I am sure I am not the first person to say that to you, though perhaps I am the first to not be drunkenly shouting it at your face. (If your night was as hard as I imagine it, perhaps you should read about how tea helps with a hangover). But I say it nonetheless.

I am not young. You have no doubt realized this by my extreme tea knowledge and wisdom (if not by incredibly wrinkled face and beard that stretches almost to my knees these days). So I cannot say that it delights me to see that another year has passed. But the future does indeed look bright, and I look forward to sharing it with you.

As I have told you before, tea helps fight aging. And while I may not look as young as I once did, I still feel young and healthy. And so I raise my teacup to you and your tea-seeking friends, and hope that you will find your way to the Perfect Pot of Tea this year.

Now, as I sip my rooibos tea (I need help in the digestion department. I did not drink to celebrate, but I perhaps ate more fudge than I should have, and my tummy is shall we say unhappy with me), please give me a bit of peace and quiet. I need a bit more rest before I start my year.

Just got back from an extended holiday with the folks. and it’s glad to be drinking a big cuppa English Breakfast Tea from my favorite mug, with my itty bitty kitty cat lying on my feet, purring. warm and comfy and done with the stress of holiday shopping pressures. I’m sure you know what I mean!

The ‘rents made fun when they saw that I had an entire bag full of Amanzi Teas, but as I explained, I need different kinds of tea for different things, and no one can predict the future! Best to be prepared! And sure enough, I used every type of tea I brought!

The first day I arrived, I felt like I was coming down with a cold. I’m sure it had to do with all the mall time I had to spend shopping for the perfect gift for all my friends and family. (And I ended up getting everyone stuff from AmanziTea.com anyway — ha!) So of course, it was good that I had brought along my favorite kind of green tea. I had a couple of cups of Gojiberry Infusion Green Tea. The antioxidants found in green tea helped me kick that virus to the curb before it could really get a foothold.

On Christmas Eve, I needed a little help getting to sleep so Santa could come. A big cup of Sweet Dreams Tea was just the thing — since it’s herbal tea, there’s no caffeine to keep me up. Perfect! 

And of course, after the big meal, I really (REALLY!) needed some rooibos tea to help with the digestion. (Too….much…turkey!) Tiramisu Rooibos Tea was just the ticket, since it was time for dessert (and I didn’t stay away from the pecan pie, I admit it!)

But now I’m home, and I have to get back to work. I need a little caffeine jolt to help me get going, so it’s time for the aforementioned English Breakfast Tea. Black Tea is just what I need in the mornings.

Speaking of which, I think my tea has cooled sufficiently. Now it’s time to get to work. Hope you have a happy new year, tea drinkers!

now back to work, so a strong black tea

Making tea in a coffee press

Season’s greetings, lovers of tea!

The Season of Giving is over. Teato has given many beautiful gifts to many beautiful women this Christmas, but he has also received some wonderful presents. And while some lovely and generous ladies know my tastes extremely well (I love delicious tea; this is no surprise to loyal readers) others seem to know very little about me.

One lovely girl actually gave me a coffee press for Christmas. A coffee press! It’s as if we are total strangers! But all is not lost. I will make the best of it, and pass on this important tea lesson to you. You can make tea with a coffee press — in fact, it’s a great way to brew loose leaf tea, which as you know, is far superior to teabags.

It’s easy to make tea with a coffee press. Just follow these easy steps:

1. Put the tea leaves in the carafe.

2. Pour hot water into the carafe.

3. After allotted steeping time is up, slowly press the plunger to the bottom.

4. Pour the tea into a teapot or cup.

This last step is very important. If you know much about brewing a perfect cup of tea, then you will know that tea can only steep a certain amount of time without starting to taste bitter.

It is not hard to make tea, but it is hard to make GOOD tea.I hope this will help you to brew a better cup of tea. And when someone gives you a coffee press, do not think it requires you to drink coffee. A tea lover’s heart cannot be tamed.

I know Christmas is almost here and everything, so I was just thinking that maybe some people are still trying to think about what to get that special someone that they just never know what to get, you know? I know, I’ve been there!

Well as I swirled a cinnamon stick around my steaming cup of Ginger Peach Tea (my very favorite kind of tea…at least for today, lol!) it occurred to me that i could totally help those people still trying to think of what last minute gift they should buy. And in case you couldn’t guess, it has to do with tea, of course!

