Amaretto and WEral Grey and Rooibos with Gran Marnier

Seattle Food - Search & Distill: Slip Yourself a Rooibos - page 1

Tea Stain for Woodworking

It stains everything else, accidentally, why not wood on purpose. Take a look:
Homemade and Alternative Stains and Colorant by Jim McNamara

Elf Picked Tea In Crisis

Fraudulent Elf Picked Tea hits market and Pirates wreak Havoc. Indonique is following this situation closely. More here:
Strolen's Citadel: Elven Green Tea By Scrasamax

Shinobi-Cha, Ice Brewing From Japan

Interesting method of brewing tea with ice from Gongfu Girl

Iced Tea Invented at 1904 St Louis World's Fair MY FOOT!

It appears that everything worth having was invented at the St Louis World's Fair on 1904 from Iced Cream to Iced Tea. I don't know much about iced cream, aside from how good it is, especially that Red Socks Fenway Park stuff, but I do know a thing or two about Iced Tea. It's only slightly younger than ice and tea. The oldest mention of the stuff I could find in America was an 1880 newspaper article about a civil war veterans picnic where vets from both sides enjoyed gallons of iced tea. Some of the earilest mentions of iced tea in Europe are from the 16thy century France where Roman Punch, Iced Punch, was served. Punch is dericed from the Indian Hinu word Panch, meaning five. Early tea recipes called for 1. water, 2.tea, 3. sugar, 4. lemon 5. and some form of alcohol. The addition of ice made it Roman Punch.

Next issue we'll talk about Tea & Spirits including GROG, Christmas Teas with brandy and rum and Irish Tea.

Tea in America - The Tea Act or the Original Bailout Bill

Indignation over a simple tax without representation led to America's
independence. Not quite.

In reality, the whole revolutionary war thing started when Parliament
enacted the Tea Act of 1773, the Bailout Bill of it's day, to rescue
the Honorable East Indian Company. The John Company, as it had come to
be known, due to market forces, the tea boycott in the colonies
included, had an 18 million pound surplus of tea in London. The Tea
Act allowed the Company to sell directly to American colonists at
bargain basement prices, so low that even respectable tea smugglers
were threatened with financial ruin. Taxed tea was now cheaper and
safer than the smuggled stuff. Clever boys these Brits! Or so they
thought. Reaction in the colonies was rapid and decided. Company ships
all along the east coast were sent back with full cargo, held at port
until cargoes rotted and ransacked. Britain reacted in kind and a
rather nasty war started.

Good news is that we won and its safe to drink tea. The British don't
get a penny.

Mrs Williams Made Me Tea

Tea History: Tea Reaches England

As we discussed earlier, England, lured by the riches of the east, was a late but aggressive entry into the China trade. But before she could make much headway there, the new trade in tea to England through Holland was growing in leaps and bounds fueled by the new royal addiction and by the health benefits it offered.

The first mention of tea for sale in England was recorded in a 1658 London advertisement (same year Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell died) for that “all physicians approved China drink, called Cha” that included a lengthy list of ailments to which tea was a cure. Its impact was dramatic and fast. Consider the scene in 17th century England. Before Charles II and Catherine royals were regularly trashed with ale and beer. Queen Elizabeth I requisitioned a gallon of beer and a pound of beef for each member of her retinue for breakfast alone! Those who couldn’t afford alcohol were forced to drink water – filthy stinking cholera ridden water. Post agricultural, early industrial England was a cold, poor, filthy place. The transition was not smooth! Infant mortality rate was astoundingly high. Then came tea.

Tea requires boiled water that killed cholera germs. And tea had natural curative properties that were passed on to baby from mom through breast milk. Within a short period of time, infant mortality rate plummeted and the overall health and sobriety of England improved greatly. Having sober politicians was a real boon. If only present day America could drink more tea! On top of the whole heath thing, the stuff was profitable. English ships were eagerly introducing colonist in America and subjects in India to the wonderful new herb. Cultures were transformed.

