Recent Articles and Events by T Consultancy IBUKI Magazine Article "Green Tea: A Healthy Habit for the New Year" January 2012 After the free-for-all eating spree otherwise known as the holiday season, many of us are ready for a change of pace in the new year. If your New Year’s resolution is to eat healthier, consider adding a cup of tea to your daily routine. For Your Health In China, tea was originally consumed as a medicinal plant for its many health benefits. Today, modern science is discovering many of these benefits as well. Green tea is often studied for its antioxidant properties. These antioxidants can help prevent the body from free radicals, which damage cells and can lead to heart disease, cancer or arteriosclerosis. Studies indicate that drinking as little as two cups of green tea per day can help prevent the buildup of bad (LDL) cholesterol in the arteries. In addition, people who drink two or more cups of tea per day tend to have fewer incidents of heart disease and stroke, and recover from heart attacks faster. For Your Beauty Tea may also help speed up the metabolism and accelerate weight loss, especially when combined with exercise. The list of potential benefits goes on, from strengthening teeth to boosting the immune system to protecting the skin from harmful UV rays. The key to changing your diet is to set realistic goals and to enjoy your new habits. Perhaps substitute a cup of tea for your morning mocha, or a candy-cane-flavored green tea for that peppermint ice cream! You never know what the cumulative effect of those single cups per day may have. How to Brew Green Tea Many people do not enjoy green tea because they feel it tastes grassy or bitter. However, they are probably just victims of poorly brewed tea. Green teas are very delicate, so they become bitter when brewed with boiling water. Properly brewed green tea tastes sweet, smooth and rich. Steep your green tea in water below the boil, when tiny bubbles are just starting to form on the bottom of your kettle. Or bring water to a boil, then let it cool for five minutes. A general rule of thumb is to use about one teaspoon of tea leaves per eight ounces of water. Once you add below-the-boil water to your green tea, steep leaves for 1-2 minutes at most. Then remove the teabag/tea infuser or decant the tea into a separate cup. This prevents the overly grassy or bitter flavors in green tea from coming out. find your favorit. Find Your Favorite While green tea is the most studied for its health benefits, all tea comes from the same plant, whether it is green, black, oolong, pu-erh or white tea. The difference is in how the leaves are processed. What is most important is that the tea you drink tastes good to you, since that is how it will become a regular habit. In this new year, try taking small, attainable steps — or sips — toward better health! Click here to read the article on Ibuki's website IBUKI Magazine Article "Comfort in a Cup: Warming Winter Teas" November 2011 Around the world, tea is a symbol of hospitality, warmth and comfort. On these dreary winter days when the cold seems to seep into your bones, a steamy cup of tea can make all the difference. One of the unique properties of tea is its ability to simultaneously relax and revive. Buddhist monks discovered this centuries ago and drank tea to sustain them through long sessions of meditation. Tea does contain caffeine, though most teas yield about half or less the caffeine of coffee. A number of factors influence the caffeine level in tea, but generally green teas tend to have less caffeine than black teas. Tea also contains an amino acid called L-theanine, which promotes relaxation and mental clarity. Studies indicate that tea’s combination of caffeine and L-theanine provides a gentler lift and more prolonged mental focus than the quick jolt that other caffeinated drinks may induce. If you’re in need of a cup of cheer this winter, here are a few teas to warm you from the inside out... Click here to read more Adagio TeaMuse Article "Have Tea, Will Travel" November 2011 With the holidays approaching, many of us will be trekking across land or sea to visit our loved ones. Travel can be fun, but it’s often hard to leave the comforts of home—especially your tea cupboard! Tea drinkers may be hard-pressed to find a decent cuppa while on the road, whether it’s because of lukewarm restaurant teas, less-than-delicious café teabags, or coffee-flavored hotel water. But you don’t have to compromise your tea standards just because you’re in transit; here are a few tips to make it through your holiday travels with tea in hand. First, a quality travel mug is a must-have. My travel mug shares in all of my adventures, and we’ve been through a lot together! I prefer double-walled stainless steel travel mugs since they keep your tea piping hot for hours and they don’t easily die in the hands of a klutz like me. I recommend travel mugs with screw-on lids such as those by Timolino, and the bottles by Thermos, in which the lid becomes the drinking cup. These rugged travel companions can be thrown in backpacks, flung topsy-turvy, and (from personal experience) dropped down flights of cement stairs without leaking or breaking. The downside is that stainless steel containers can pick up strong flavors, so it’s not ideal if you brew your Masala Chai and Snowbud white tea in the same mug... Click here to read more Adagio TeaMuse Article "North of the Border: Tea in Canada" October 2011 If you’re reading this article, chances are you know that tea is hot, hot, hot in the U.S. But did you know that a parallel tea movement is happening a few miles north of the border? Across Canada, tea shops and tea communities are blooming like Jasmine Pearl leaves in a teacup. Per person, Canadians drink more tea than Americans. Each year the average Canadian consumes 264 cups of tea, compared to about 212 cups per person in the U.S. Coffee is still the most popular beverage in Canada, with about 14 billion cups consumed per year, next to tea’s 9 billion cups. But in recent years, new tea companies have reintroduced tea to the modern tea drinker. A good place to start a tea tour of Canada is Victoria, British Columbia, on the west coast. This city is capital of British Columbia and arguably the city in Canada which retains the most British influence (Canada was officially part of the British Empire until 1931 and remains a member of the British Commonwealth). With Victoria’s English architecture, cobblestone streets, and pubs with names like “The Penny Farthing,” the city is, not surprisingly, full of tea shops as well... Click here to read more IBUKI Magazine Article "The Tea of Asia: A Two-Minute Tour" September 2011 Earthy. Floral. Spicy. Buttery. These are some of the many flavors that can be found in a humble cup of tea. Many people consider tea to be nothing more than a convenient liquid to wash down a meal, but this beverage represents a world of flavors that can delight the palate of any food aficionado. All tea comes from the camellia sinensis plant. But like wine, the taste of tea can vary due to plant varietal, cultivation and terroir. Once you’ve experienced the variety of flavors that tea can offer, you’ll understand why tea is the most consumed beverage worldwide, second only to water! Here is a quick tour through some of the teas of Asia... Click here to read more

