of hot water used. Measure how many ounces your teapot or teacup holds then divide the number by six. That will tell you how many teaspoons of tea to use. However, some teas need a little more or less, so, again, read the box or the tin and see what the company recommends. Also, if this proportion doesn’t taste strong enough to you, don’t increase the amount of tea. Buy a stronger tea to begin with such as a nice Assam. They’re naturally stronger and richer in flavor.
The brewing time: Now we get to the number one factor in bitter tea—the brewing time. The longer the tea steeps, the more tannin is released. Teabags have tiny pieces for quick brewing, which means the tannins are released much faster. Most teabags should be removed from the hot water within 40 to 60 seconds. Loose green tea should be removed in 1 to 3 minutes, black tea in 4, and oolong in 3 to 4. Herbal teas can steep as long as you like. They have no true tea in them and therefore no tannin. However, again, read the instructions on the box before you brew because some teas do not follow the standard rules.
If you use loose tea, you need to have a tea ball or an infuser or some other method of removing the leaves from the water before the tea turns bitter. If you use an infuser, you must use one large enough to let the leaves unfurl. The whole leaves have been curled and they need room to open. Some people find it better to use a large cheesecloth bag that can be washed without detergent and reused. It gives the tea more room. If you have neither an infuser nor a cheesecloth bag, you can decant the tea into another teapot using a tea strainer.
How do I fix bitter tea? No amount of sugar can fix bitter tea. Instead you get tea that is both bitter and sweet, nice for chocolate, but not so much for tea. To make already brewed tea less bitter, add a very small pinch of baking soda. As mentioned above, baking soda counter acts the tannins, but if you add more than just a tiny bit, your tea will taste like baking soda.
So, next time you make a pot of tea, remember, the right tea, the right water, the right temperature, the right brewing time, and a sparkling clean teapot. But if you forget, add a pinch of baking soda.
Volunteers will pick up litter in and around a 5-mile stretch of the Winooski, from the Middlesex Dam to the Bolton Dam and beyond. They will use canoes donated by Umiak Outdoor Outfitters in Stowe to reach trash that is submerged.
This is the fifth year the Green Mountain Coffee brand has sponsored the national effort. Last year, heavy summer rains caused employees to shift their focus from the Winooski River to the Little River State Park and the nearby village of Hancock, where they helped families recover from extensive flood damage.
"We’re hoping for clearer skies this year,” says Paul Comey, Vice President of Environmental Affairs for Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc. "We’re all anxious to get back on the river and do our part. National River Cleanup is one of our most popular employee volunteer opportunities.”
National River Cleanup is part of the Company’s Community Action For Employees (CAFESM) Program, which allows employees to spend up to 52 hours per year volunteering for nonprofit and community-based organizations during normal work hours. In fiscal 2008, employees volunteered 6,208 hours in total, a record for the Company.
National River Cleanup is considered the most successful stream cleanup program in the country. Since its inception in 1991, more than 600,000 volunteers have participated in thousands of cleanups across the country, covering more than 100,000 miles of waterways. For more information or to find a cleanup near you, please visit http://cts.businesswire.com/ct/CT?id=smartlink&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.AmericanRivers.org%2Fcleanup&esheet=6004768&lan=en_US&anchor=www.AmericanRivers.org%2Fcleanup&index=1.
In the case of inclement weather, the rain dates for the Winooski River Cleanup will be August 10-14.
GMCR routinely posts information that may be of importance to investors in the Investor Services section of its web site, including news releases and its complete financial statements, as filed with the SEC. The Company encourages investors to consult this section of its web site regularly for important information and news. Additionally, by subscribing to the Company’s automatic email news release delivery, individuals can receive news directly from GMCR as it is released.
"In Colombia, fruit trees are used to shade the coffee," says Mehlman. "This produces double yield for the same acreage, fruit and coffee."
"Because it's such a staple in our lives, it's important to make smart choices to have a smart impact," says Carmen K. Iezzi, executive director of the Fair Trade Federation, the trade association that strengthens and promotes North American organizations that are fully committed to fair trade. "It's a holistic process; our members want to produce sustainably without compromising future generations' ability to grow."
With 150 million people drinking 3.1 cups per day, and many of those cups grabbed on-the-go, the number of single-use coffee cups going in the trash is staggering.
And paper coffee cups aren't about to go away.
At least one coffee-cup giant agrees.
Still, Gorman insists there's a need for disposable coffee cups.
Lilienfeld doesn't dispute that.
"There are times when you have no other option, like at the theater or a ball game," he says. "You can't bring your own cup into these venues."
Most cups are lined with polyethylene, preventing them from being recycled, but new cups are being made of plant-based materials so they can be composted. The bad news is they'll only do so properly in a commercial composting facility.
Well, it begins with the coffee drinker.
One thing's for sure — we're not giving up drinking coffee. Paper cups aren't going away, and it may be a while before commercial composting is available everywhere.
The greenest way to get your kick is to pay extra for fair-trade, organic or shade-grown coffee — and, when you can, carry your own mug.
Tea Affair Organic Wild Mountain Green Loose Tea Tea Affair Organic Echinacea Green Loose Tea Tea Affair Ayurvedic De-Tox Loose Tea Tea Affair Ayurvedic Shiva Loose Tea and Tea Affair Ayurvedic Uma Loose Tea. You can read more about each tea on our website at http://www.coffeewhiz.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=206 .
