Tea With a Twist

I recently received a copy of Tea With a Twist Entertaining and Cooking with Tea by author Lisa Boalt Richardson. What a fun and creative collection of tea party ideas. My favorite themed parties in this book are the Tropcial Party, Southern Tailgate Party and the All About Chocolate Tea Party but don't take my word for it. Pick up your own copy with fabulous recipes, great stories and lively photos for your own entertaining and reading enjoyment.

Mrs. B's a New Addition to the Littleton Tea Community

During a quick meeting with Jolynne, owner of Mrs. B's Tea Parlour in Littleton, CO the desire and passion for owning her very own tea business has been a dream for years. The grand opening will be taking place on Thurday, May 28, 2009. It may be difficult to land a reservation with this new establishment so call early for the dates you are interested in partaking in your afternoon tea.

Myth Busters of Tea

I had a very interesting discovery during a conversation with a young woman earlier this week. I mentioned my book that I am writing which lead into further discussion about tea. During our conversation I explained how there are hundreds of types of teas. This woman was baffled! She thought that tea was thee process of steeping herbs. She also had no idea that there was an actual tea plant. This interesting discovery shed some light onto some of the basics that will need to be covered or addressed in my book about tea experiences.

Do you have any misconceptions regarding tea? If so I would like to hear your thoughts.

Balcony Gardening at the Top of the World

Growing up my family would pick fresh carrots, peas, apples, cucumbers and more from our family garden. Moving to the city this was one simple pleasure that I realized I may have taken for granted.

I live in a high rise building in a unit with plenty of balcony space. Our HOA President, Dal Bradley was very interested in starting a Green Committee. I jumped at this opportunity to lead the efforts in our building to be the Green Committee Chair. One of the projects that I started was bringing in a guest speaker from Living Earth Center in Denver to teach our homeowners how to balcony garden. We were taught about irrigation, pot placement, proper plant selection, soil use and more.

With over 300 days of sunshine in Colorado it made sense to start my own balcony garden with herbs of mint, oregano, basil; vegetables including radishes, peas, broccoli and cucumbers as well as attempting to revive some hops stems to provide shading on our balcony oasis. I even planted sunflowers as this is a plant that loves a great deal of sun!

One future plan for our building that I would like to implement later this summer...when we begin to "harvest" our vegetables have a progressive tour of our balconies. Each homeowner preparing an appetizer, drink or dessert with something that was grown in their balcony garden. This will also create an opportunity to become better acquainted with other homeowners in our community. Who knows what creations I will come up with for parties and celebrations. Maybe even trying my herbs to blend with various teas that I drink. I am ready to experiment and to have fun with my balcony garden oasis.

World Tea Expo Cocktail Competition

What an exciting opportunity to attend my first World Tea Expo in Las Vegas! My brain is on overload with the collection of information that I gathered...but well worth it! On Sunday the World Tea Expo held the Tea Cocktail Competition that I had the pleasure of watching as well as sampling the top five finalists beverages. With creations that were infused, stirred, blended, steeped, chilled, ground and shaken with a wide collection of teas from around the world it truely is amazing how one plant is tranformed into a variety of delicious, eye catching and healthy surprises. The Tea Expo provided the recipes for the top fifteen competitors that went head to head in a cocktail preparation that could be completed in 2 minutes or less. Visit The World Expo for the top five finalists and the recipes. My favorite out of the top five finalists would have to be the Chocolate MarTEAni. Are you surprised?

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