The English experience was tea was instrumental in the development of much of the modern world. As a new, unfamiliar product, tea required marketing skills that weren’t needed before tea. The addiction created the tea break – huge new idea that increased productivity in many industries. Tea needed to be steeped and a tea equipage industry began importing then later creating its own ceramics. Industrious shop owners like those of Lloyds of London capitalized on the customer base of shipping agents and insurance agents as early as 1688 by posting essential insurance and cargo needs in the shop and offering to broker between the two. Today Lloyds of London agents are still called waiters. Coffee shops, now serving mostly tea became penny universities, so called for the education one could get there. For a penny entrance fee, laborers could mingle with aristocrats. House rules forbid the rigid tiered rules of society. So popular were they that, when Charles II tried to suppress them as houses of sedition, his edict was pretty much ignored and was rescinded soon after. “The World of Caffeine” by Weinberg and Bealer published a sample of “House Rules” for a typical coffee/Tea shop:



Enter Sirs, freely, but first, if you please,
Peruse our civil orders, which are these.
First gentry tradesmen all are welcome hither
And may without affront sit down together:
Pre-eminence of place none here should mind,
But take the next seat that he can find:
Nor need any, if finer persons come,
Rise up for to assign to them his room;
To limit men’s expense, we think not fair,
But let him forfeit twelve-pence that shall swear.
He that shall any quarrel here begin,
Shall give each man a dish t’ atone the sin;
And so shall he, whose compliments extend
So far to drink i9n coffee to his friend;
Let noise of loud disputes be quite forborne,
Nor maudlin lovers here in corners mourn,
But all be brisk and talk, but not too much;
On sacred things, let none presume to touch,
Nor profane Scripture, nor saucily wrong
Affairs of state with an irreverent tongue:
Let mirth be innocent, and each man see
That all his gests without reflection be;
To keep the house more quiet and from blame,
We banish hence cards and dice and every game,
Nor can allow of wagers, that exceed
Five shillings, which oftentimes do troubles breed;
Let that’s lost or forfeited be spent
In such liquor as the house doth vent.
And customer endeavor, to their powers,
For to observe still, seasonable hours.
Lastly, let each for what calls for pay,
And so you’re welcome to come everyday.

Darjeeling Owner profil from MERCY Corps

Indonique donates 10% of every sale to Mercy Corps to fund programs like the CHAI program in India. Check out this link to a MERCY CORPS article about one of the great tea men in India, destined to be one of the great humanitarians of our time.

Buzzing with Cosmic Energy | Mercy Corps

To buy his tea visit:

Makaibari Estate Black

Makaibari Estate Green

Best Tea Video Yet!!!

Europe Discovers Tea

Marco Polo, failing to return with tea from China, left the foreign devils without this precious commodity until Portuguese ships managed to find their way round Africa and into the Indian ocean in 1498. They soon after reached China and were promptly sent packing by the Ming Emperor who forbid the foreign devils access. Undeterred, the Portuguese carried on a buccaneer style trade with eager Chinese merchants until the Ming Emperor relented and opened a single port near Canton to a single foreign devil, the Portuguese. The Dutch, hot on Portuguese tails were turned away from Chinese ports by the Emperor and Portuguese ships. Again, undeterred, this new European power found plenty of trade opportunities with Chinese merchants in Indonesia who spoke an Amoy dialect. It's interesting to note that the Chinese word for tea is T'ch or chai. Nations that dealt directly with the Chinese in Canton still call their Camelia infusion Cha or chai. The rest of Europe call it Tea after the Amoy T'e.

The nation most associated with tea, England, was a rather late entry into the China trade. In 1592 the English captured a Portuguese ship just returned from the China seas off the Azores. Imagine that sting, two years travel time alone only to be taken pisoner when near home. Anyway, the ship was enormous by English standards, built for the trade, carrying a cargo estimated at half a million pound sterling. That was about half the total worth of the English crown's Exchequer! It caused quite a stir in London and resulted in the formation of the Honorable East India Company by Queen Elizabeth on December 31, 1600, "for the honour of the nation, the wealth of the people.. The increase of navigation and the advancement of lawfulle traffic,". (Pratt's, "New Tea Lover's Treasury"). She also needed silk for hundreds of silk dresses.

But tea was not high on the list of riches to obtain in China. It was still a Dutch and Portuguese treat for the wealthy. it costs about $100 per pound to retrieve. But history, much more interesting than fiction or soap operas, stepped in. This is how it went down:

King Charles I of England lost a rather nasty war with The New Model Army, led by Lord Oliver Cromwell, attempting to establish a Commonwealth. The King lost and was executed in 1649. Cromwell was on a role and conquered neighboring Scotland and Ireland for good measure before being named Lord Protectorate of all three nations. Turned out Cromwell was just as nasty and reviled as Charles I. So much so that when he died in 1658, Charles I son, Charles II (so inventive with name weren't they?), who was crowned King in 1660. Cromwell's corpse, in Westminster Abey, was immediately removed hanged in chains and decapitated. I was afraid to ask what eventually happened to the corpse.