Fresh Cup Magazine Article "Matcha Makeover" May 2010 Twenty years ago, few people in North America had heard of matcha, and fewer still had actually tried it. Now the jade-green powdered tea from Japan is riding the wave of green tea’s popularity and quietly developing a following around the world. Matcha has popped up everywhere, finding its way into body lotions, evening cocktails and (of course) tea cups. Is matcha right for your customers? According to Jesse Jacobs, founder of San Francisco-based Samovar Tea Lounge, there’s no such thing as a person who doesn’t like matcha. Rather, it’s a matter of finding the right form of matcha to fit each person’s taste preference. “Never before have we sold so much,” he says. “Demand has increased over the years.” TBar, an urban tea café in Philadelphia, demonstrates how matcha can fit every customer. On the food menu, the tea can be found in Japanese pastry rolls and cookies, imparting the sweets with a smooth, earthy, vegetal flavor. On the tea menu, two of the most popular beverages have the product at their cores: the  Matcha Latte, made with milk and served hot or iced, and the Choco-Matcha-Mint Latte. And to taste matcha in a more distilled form, TBar customers can order the tea served in the style of a traditional Japanese tea ceremony. In this set-up, matcha powder is combined with a small amount of hot water and frothed with a bamboo whisk. Click here to read full article (PDF)

Event: Nakayoshi Tea Tasting T. Consultancy holds occasional tea tastings around the Bay Area. In April I hosted a tea tasting for the Nakayoshi Young Professionals at Samovar Tea Lounge, taking 20 attendees through a tour of teas from China, Taiwan, Japan, and India!

Adagio TeaMuse Article "Tea Year's Resolutions" January 2010 It's that time of year again! New Years used to find me creating lofty resolutions like "Make the world a better place!" or "Connect with friends more!" The problem with these goals is that as admirable as they may be, they are too broad to be relevant. They are so overwhelming to consider, that I usually give up after a few brief half-hearted attempts. Day-to-day life gets in the way and I forget about my ambitious plans to bring about world peace. What works better are the New Year's resolutions packed with specific, manageable steps. Rather than "be more productive," it is easier to "be more productive by only spending 30 minutes on email every morning instead of 1 hour." Instead of "be a nicer person" it is better to "be a nicer person by giving one person a compliment each day." A goal moves from theory into reality when it is translated into specific actions. What if tea were the qualifier for your New Year's resolutions? Here are a few tea-infused twists on popular New Year's resolutions to make your goals attainable... Click here to read more Adagio TeaMuse Article "A Journey Through Chinese Food and Tea Pairings at the Imperial Tea Court" Visit any Chinese restaurant and you will always be served a big pot of tea with your meal. Whether you're enjoying heaping plates of spicy Szechuan food or selecting appetizer-sized dim sum from a bevy of carts in Hong Kong, having tea with the meal is as important as having a plate to eat on! But just as the flavors of Chinese food vary by region, the teas you would be served vary by region as well. The Imperial Tea Court is ideal place to explore Chinese teas and cuisine. Husband and wife duo Roy and Grace Fong established the Imperial Tea Court to bring the experience of a traditional Chinese teahouse to the San Francisco Bay Area. They even imported custom-made furniture for their stores, modeled in the Ming dynasty style furniture of northern China. At the San Francisco shop, my friend Cassandra and I felt like ancient Chinese royalty, sitting in the dark rosewood chairs with lanterns hovering our heads. The Tea Court serves an expansive array of teas and all-organic Chinese food. Faced with the menu, we got that deer-in-the-headlights feeling. Where to start? Fortunately Roy was on hand to recommend some excellent food and tea combinations. Click here to read more Adagio TeaMuse Article "Teashop Review: The Teapod in San Anselmo, California" When I moved to San Francisco, everyone warned me of Mark Twain's supposed pronouncement: "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco". As my friend Pru and I headed across the Golden Gate Bridge to visit the Teapod organic tea bar, the summer day was trying hard to prove that adage accurate. Cold fog shrouded the bridge so it felt like we were driving up to heaven. But suddenly the grey disappeared and we found ourselves in sunny San Anselmo, with blue skies and rolling hills all around. The Teapod is nestled in a quaint neighborhood of boutiques and restaurants. Its renovated warehouse front was open, inviting us in to the bright interior. Sleek and simple décor brought the term "minimalism" comes to mind, but the shop was not cold the way some modern design can be. An afternoon rush brought in locals lingering over the daily paper and teeny-boppers getting their daily bubble tea fix. Customers greeted co-owner Chris by name. "The usual?" he asked. But nothing is "usual" about the Teapod! Click here to read more

Events: Tea Tastings at the Bay Area Hub Last winter I hosted regular tea tastings the Bay Area Hub. The Hub is a global network of social innovators, and the first U.S. Hub opened recently in Berkeley, California. Tea companies Adagio, Samovar Tea Lounge and Teance Fine Teas donated to these tea tastings, with a focus on teas sourced from fair-trade programs and small family farms. Check out photos here!