Oatstraw

It's the holiday season and if you are enjoying a cocktail or two, and feeling a little jaded the next day, don’t worry, a delicious cup of tea can help.

If you want to up your tea game, water temperature is a good place to start. Together with tea quality and steeping time, water temperature is one of the most important factors involved in brewing a perfect cup of tea.

I had called a local tea shop a few weeks ago to find out if they had any yellow tea from a different farm than our suppliers so that I could do some taste comparisons, and got this unexpected answer: “Sorry sir, there is no such thing as yellow tea… "

Making a concentrated brew allows you to use tea for so many other purposes besides a hot cuppa.

It’s apple season! It’s a truly delicious time of hot apple cider, warm apple crumble and freshly baked apple pies.

Of course, we cannot blame you if you’ve made the same mistake as many and assumed that Orange Pekoe is a flavor of tea. Something about it just sounds exotic and delicious, doesn’t it? But we’re here to tell you that that’s actually not the case: Orange Pekoe is in fact a grade of tea, a way to tell how good one tea is from the other based on the leaves themselves.

It’s hard to beat a warm cheese biscuit, fresh out of the oven – but, add a little smoke flavour from a bold Lapsang Souchong, and you’ve got yourself a real savoury treat.

If you’re a fan of the London Fog, or Earl Grey tea latte, try this seasonal twist for spring and summer. It’s like an iced London Fog, but with cold froth/foam on top. Before you stir, the cold froth sits on top of the tea, looking a bit like clouds, while infusing your iced tea latte with creaminess.