My idea is that everyone loves tea. And why shouldn’t they? It’s good for you, has tons of health benefits, and in the winter, it’s just about your best friend in the world.( A thick blanket around my shoulders and a cup of hot tea in my hands, and I think I could survive ANYTHING!) So I think you should get them a new teapot!

Seriously. Check this link here for great teapots, tea kettles, and everything you could need to brew the perfect pot of tea. Or if they’re the expert tea lover like me, and they already have all the great tea tools, then get them some more tea! You can never have too much! And Amanzi has some delicious blends of teas you just can’t get anywhere else!

It’s not brain surgery, but hopefully I have provided a “Eureka moment” for one or two of you out there. And if you’re not in Greenville, South Carolina, where you can just hop over for a quick last minute tea present, get them something from their Online Tea Store, and let them know they’re going to have a great surprise coming!

Hope your holidays are filled with hot cups of tea and delicious gingerbread cookies!

Oh how you have missed me, no doubt. I pity you all. stirring your big cups of tea, scanning this tea blog in the hopes of seeing my cartooned face smiling back at you with a bit of good information about the best type of tea. How disappointed you must have been!

I’m afraid I have been a bit busy this past month with some sort of labour dispute among my serfs. Nothing I can’t handle–or rather, that my men can’t handle. (I try not to dirty my hands with even knowing the details of such distasteful matters). But it has resulted me in having to hole up in my fortified tower here in there with just a few barrels of my favorite loose leaf teas and couple of thick volumes of my life story.

But now that you’re boringly American holiday has passed, like my little uprising, we can focus on my favorite holiday — Christmas.

Yes, I so love sitting up late on Christmas Eve with a delicious cup of Amanzi Black Tea. It gives me a bit of a caffeine boost to help me stay up, waiting to catch Santa’s arrival. Somehow I always seem to miss him, but I think this year I shall see what he is bringing me. I do so need a new riding crop!

So as the weather gets cold, and you find yourself drinking even more hot tea than usual, wrapping your hands around the teacup for warmth, I hope you’ll think of the long journey that tea took to get there to you, and how special a good cup of tea is on a cold night. And perhaps you’ll leave a cup of tea out for old Saint Nick himself. He surely must be cold up there!

I will offer him one myself, But I have to catch him first…

I received a notice from one of my amore loyal subjects that there was a wonderful video about tea that I should see, and now I shall share it with you.

This fun little ditty is well-animated, reminding me of the animation of my countrymen the Monty Python gang or something like that. On top of that, there are many references to my beloved country (and your less beloved homeland), both visual and otherwise. And of course, it is about my favorite subject: tea.

So enjoy this wonderful video. I know I did. And have a cup of tea. For the love of God.

As your beloved trainer in the Way of Tea, I just thought I might share something i saw in the paper this morning as I was having my Earl Grey Tea. (If you ever tell the Earl of Grey I sometimes drink his tea, I will deny it. This is a secret, and I will not feed that brute’s ego further.)

It seems that in an exotic place called Plaistow, New Hampshire, some middle schoolers have decided to honor their elders and to let them know how appreciated they are, by serving them tea.

For the past thirty years, middle schoolers have served tea, pastries, and other donated items to grandparents, neighbors, and other seniors. It’s their way of reaching out to the community, and letting their elders know how important they are.

I’m sure you can see why I point this out to you. While drinking tea has helped me stay young-looking and healthy, I am not as young as I once was, I am not ashamed to say, and would love the occasional cup of tea served to me by some of the young boys who often call me names and throw things at me when I emerge from meditating on tea in my inner sanctum.

So as the year comes to a close, and you’ll soon be trying to think of ways to be better next year, perhaps it’s time to think of those that have come before you, and to let them know they’re appreciated.

FYI: My favorite tea is Dragon Earl Tea. (It’s a delicious Oolong.) I wear a size medium sweater and look great in plaid. Any color.

Please, take a moment to stop whatever you are doing, and listen to a bit of wisdom brought to you by a humble Tea Lover. As I wait for my cup of Winter Romance Tea to cool (who wants romance more than I, and in the winter more than ever! Though while I prefer a cooler cup of tea, I hope the romance itself is hot hot hot), I wish to share a little tip of the trade. My heart is overflowing with generosity today

As you know I Teato Flavio, enjoy the company of the ladies quite a bit. I have many powerful seduction techniques, but none is more important than this one simple thing: my smile.

But what good is a smile if your teeth are rotting out of your head? None at all, as the man with the cardboard sign on the corner at the street light can tell you. So here is some information you will appreciate:

A recent study has found that black tea is good for your teeth. Better, they are saying than water, since black tea has more health benefits than water does. 