ANYWAY, Charles II, when his father was arrested was hurried to safety in Holland, Europe's first tea drinking nation. He returned to England a tea drinking monarch, the first ever in England. He was soon arranged in marriage to the princess Catherine of Braganza, Portugal, the other tea drinking nation. British royals and commoners alike, aping the monarchy, all took to tea. The Honorable India Company eventually making it affordable and available to all.

In the mood for some historical teas? Try a Green Chinese tea, the type that filled European hulls in the 16th and 17th centuries. We recommend:

Indonique's "Lung Ching (Dragonwell)" Tea or

"White Monkey Green Tea".



In the coming weeks, we'll look at Teas first arrival in London, Russian Tea, and Tea Time.

Marco Polo and Tea

Marco Polo visited China, he claims, in 1275 returning with treasures and amazing tales of that ancient distant land. But he didn't return with tea. For a man to have spent so much time in China, as guest of the Emperor, tea would surely have been introduced and sent with him as gifts for aristocrats in the west. The reason Europe did not make its entry into Europe with Marco is a simple one, Marco didn't meet a tea drinking Chinese Emperor. Marco did meet a rough riding eat and drink what you take Mongolian conqueror who with his father between 1206 and 1208 AD took all of China by force reducing her population by a third. The Mongolians were skilled warriors and statisticians, but rarely called refined and definitely not lent to tea.

The practice of steamed powdered tea, exported to Japan centuries before, died in China with the advent of Mongol rule. Chinese tea continued, however, in peasant households prepared as we do in the west today, whole leaf and steeped. Tradition has it that tea didn't return to the throne until 1368 when a revolt to regain the throne was coordinated through messages secreted in tea cakes, where the Mongolian authorities would never look.

The revolt, a success, returned tea and ethnic Chinese emperors to the throne. The new "Peoples Emperor", however, chose to have his tea steeped, like his countrymen. Europe, alas, had to wait another two centuries for Portuguese ships to make their way into Chinese waters. It was a rough re-entry.

Europe meets tea next week.

A brief Tea Timeline can be found here.

Direct link: http://indonique.com/about_history.php

Why the English Drink Tea

Chinese Tea Map - Google Maps

Love this map of Chinese tea growing regions!:

Chinese Tea Map - Google Maps

Black Tea May Fight Diabetes

Black Tea May Fight Diabetes

Monkey Picked Tea

Truth be told, there's no such thing as monkeys picking tea anywhere
in the world aside from maybe a circus act somewhere. The term,
"Monkey Picked" refers to a quality of tea from steep mountainous
Fuijan Province China, so steep that the tea has to be picked, some
claimed, by monkeys. There is also a very interesting folklore
associated with the tea. According to residence os the area, Buddhist
monks living in the area centuries ago maintained a fruit orchard.
During a drought one year a young monk ran to the head monk exclaiming
that hungry monkeys from the hills were stealing the fruit. The head
abbot instructed the excited monk to allow the monkeys to eat what
they wanted as they too were one of God's creatures. The monkeys,
emboldened by the monks lack of action, actually began raiding the
food stores inside the monastery carrying away sack loads. The story
continues that the next year rains returned and the monkeys kept their
distance. However, an illness swept through the monastery inflicting
many. At the peak of the pandemic, monks woke to find in the courtyard
of the monastery, large amounts of green tea in the same sacks stolen
from them the previous year by marauding monkeys. They prepared the
tea and were cured by its healing properties. Thus the monkey picked
tea saved the monastery and a started a new crop for the monks that is
still grown there today.

Now that's a much better story than monkey servitude in the far east.

White Monkey Green Tea

The first teapot artist - Annals - Chinese Tea Annals

The first teapot�artist - Annals - Chinese Tea Annals

Birth of the Samovar? - A Puzzling Archeological Find in the Foothills of the Caucasus - Tufan Akhundov

8.3 Birth of the Samovar? - A Puzzling Archeological Find in the Foothills of the Caucasus - Tufan Akhundov

Smuggled tea captures market

Smuggled tea captures market

Chai Walla India

Tea Chemistry

English Tea How To

Temples, tombs and teabags

Egyptology News: Travel: Temples, tombs and teabags

Indonique Featured on Triple Pundit!!!

