Make it easy to have restorative and mindful tea sessions this spring: sign up for my online Spring Rest Kit for Tea Lovers!
Registration is open now.
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Tea Shares Another Lesson About Rest
It seems like every month, tea shares another lesson about rest with me!
As I have mentioned in earlier posts, I’ve had to cut back my tea consumption. These days, I’m usually only drinking tea in the morning. The process of reducing my tea intake has made me confront one way I used tea that was denying me the fuller rest I need.
Tea Can Give Us Restful Pauses
Before I share this insight, I would like to emphasize that I regularly incorporate short, mindful tea breaks into my days. They feel gentle, affirming, and restorative. A day with these tea-and-rest pauses is so much better than a day without them. I still interact with tea this way almost every morning. I used to integrate afternoon tea pauses into my day, too.
My experiences with tea have shown its generosity as a gateway to rest and mindfulness. That’s one reason why, for example, I’ve offered tea and rest experiences. Registration, in fact, is open for my online Spring Rest Kit for Tea Lovers. (It’s my second online Rest Kit. Alas, I accidentally overwrote the post about the first rest kit.) But, I do want to share some limitations, in my opinion, of *only* using tea as a rest practice.
Join Taniya Gupta from YogaTeaPoetry and Traci Levy from Tea Infusiast for an online International Women’s Day Celebration with Tea and Poetry!*
Background
International Women’s Day, officially honored every year on March 8th, was created in 1911. It’s a day to focus our attention on creating, “a gender equal world. A world free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination…that’s diverse, equitable, and inclusive.” It promotes “a world where difference is valued and celebrated” (InternationalWomensDay.com).
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Tea Infusiast News, No. 14
February 2024, Winter
Welcome to the February 2024 edition of Tea Infusiast News–a newsletter for tea lovers to connect with and through tea. This is the 14th edition of the newsletter.
In this February 2024 Edition
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5 Tips for Attending Tea Festivals
This post shares 5 tips for attending tea festivals–how to prepare, what to bring, and an important thing to plan to do during festivals.
What Is a Tea Festival?
Tea festivals are events open to the public (often requiring attendees to purchase tickets) that feature vendors and artisans (sometimes even producers) who sell tea, teaware, accessories, and related merchandise. They also usually sell tea sweets or other food items.
Additionally, the festivals usually feature tea professionals who offer workshops on topics that range from Tea 101 to specific types of tea, tea and meditation, cooking, history and culture, and so on. They are a great opportunity for tea lovers to try new tea, see teaware, learn, and connect with others.
The USA features a number of tea festivals–including, but not limited to: Chicago Tea Festival, Midwest Tea Festival, Northwest Tea Festival, Pennsylvania Tea Festival, TeaFestPDX, etc. Other countries have tea festivals, too.
(Photo: Me at Tea Fest PDX in July 2022. This festival was held mostly outside in Portland, Oregon. I’ve written before about some of my delightful experiences with tea in Portland in this post, “Tea in the Canyon.”)
Overview of the 5 Tips
After returning from Canada and attending the wonderful Toronto Tea Festival, I reflected on tips for attending tea festivals. Here, I’ve gathered a few–including some from tea friends!
My 5 tips are:
- Bring empty, refillable bags for tea
- Bring a backpack or tote
- Bring a water bottle and a few napkins
- Eat before you attend
- Plan breaks
(In this Toronto Tea Festival Photo: Marco from Steap’d, me–Traci from Tea Infusiast, Taniya from YogaTeaPoetry, and Mona from Chai Affairs.)
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Tips for Restful Tea Time
This post shares four tips for restful tea time!
Restful tea time can be as simple as bringing your awareness to the present while enjoying a cup of tea.
Or, you can spend some time setting up the experience to make it more intentional and restorative.
There’s no right or wrong way: there’s the way that works best for you on any given day.
I’ve pulled together a few tips and questions to help you customize a restorative tea time that works for you.
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Herbal Tea Recommendations
This post shares herbal tea recommendations based on flavor profiles that I love.
I’ve always been primarily a non-herbal tea drinker. It took me years to find herbal teas that I really enjoy. In this post, I’m happy to highlight seven that I love.
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Tea Infusiast News, No. 13
January 2024, Winter
Welcome to the January 2024 edition of Tea Infusiast News–a newsletter for tea lovers to connect with and through tea. This is the 13th edition of the newsletter.
In this January 2024 Edition
Let’s enjoy a CommuniTEA Spotlight Retrospective: July – November 2023!
This post recaps and updates information about members of the tea community featured in my monthly newsletter, Tea Infusiast News, during the second half of 2023.
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Teas of 2023
This post shares the wonderful teas of 2023 that my monthly newsletter, Tea Infusiast News, featured in its “What’s Steeping” section.
I paid full price for each of these teas (except one given to me by a friend). In other words, no one is sponsoring this post.*