Morning, noon and night tea

By naomi / in Uncategorized / January 9, 2012

Three different varieties of tea all in one box: The Organic Three Tea Sampler

Maybe some of you really do like to drink the same tea, every day, all day long, but not me. Nor am I the sort of person who will ever walk into a restaurant and order "the usual." Call me indecisive if you will, but I like to mix it up.

So when two leaves CEO and founder Richard Rosenfeld first started batting around the idea of creating a box of tea that included a few different varieties in one place, I knew it was a box that would sell well with people just like me. It's all the purchasing power of buying yourself a whole box of tea sachets without the commitment of settling down with one type of tea. Sound good to you? Check out our Organic Three Tea Sampler.

In one box, we give you five sachets each of three of our best selling teas: Organic Assam Breakfast, Organic Tamayokucha Green, and Organic Better Rest Blend herbal tea. You can drink them whenever, wherever, but I like to think of this three tea sampler as your morning, noon and night tea. Have the tea with the most caffeine (Organic Assam Breakfast) in the morning to get your day going, and then in your afternoon slump brew up a smooth green tea (Organic Tamayokucha) to keep yourself going. Once the day is done, greet the evening with a cuppa' Organic Better Rest Blend, an herbal infusion that is a relaxing blend of chamomile, peppermint, hops and valerian that tastes great and gets you ready for bed.

In fact, the Organic Three Tea Sampler might be a great choice if you're looking to present a tea novice with an introduction to the world of tea. One last note about trying different teas: We do, in fact, offer a great sampler that is perfect for pushing yourself out of your comfort zone while getting to try all 18 of the different sachets we offer! Check our our Complete Sachet Sampler and we're sure you'll find a tea (or six) that you love. And while this Three Tea Sampler is not on all store shelves yet (don't forget, it's still new) you can buy it online or ask your local store that carries our tea to carry this sampler as well!

If you could create a custom sampler of several of our teas, what would it include?

Our 2011 tea-centric holiday gift guide

By naomi / in Uncategorized / December 1, 2011

Our Complete Sachet Sampler is one of each of our 18 sachets — and it's pretty, too!

It's a well-known fact in my family that once you publicly declare your love for something, anything, you're going to start getting gifts during the holidays that directly relate to that thing you love. Somewhat embarrassing disclosure: in middle school and high school I develop an almost unhealthy obsession with tropical fish. (Don't judge. This is years ago, people.) As a result, my family knew that anything with a tropical fish motif -- posters, pillows, jewelry -- was great gift fodder.

To this day, this tradition continues in my family. I told my sister I love the color red, she's given me red bracelets and a red reusable tote bag. Everyone in our family knows what my mother collects, so it's quite normal for her to be given a new glass paperweight or set of brass candlesticks. And as far as we know, she loves it.

But I'll get to the point: This is what is great about being a tea drinker, and knowing other tea drinkers. Choosing gifts for tea drinkers is not only easy, it's quite fun! We're presenting our 2011 Gift Guide for Tea Drinkers, with fun stuff we love for the tea drinker in your life, and if you *are* a tea drinker, feel free to print this out and leave it on your kitchen counter, perhaps with "HINT, HINT" written across the top of it, for your family members to stumble across.

Lots of great info crammed into this book for all tea lovers

1. Think the tea lover in your life knows it all? Think again! Check out "The Tea Enthusiast's Handbook -- A Guide to the World's Best Tea" by Mary Lou Heiss, where they can get a brainfull of information on tea and its origins, brewing techniques, the vast varieties of tea in the world, and really useful stuff like how to store tea at home. It dates to 2010, but in the tea world, this stuff doesn't go out of style.

2. If you're reading this, you've already discovered two leaves and a bud tea, but have you discovered *all* of our sachets, and do you wonder if you'll ever get a chance to try them all? Or perhaps you want to introduce a friend to two leaves tea. We think our complete sachet sampler is the perfect gift! For a very affordable $14.95, it's all 18 different kinds of sachets that we offer, including black, green, white and herbal teas.

3. The people at the Tea Appreciation Society really love tea, and as a result, they sell some great items that the tea lovers in your life will absolutely need. There are stickers, mugs, t-shirts and all that, but this is our favorite item.

4. I sometimes wonder what I used to do with my free time before Etsy. If you haven't been to this website that specializes in all things handmade and vintage, be forewarned that you can kill a lot of time trolling around there. That said, when you go there and search for tea-related goods, you'll see everything you didn't realized you (or your tea-loving friend) needed! A good sample:

Perfect little teaspoons ... and a toast knife.

Oh no, one other thing from Etsy that we couldn't resist:

You can take this B.A. Baracus on a plane without tranquilizing him.

5. Maybe you've already discovered these, but they're pretty new: Our Tea Duo is a little package including one sachet each of Organic Assam Breakfast and Organic Better Rest Blend. See? A tea that's perfect for morning, and one that's a great accompaniment to your peaceful evening. They fit perfectly in a stocking, we might note.

6. When we brainstormed a few gifts, marketing coordinator Christy Garfield said, "Maybe look around for a tea gag gift." Well, I did go looking for one, and found this tea bag holder/spoon rest that's quite functional ... and it's in the shape of a dead armadillo. But maybe the tea lover in your life lives in Texas?

7. I recommended this last year, but I never give up on a good gift suggestion: Some of your serious tea-loving friends may turn up their noses at sachets, no matter how much you try to convince them that our pyramid-shaped sachets are full of quality, full-leaf tea. So, maybe surprise those friends with our very unique selection of loose leaf teas! There's probably something we have that they haven't tried, whether that's Organic Keemun Congou, Organic Lavender Earl Grey or Organic Chamomile.

8. And if you've followed the suggestion above, don't forget to get your friend a trustworthy teascale (now on sale!) to measure out the perfect 2.5 grams of tea, no matter what they're drinking.

9. If you can't find a tea infuser on this list that makes a tea-loving friend of yours chuckle ... well, we're afraid you might have really humorless friends. (I bet you didn't think you'd learn that reading a tea blog, did you?)

10. Finally, a cool gadget for the tea drinker who is really short on desk space (who isn't?)

Happy holidays and tea gift giving from us at two leaves!