Indonique Tea & Chai Restarts After Katrina Washout - Indonique, Tea, Mercy Corps

MERCY CORPS profile of Darjeeling Estate Owner

Indonique donates 10% of every sale to Mercy Corps to fund programs like the CHAI program in India. Check out this link to a MERCY CORPS article about one of the great tea men in India, destined to be one of the great humanitarians of our time.

Buzzing with Cosmic Energy | Mercy Corps

To buy his tea visit:

Makaibari Estate Black

Makaibari Estate Green

Tea and the Opium Wars

Here's the setting, China having discovered tea thousands of years ago, reluctantly, at first, sells it to England. Refusing to accept international banking terms, China requires payment in silver at time of purchase. England, absolutely addicted to the stuff, imports so much tea that the drain of silver from the Isles threatens economic ruin. The Chinese further protected their tea trade by making the secret of tea a state secret. Discussing any aspect of tea or teaching Chinese languages to foreign devils was punishable by death. 

Poor England, small country with a big addiction and a very big trading partner. China was the riches most powerful nation in those days. And so, under these dire circumstances, England, reluctant to wage war, devised, in the early 1800's a clever scheme to get the tea out of China and keep the silver at home. 

England controlled much of modern day India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where cheap opium could be had. England offered credit terms to shipping agents and brokers to sell India tea to Chinese merchants provided they only take payment in silver. This silver was used to settle accounts at English banks in Canton China. The same silver was used to buy tea also in Canton. Opium in, tea out and economic crisis averted. Unfortunately, the sudden supply of cheap opium created about 6 million Chinese opium addicts forcing the Emperor to ban its trade. Facing economic ruin again, the British did the unthinkable. They sent the gunboats in and surprised everyone with one victory after another in the first Opium War of 1842. A second war a few years later witnessed the greatest expansion of British economic growth ever, gobbling up huge chunks of China and seizing the Emperor's palace. 

Seeking Coffee & Chocolate

Indonique is seeking manufacturers of Coffee and Chocolate from estates/plantations that are accessible to NGOs like Mercy Corps or Feed the Children or others. 

Please contact George Constance at george@indonique.com

Expanding Social Network

Indonique has made donations to several organizations that work to end Human Trafficing and Child Prostitution. You buy the tea, we make the donations. Doing the right thing should be automatic, built into the business. Some organizations we work with are:

Not For Sale Campaign

Born2Fly

We're offering free tea to the first donors of $20 and $100 to either of these organizations. Donate, save a life, get some free tea.

What's an Assam Tea?

The 380 plus varieties of tea plant can be grouped into two main groups or subspecies of the camellia sinensis tea plant: Camellia sinensis sinensis and Camellia sinensis assamicus. The sinensis sinensis variety is a high grown thin leafed variety or JAT that is native to China. The sinensis assamicus variety is a broad thick leafed lowlands JAT native to Assam India. As would be expected, the assamicus leaf makes a much heavier malty tea than the lighter chinese variety, making it a perfect breakfast tea.

The Assam jat was discovered growing wild in abandoned patches in Assam in 1820's by a Scottish Company man whose brother, after his death eventually established a plantation in the 1850's. This discovery was by far the most important economically for 19th century tea addicted Britain. An addiction that threatened England with economic ruin and lead to two Opium Wars. That's a story for next week.

Indonique donates 10% of every sale we make to the communities where our teas are picked through NGOs like MERCY CORPS. A single box of tea can generate a donation large enough to provide a child in India with school lunches for one week.

GROG

Several European nations claim to have invented Grog. Our favorite story involves the British version. Accordingly, in 1742, British Admiral Edward Vernon avoided near mutiny after cutting his sailors rum ration from one cup to a quarter cup, when his sailors discovered the watered down concoction actually tasted pretty good when the water was hot and steeped in tea. They named it after the Admiral, nick named Old Grog because of his penchant for water resistant grogram cloth. Unfortunately the story is probably not accurate as older references to grog have surfaced recently.

