T Bar – Shui Xian Oolong tea in the cup

Read the rest of the article here…

]]> http://maykingtea.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/favourite-tearooms-in-australia-part-iv/feed/ 0 maykingtea T Bar - Shui Xian Oolong tea in the cup http://maykingtea.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/favourite-tearooms-in-australia-part-iii/ http://maykingtea.wordpress.com/2012/01/16/favourite-tearooms-in-australia-part-iii/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 03:14:19 +0000 maykingtea http://maykingtea.wordpress.com/?p=380 ]]> Carrying on a theme of favourite tearooms, I head back to Australia and this time my tea journey took me to Adelaide.  After asking for recommendations on Twitter, two places came highly recommended.  In this post I’ll talk about The Perfect Cup.  According to their website The Perfect Cup has several retail outlets Adelaide as well as the one that I visited in Adelaide Central Market.

The website informs us that the market is 140 years old, home to 80 stalls and is South Australia’s most visited tourist attraction.  But I digress: back to the tea.  The Perfect Cup has an extensive list of coffee and as I look for the tea menu the lady behind the counter tells me that their tea list is much bigger than the list displayed and invited me to the back of the store to have a look.

Read the rest of the article here…

Peppermint Oolong

Read the rest of the article here…

Read the rest of the article here…

Read the rest of the article here…

Bethnal Green Road Tea Sign

Read the rest of the article here…

For the launch, I created an event at The Hawthorne Pantry and shared a cup with 7 tea lovers.  It was fabulous.  One of my articles was recently published in the Australian Tea Guide and so we started there, sharing our experiences of Tea Cultures from around the world.  One of the meetup members (whom I affectionately refer to as Tea Lovers) shared her story of how she was invited to a Japanese Tea Ceremony here in Brisbane and shared the link to her blog which is an intimate description with accompanying pictures of how the Japanese Tea Ceremony was performed.  Lots of nodding of heads occurred when I talked about masala chai and the Indian tea culture and of course, no tea talk would be complete without talking about the differences between High Tea and Afternoon Tea.

Another Tea Lover did a show and tell with the wonderful jasmine pearls he brought with him and so we talked about the differing qualities of jasmine teas found in restaurants, Chinese supermarkets and online boutiques.  There were lots of great questions and discussions to come out of the meetup such as why is white tea so-called, we went around the group to ask what each other’s favourite tea was, whether we drank tea with or without milk.  It was a really interesting mix of Tea Lovers from one coffee lover, to seasoned tea drinkers who brought their own personal collection of teas to show us.

My husband pointed out the irony of the Queensland Tea Meetup launch where we were sipping a Ashitaba Herbal Info :o) but tea or herbal, loose leaf or tea bag, it was a great first meetup and I thoroughly enjoyed sipping tea with others and hope that others enjoyed the experience too.

I’ve finally set up a Facebook Business Page (yay!) or more to the point, my dear friend and Queensland Business Partner, Michael Tucker helped to create it for me (thank you, thank you!).  So if tea is your cup of tea (guffaw) and you’d like to learn more about tea, have a question about tea and would like to connect with others who enjoy tea, then hop over to Facebook, like my page and I’ll enjoy sharing a cuppa with you really soon.

I always enjoyed writing stories at school, essays at college and loved writing my dissertation at university so I am truly grateful that writing has re-entered my life, and extremely honoured to be recommended to contribute to Tching.  Tching is an excellent source of information on all things tea and the posts I contribute there are written to assist people who are want to enter the tea industry.  As a tea mentor who has given assistance to tea businesses in the US, UK and Australia, I hope that you find my articles a great resource as well as the whole Tching website which has a breathtaking list of tea writers from around the world.

The second blog I was recently invited to contribute to is The English Tea Store Blog
The English Tea Store Blog is a great resource for anyone who enjoys a cup of tea and would like to know more.  So far I’ve written about tea-rooms I’ve visited in the UK, my Top 10 tips for making tea and what to look for in a good tea-room.

I’m also extremely privileged to be a contributor to the latest Australian Tea Guide where I have written about Tea Cultures from around the world.  (For more information about the Tea Guide, please drop me a tea-mail on info@maykingtea.com.

So that’s MayKing Tea in a nutshell.  Do pop by on Facebook, Twitter or Meetup and say hello.  Raising a cup of tea to you all.  TTFN (ta ta for now).

We all love to hear moving stories and Aina Notoa‘s story of how Gr8 Women evolved is no exception.  I’m truly privileged to be invited to speak about my tea journey from the UK to Australia on Tuesday March 29th and look forward to sharing the stage with Jenni Madison, founder of Coconut Magic, and Leanne Fabila, founder of Tahiti Spirit.

I created the Queensland Business Facebook Group as a forum for business owners to ask questions, assist others and to seek out collaborative opportunities.  Little did I know that a collaborative opportunity was brewing (guffaw) in the form of the group’s first social gathering for business owners.  The 3M’s (myself, Michael Tucker and Maree Brodie) are having another casual meet and greet on Friday April 1st (without the April Fool jokes of course) for small business owners of Queensland.

My next collaboration is with business owners in the health and wellness industry.  I’m delighted to be sharing the stage with Chris Tuck, Jenni Madison again, and Nadine Piat-Niski.  If you’d like to bring a little bit of health and well-being back into your life, whether it’s through incorporating a fitness regime, a cup of tea, coconut oil or by coaching, there’s something for everyone.  The seminar takes place on Tuesday April 5th and to grab an early bird ticket, please register before March 31st.

I feel like I’ve come full circle because after my first tea-tasting collaboration, I’m going to be working with Lucy again from 16th on Park.  This time we’re holding the first in a series of tea pairing classes, starting with tea and desserts.  You can imagine how hard it was for Lucy and I to carry out the research for this workshop (ahem!) but we’re absolutely delighted to introduce three fabulous desserts with three wonderful teas.  Book your place by giving one of us a call: Tea Pairing with Desserts Sunday 10th April 2-4pm

Who are you going to be collaborating with this  year?

This year, I took the DVD’s out early rather than wait for New Year. I decided I was going to get up early (as I believe most Aussies do), pop my gym kit on, insert the DVD and start on the fitness routine straight away (starting with a warm up session of course!) What was different this year was that I was determined to incorporate even more tea into my routine.  Tea? Yes: tea and this is how I do it:

1. Before inserting the DVD, I made my tea at a much lower temperature than normal. Oolong teas can normally stand temperatures of 90^oC (194^oF), but I brewed it at 50^oC (122^oF) so that I could drink it without burning my tongue.  It takes a little longer for the flavours to be drawn out of the tea which gave me enough time to work on the first routine. Any excess water from the kettle, I would pour into a flask (a familiar sight in Chinese households).

2. After the first session, I’d dash over to my teapot, pour the tea, take a few sips, add more water from the flask into my teapot and then it’s back to my TV ready for the second part of the workout.

3. A few huffs and puffs following the second fitness session (as I’m really not as fit as I used to be) and then it’s back to the teapot to pour out the second infusion and then taking a few sips from my second cup of tea.  I fill the teapot for a third infusion and then it’s back to the fitness workout.

What is great about loose leaf tea is that one can make several infusions (several cups of tea) out of the same teaspoon of leaves which I hope I have demonstrated here.

I have stuck with the fitness routine a little over a week now and endeavour to vary it a little so that I don’t grow used to one routine.  Having a new toy like the Kinect really helps so I have been able to vary my routines between several DVDs and various games such as Dance Central and Your Shape.

As I raise a cup of tea as a toast for 2011, I remember the words of a great tea friend and would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Healthy and Happy New Year.