Heat it up to cool down

By naomi / in Tea Education, Uncategorized / July 11, 2016

Hey tea lovers, can you handle a bit of counterintuitive advice on a hot summer day?

The next time it's really hot outside and you want to cool down, brew yourself a hot cuppa' tea.

And then drink it.

Then — and only then — are you allowed to ask yourself if you feel any better. Any cooler. Any more refreshed.

We're not going to hand you an answer to this one; we simply want to point out that in lots of places around the world where people live in hot weather, tea is not routinely served over ice just because it's more than 80 degrees outside, like it is here in the United States. And we obviously have nothing against iced tea — in fact, we love it! We've created several delicious flavors, in fact.

But did you know that studies have been done on how drinking warm beverages can help keep you cool? We found out about one of those studies at Smithsonian.com. It all seems pretty logical: you increase your body heat when you drink warm beverages, but that also helps you produce more sweat. As you might remember from your 7th grade health class, the entire purpose of sweat is to evaporate in the air, thus cooling the body. It turns out that researchers have found that if all of the extra sweat you produce by drinking that hot beverage can, in fact, evaporate, you'll more than compensate for the added heat to the body that comes from the hot liquid in the first place. Of course, first you have to be willing to sweat. That means you have to be wearing clothes that allow your skin to breathe (aka tank tops and shorts - HELLO, SUMMER WEAR!) and then you have to be in a climate where that sweat is likely to evaporate. So, if it's super humid outside and your sweat isn't likely to evaporate efficiently, too bad for you. Sorry, East coasters.

Up here in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, we compare this effect to hiking up a steep hill in the full sun. You know you're going to sweat all the way up, but you also know when you reach the top and head downhill, boy is that breeze going to feel fantastic.

And look, we've found we never have to work too hard to get a bunch of tea lovers to drink more tea, hot or iced. So give this a shot the next time you really need to cool off, and let us know if it works for you, okay? Cheers to summer!

The very small step between hot tea and hot toddy

By naomi / in Recipes with Tea, Tea Beverages, Tea Cocktails, Uncategorized / February 2, 2016

Hi there, tea lovers. Do any of you need to warm up a bit?

We'll speak for ourselves up here in the Colorado mountains, where an epic snow storm has just left schools closed, roads snow packed and icy, and skiers grinning like they just won the lottery. Some of us took a few turns on the mountains on our skis and boards, but even if we didn't, stepping outside into the deep snow just to shovel out our cars has left us chilled to the bone. Tea to the rescue!

For a long time now, one of our team members, Pam, has been telling us about the virtues of spiking a thermos of our Alpine Berry tea with bourbon and taking it on adventures in the great outdoors. That bright berry tea pairs beautifully with the warm bite of a good bourbon, and warms you from the inside out. We're pretty sure Pam's recipe involves making a thermos of Alpine Berry and then just adding as much bourbon as you feel is appropriate, but that got us thinking about how well other teas might pair with whiskey or bourbon, and giving you tea lovers a couple of recipes.

Voila! We have two for you because we like the concept of one with a caffeinated black tea to pick you up, and one with a soothing herbal tea like chamomile to bring you back down. Both seem quite easy to us, so give them a try!

Whiskey Hot Tea Toddy

serves 1

1 teaspoon honey
5 whole cloves
1 cinnamon stick
1 whole anise star
1 1/2 oz rye whiskey
1/2 cup (or more, to taste) already-brewed hot tea (we would recommend Organic English Breakfast or Paisley Organic English Breakfast)
Slice of lemon

Add honey and spices to the bottom of a heat-proof snifter or mug. Add the whiskey and pour in the tea. Squeeze the lemon, drop it in, and stir until the honey is melted.

Chamomile Bourbon Hot Toddy

serves 1

1 teaspoon honey
1 1/2 ounce bourbon
1/2 cup already-brewed chamomile tea (try Organic Chamomile or Paisley Organic Chamomile)
1 slice Meyer lemon
dash lavender bitters

Add the honey and bourbon to a heat-proof snifter or mug. Top with the tea, squeeze the lemon, and drop it in. Add the lavender bitters and stir until the honey is melted.

January: National Hot Tea Month. Hooray???

By naomi / in Tea Education, Uncategorized / January 16, 2013

Drink hot tea. Lots of it. Especially in January.

It’s January, so welcome to hot tea month! What a relief to be able to drink hot tea during this one month of the year, right?!

We jest, of course. While January is, in fact, National Hot Tea Month, we wondered what that really means. At two leaves tea company™, it’s understandable that we (and most of our fans) drink hot tea year-round. We’d go so far as to say we celebrate hot tea year round. We love the stuff. We sell it, we drink it all day, sometimes we cook with it, and we’d bathe in it if we didn’t think that was wasteful. (That seems wasteful. Doesn’t it? Someone convince us otherwise so we can try that sometime. Bathing in a good strong tub of Organic Assam probably results in a nice tan, wouldn’t you think?)

Who makes up this commemorative month stuff? A glance on Wikipedia told us that January is also National Volunteer Blood Donor Month, National Cervical Cancer Awareness Month, National Glaucoma Awareness Month, National Thyroid Awareness Month, National Financial Wellness Month, National Poverty in America Awareness Month, and National Stalking Awareness Month. Reading that list of everything we’re supposed to be aware of this month made us thirsty for … a (National) cup of hot tea. Good thing National Hug Day is Jan. 21. (Don’t even get us started on the national commemorative days.)

Shouldn’t National Hot Tea Month go hand in hand with National Scone Month? (Get this: I just Googled and found that there is no National Scone Month, but January IS National Oatmeal Month, which lends itself to this recipe for Triple Berry Oatmeal Scones! The Internet is amazing.)

Furthermore, is there a National Tepid Tea Month? Naturally, June is National Iced Tea Month, so there’s one mystery solved. If two leaves tea company™ were naming commemorative months, we might name a Get Out of Your Rut and Try a New Tea Month, or Increase Your Mental Flexibility by Sipping Your Tea While Using your Non-Dominant Hand to Hoist Your Mug Month. (Yes, our commemorative months are wordy, but we like them that way.)

And when it comes to other months our staffers might like to see, Marketing Coordinator Christy Garfield would like a National Cheese Month, and my preferred month would be National Put Your Kids to Bed an Hour Early Month. We’ve decided that two leaves™ CEO/Founder Richard Rosenfeld needs to declare December National Cassoulet Month, because he spends several days of that month at home making this rich, slow-cooked casserole during the holiday season.

So, until our wishes come true, we wish you a happy National Hot Tea Month. We hope you celebrate all year long, every single day. (What kind of tea company would we be if we only wanted you to drink hot tea in January and on ice in June, anyway?) Chime in with your own suggested months, tea-related or otherwise …