We all know the benefits of Green Tea and with each passing day new health benefits emerge. Just recently we heard that Green Tea will help prostrate cancer and just the other day we hear that Green Tea can help prevent skin cancer as well. I will be posting more about the health benefits in the weeks to come.
In addition to the tea we will be adding many different loose tea brewing devices. Look for these in the days to come. If you have any questions, comments or concerns I would be anxious to hear them.
The study- which was carried by University of South Florida researchers on mice who were exhibiting signs of dementia- also showed that caffeine helped slow the production of the protein plaques which show up in people who develop the disease. The scientists gave half the mice drinking water laced with caffeine equaling the amount found in about 5 cups of coffee. The other half got plain water.
They tested the mice two months later on memory and thinking, and the caffeinated mice did much better than their non-caffeinated test subjects. The brains of the caffeinated mice also showed a 50% reduction in the protein which creates the dementia. This is particularly exciting because currently there are no drugs that reverse the progression of Alzheimer's, only drugs that can slow it down.
All you tea drinkers; don't get too excited. Tea also offered a benefit from caffeine, but you'd have to drink 20 cups of the stuff to equal the benefits of coffee.
In this document, they call the situation a "perfect storm" of events. The fire at Fisher Plaza happened late at night (11:10 pm PT on July 2nd) at the start of a long holiday weekend when many Authorize.net IT engineers were off on holiday, and it took time to get them all back to work the problem. The Seattle Fire Department wouldn't allow operation of the backup generators due to their proximity to the fire location, nor would they allow customers into the damaged building to access hardware. These factors were outside of Authorize.net's control.
The document finishes with a section entitled 'Lessons'
Even as our engineering and operations teams continue to ensure normal operations, the postmortem process is already under way. We are examining all aspects of this outage and implementing steps to mitigate future risks. Over the next weeks, we will be completing the work to ensure that we have two fully functional, synchronized hot sites. Failing over from one to the other will occur in a matter of seconds. Steps are also being taken to ensure that we have the ability to implement emergency communication by distributing our voice, e-mail and Web capabilities across multiple sites.
Over the next days and weeks the postmortem will continue. Processes will be refined and further protections put into place.
While Monday morning quarterbacking is always easy, it seems like some mistakes were made in the handling of the backup data center. It's unclear if the old backup center was no longer live, or if the engineers just determined that the new one was 'ready enough' to fail over to. At the same time, having been in that kind of position, I know that the engineers were under tremendous pressure and were doing their best to come up with solutions which would get services back online as soon as possible. The more egregious issue is that Authorize.net didn't have other ways to keep in touch with customers. When the fire broke out, all the authorize.net websites went down. Eventually they opened a twitter account and for some time that was their only means of getting information out to the customers who were losing revenue as a result of the downtime.
Ingredients;
6 Black Tea Kcup
3 lemons
1 Cup sugar (or substitute)
1 tbs almond extract
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 2-litre bottle of lemon carbonated drink
Ice Cubes
Preparations;
Brew Kcups into a sauce pan, and let it cool for 10 min. Cut lemon wedges and place in a large pitcher, giving them each a squeeze as you go, add ice cubes and sugar into pitcher, mix in cooled tea. Add flavorings and soda just before serving.
If you are not going to serve immediately, hold off on the extracts and lemon soda until then.
Enjoy :)
*Note you may also use Pods, T-disc's or Tea bags in place of Kcups.
Diedrich's closed at $0.38 on March 25th, and then promptly took off. And it hasn't stopped.
But why?
Well for starters, this company was tremendously undervalued as a penny stock. It hit a low of $0.21, making its P/B at the time a paltry 0.11.
But I'm not buying it at today's $23.49 closing price. I think it is far too risky.
They had one good quarter in the last 5 years. It happened to come in the middle of a Recession/Depression, so that get an A+ for that.
But could you have really seen that coming? Nah. I have a feeling that a return to mediocrity or worse could send this bad boy down 70% or more in just a few days.
Still a nice story for the shareholders though. I wouldn't mind paying cash for my next house thanks to a lucky penny stock :)
(And besides, there is so much bad news around here, it's nice to hear that some people are making a killing.)
All Star CAPS members are currently giving DDRX 33 Red thumbs to just 1 Green thumb. That should be enough for any Fool to think twice before plunging in. A look at the balance sheet should seal the deal.
UltraLong has an excellent writeup on DDRX that pretty much sums it up:
Let's recap what Diedrich Coffee does here... they roast coffee beans and are a wholesaler for rare coffees. They are also one of the only four licensees to Keurig's K-Cups. Now I'm not saying with the K-Cup craze right now that their holding this honor of being 1 in 4 is a bad thing and worth zero, but this is absolutely ludicrous. What I think we need to do here is look at Diedrich's past to tell us all we ever wanted to know about the company. Let's look at their operating profits/losses from continued operations so we can get all those one-time gains and other BS out of the way.2001: Loss2002: 5 cent per share profit2003: Loss2004: Loss2005: Loss2006: Loss2007: Loss2008: Bigger Loss
Welcome to the all new www.coffeewiz.com Blog. Here you will find industry trends, new product announcements along with specials and discounts not published anywhere else. In our first post we wanted to focus on our new look! Along with a logo change, we've revised our brand colors and overall image. We're excited about the bright new look of our company and hope you enjoy it as well! Look for more changes in regards to this in the weeks to come. Thanks for stopping by.