An interesting side story:
Because sailors rightly believed tea was a medicinal drink, they administered it to fever stricken ship mates. The sailor was put to bunk with his at the foot of the bed. He was then administered grog until he could see two hats. At that point the grog was suspended and he was left to sleep it off. The next morning, he was excused from ship's duties as he was considered "GROGGY". So now you know.

Indonique's Grog blend is as close as we can figure Old Grog's recipe. We blend several spices with a whole leaf black tea selected specifically for this Grog blend. Steep and add your own rum and brown sugar. We guarantee you'll re-enlist!

Indonique World Tea Party

OK guys we've set a date for the next Indonique World Tea party: February 27 at Narcissus Chocolate Cafe in Wethersfield, CT. We hope our friends around the world will join us in their own parties and send us some photos or video. We have a theme for this one: Gave up coffee for Lent? Try TEA!

Remember, if you're having Indonique tea, a donation has already been made by Indonique to Mercy Corps to fund programs in the communities where our teas are picked. If not, use any tea and send a dollar per person participatinhg to Mercy Corps. You can make out a check to Mercy Corps with programT42 in the memo section and send to Indonique. we'll forward all the checks to them.

Go to www.indonique.com/wtp for details

Who we are: www.indonique.com

How we do it: www.indonique.com/t42

Watch for our Facebook account this week.

Twitter with us at www.twitter.com/indonique

snail mail at PO Box 1298, Glastonbury, CT 06033

Thanks, George

Woman overpowers thief with tea and sympathy

Woman overpowers thief with tea and sympathy
| Oddly Enough
| Reuters

Healthy lifestyle triggers genetic changes: study

Such small changes in our lifestyle can lead to a much healthier longer life. This article indicates that dietary changes can actually trigger positive health benefits on the genetic level. 

Healthy lifestyle triggers genetic changes: study
| Health
| Reuters

Tea tree oil does not come from the tea plant!

Tea tree oil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Utah teapot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Utah teapot - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

One of the world's first computer generated 3-D images.

The Hindu : National : Tea factory to be open to tourists

The Hindu : National : Tea factory to be open to tourists

Thousands of tourist riot when they discovered Happy Valley tea is actually only tea and Happy Valley is just the name of the valley.

OK  no one rioted but Happy Valley tea - Highest in the world does sound inviting. It's actually an old tea estate reopened as a tea museum with cool vintage 1854 tea making equipment from the earliest days of tea in India.

Visit the link for more.

Black Tea, Miracle Cure: Left Flank

Black Tea, Miracle Cure: Left Flank

Anthrax and English Breakfast - The Current

Anthrax and English Breakfast - The Current

Woman jailed for 'worshipping tea pot' - Telegraph

Woman jailed for 'worshipping tea pot' - Telegraph

BBC NEWS | Health | Milk in tea 'blocks health gains'

Dreadful News! Apparently some of the health benefits of tea are blocked by the addition of milk. Check out this BBC link for details.

Next month - Riots in Britain - reaction to Tea and Milk study.

Groups tell couples to boycott Valentine's Day-India-The Times of India

Groups tell couples to boycott Valentine's Day-India-The Times of India

At restaurant in India, best tables are graveside

At restaurant in India, best tables are graveside

Monkey crackdown no funny business for city - CNN.com

Monkey crackdown no funny business for city - CNN.com

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Sales soar at all-women garage

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Sales soar at all-women garage

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Indian women win bartender ruling

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Indian women win bartender ruling

Bright Lights Film Journal | The Politics of Deepa Mehta's 'Water'

Bright Lights Film Journal | The Politics of Deepa Mehta's 'Water'
More on Indian born Canadian director Deepa Mehta and her latest film "Water" part of a trilogy of films(Earth, Fire & Water) dealing with taboo topics in India. Hindu extremist have attacked and destroyed her set on the second day of shooting.

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Bright Lights Film Journal | Deepa Mehta: Fire

Bright Lights Film Journal | Deepa Mehta: Fire
Interesting article about one of the world's best directors, Deepa Mehta. Her films, dealing with taboo topics in Indian culture, have incited riots and death threats in her native India.

ABC News: Rehab for Rhinos -- Fight to Save Species

ABC News: Rehab for Rhinos -- Fight to Save Species

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Calcutta calm after day of riots

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Calcutta calm after day of riots

Indian fashion industry to be worth Rs 750 cr by 2012-India-The Times of India

Indian fashion industry to be worth Rs 750 cr by 2012-India-The Times of India