Researchers soaked teeth in different liquids for 20 weeks, and then examined them. Turns out, soda, orange juice, and especially vinegar, all caused the teeth to erode and decay, while black tea and water did not. And since black tea has cancer-fighting tannins and fluoride to strengthen teeth against, some are saying that black tea is best for teeth, even as compared to water!

Are you taking my point, lovers? Tea strengthens your teeth, which makes your smile brighter and s=wider, and makes you more appealing to the fairer sex.

So have a cup of black tea and smile, knowing that smile will last much longer!

It’s been a little while since my last post — I’ve been recovering from all the turkey I ate and the fun times I had sipping Treasure Island Tea, my most recent favorite flavor from Amanzi Tea, with my family. (If you’re like me, nothing goes better with a full belly than a cup of hot black tea. It helps with digestion and settles the stomach, after all!) And now it seems like I can barely blink but Christmas is coming up! The holidays just keep coming.

But that’s got me thinking, as the holidays start overtaking us, and the bitter winter climate greets us every morning, as our neighbors start covering their homes in Christmas lights and candy canes, my mood tends to change. I start wanting a more…winter kind of tea, that goes with the season. Well, don’t you worry, cause I’ve got you covered!

The holidays can be a stressful time. The cold mornings make getting our of bed and going to work even less fun than usual, The sub-freezing temperatures mean you’re probably not outside getting a lot of natural light for a few months, and of course the cold weather means you need a whole new winter wardrobe — you can’t be seen in the same coat as last year, am i right? So what better, way as you start thinking about buying the perfect gift (tea-related, of course) and who you’ll spend new years’ eve with, of relieving the stress and keeping warm than with a bright holiday tea.

Since it’s colder, it’s a lot easier to go with a more robust black tea – no light, summery blends in this cold weather! Cinnamon Spice Tea is a very popular blend, warming you up form the inside with a spicy flavor.

If you aren’t a huge fan of caffeine but do enjoy a bit of cinnamon, I recommend Winter Romance Tea. It’s an herbal tea (aka tisane), so there’s no caffeine to mess with your delicate system or keep you up too late at night.

Of course, it is Christmastime, and those giant candy canes have got everyone thinking about how nice a peppermint tea would be, am I right? Well don’t worry, Jasmine has got you covered! The traditional Peppermint Tea certainly doesn’t disappoint — it’s an herbal tea too, so don’t worry about caffeine. But if you DO want a little burst of energy to get you through that hard day of shopping at the mall, the Gaucho Mint Tea Blend is a yerba tea blend, meaning it comes with a natural form of caffeine that will be gentler on your stomach but still give you a little extra oomph.

If you want a mint tea that still packs all the incredible health benefits of green tea, then try Moroccan Mint.

Rooibos Tea is enjoyed by many and is known for being extremely healthy too. If that’s more your bag, then try Vanilla Mint Tea. No matter what your favorite type of tea, there’s a mint tea out there for you!

This should help you cope through the long winter months. Hang in there, and be good boys and girls, and maybe you’ll get a great new tea set or something equally wonderful from your friends and family in which to make them!

As you are no doubt aware, this day is not special to every single part of the world except the United States. And no one celebrates it in any other countries except the American who happen to be there, nevertheless, as my American tea students have begged and begged, they will not be meditating on the tiny molecules of tea permeating their tea cup today. They will instead be eating and talking about the things they are thankful for.

And while as far as my students are concerned, this is just an excuse not to study and train, to you I will admit this one thing: it is not altogether an unfruitful practice to remember the things which make one happy, and to acknowledge their existence and your gratitude for it. And in that spirit, let me tell you something for which I am thankful: a little bit of peace and quiet.

What is the sound of tea brewing? A little peace and quiet

I call it the sound of tea brewing. It’s the soft rustle of the breeze on the curtain outside. It’s the chirp of a bird or a cricket outside somewhere. The gentle vibration of the earth’s tectonic plates shifting underneath you oh so slowly. it’s the peaceful relaxation that comes from complete stillness.

It’s also the sound of my students giving me a whole day off to meditate and enjoy my tea without having any ridiculous questions or crises. Which, truth be told, is more rare than I would like for it to be.

So as they wander off to tell their friends how grateful they are to not have to think about the many blends of black tea that exist, or why Japan makes the best green teas, I will sit back and enjoy the sound of tea brewing. And for that I will definitely be grateful.