The Tea House Times
During the World Tea Expo Tea Radio (TM) was able to interview Gail from The Tea House Times.
She was kind enough to share one of her products with us. The "Etiquette Cards."
Gail also gave Tea Radio (TM) listeners some insite to the future of tea, information on The Tea House Times Tea Bureau, and how she got started in the business of tea.
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Tea Radio (TM) audio interview with Gail. Link will play automatically. No downloading required. Just left click this link and the audio will play using your computers media program.
Download the_tea_house_times2.mp3
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For more information on The Tea House Times click on the link below.
http://www.theteahousetimes.com/
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Below is the transcript of the interview with Gail.
Dawnya: Hi. I am with Gail from the Tea House Times and we are talking today about Tea Bureau. It is her latest thing. First of all , I just want to welcome you to the program. Welcome to Tea Radio, Gail.
Gail: Thank you very much. It is so nice to be here with you Dawnya.
Dawnya: Well we are just laughing it up because we are at the end of a long show. Sitting here talking about how exciting it is to be in the tea industry right now.
Gail, what are some things that you have seen this year that you think "wow"! Are there some changes happening or exciting things that you see in tea?
Gail: You know, what I think that we are really still focusing towards children. I think that really started last year. I was starting to see more of a trend towards connecting tea with children and teens. Efforts to continue the tradition of tea with the younger generation.
What ever nationality you are.... really continuing those traditions with your family and keep a deep rooted history of going with your families.
There have been a lot of tea products selling. Probably the best sellers have been the items that are doing just that, connecting children with their family and with tea.
Dawnya: Yah, I thought that was interesting too. Several etiquette types of things are out there and you guys have an etiquette.... Was it etiquette cards? Tell us a little bit about that. Those are great for children.
Gail: Right. It is actually very new. I have the prototype with us at the expo, but it’s a great little card game.
It plays like old maid and it’s called the Victorian Etiquette Tea Parlor game. Basically they are playing cards and on each card is an image of an old Victorian scene of a woman either drinking tea or a very beautiful object from tea time, an accessory.
Each card has a different etiquette
The little etiquette code about may be how to properly eat a scone or how to be very graceful at tea or even just very nice mannerly ways on a regular basis.
It's played like old maid, the object is to connect the images. So each card says something different with etiquette, but you would match up the images of the cards and then whoever is out has the tea maid.
She is a nice little tea maid on one of the cards. They really look pretty.
Dawnya: That is a fun idea. That is one way to connect again with the tea ceremony. You can do it with children.
I have seen a lot teas that are designed for children and then of course we have seen a lot of the ready to drink market because that is the future with the teen market and the health market.
Now Gail tell us a little bit (because of our listeners have not heard your story) about how you got started in the tea and what your story is. Gosh you have been around now forever!
You look perfect. I don’t mean it that way, but you have been around in the industry a long time.
You are very established and this is chance for people to not only hear about you abut to get connected with you and your company. You are a great resource for tea lovers.
Gail: Okay. Well did have an interview quite sometime ago and it really focused on me on how I got started and it was kind of a long story. Here is the short and sweet .
I have a passion for tea. I have always enjoyed going to afternoon tea and over and over I would go different tea rooms and would really become friendly with the team room owners. The tearoom owners would then confide in me.
They would tell me their problems, they would tell me what was going on in their shops and I just thought what can I do? I just know there is something I can do to help these people.
That is just me and the kind of people that just wants to help everyone.
So I became a publisher because I felt like tea room owners weren’t really reaching out to their customers. They needed to reach out to their customers more in someway and The Tea House Times started out as just a very basic. It was a one page news letter they could personalize.
I would do it all for them. I would create the content and it would just have information about their business, their hours, little bit more about them, may be some history and then it just grew from there.
Then people came to me and asked , " can we just subscribe to something?"
Let us subscribe to it, let us just clip our business card to the front and be done.
So the Tea House Time, grew into a publication and at first it was the basic news letter, just a couple of pages then it grew to several pages to more of a glossy publication. Now its quite a bit bigger and yet now quite a magazine.
The reason we don’t push to make it a magazine is that the news letter image and the content itself really connects to the customers in a unique way.
The newsletter carries on the tea tradition with recipes and real life stories. We have a page called turning over a new leaf and its really finding ways to make your life better. My newsletter has grown and that is how I got started with the Tea House Times.
Dawnya: And the Tea House Times now is full color, its glossy. How many pages are you at?
Gail: Its 20 or 24 pages, but it is a lot of decent content so it is now overloaded with ads. Just enough ads that you can find some great resources and connect with people. We also have book reviews and product reviews that helps people really determine where they should be spending their money. These days and that is good.
Dawnya: Absolutely. Now the Tea Bureau is also something that goes kind of a long with that. It is going to be a great resource online to help people know where to go and who to find.
So talk about the tea bureau. I want to know, what’s the story behind it? Did this you the tea cup fall down and hit you on the head one morning and you are like oh I have got it or how did you come to this idea?
Gail: It’s not really something new. A lot of the things that I have done as far as the foot work and the leg work for finding resources for the tea rooms is the same. People want to know where do I got to buy wholesale, where do I go for training, where do I go for what?
I have made these connections for five years. I know who’s who, I know where to go, I know where to tell you to go and I walk all kinds of trade shows whether it’s the World Tea Expo, the gift market, the food fairs and the create reports reporting on all these products.
So one day I thought you know it is time to be put all these things in one spot.
I have created the tea bureau. It is kind of a re branding of my other arm lets say the other branch of what I really have been doing for years.
So now it’s a resource for business to find importers, may be machinery, all kinds of products, wholesale resources for everything you can imagine that would really pertain our industry and then if they need training or certification, if they need to where the trade shows are, are they any networking thinks that are going out that they can participate in or any online things.
You know social media is becoming very important these days so, the Tea Bureau is a way to connect your business with other people . Our tea bureau is listing all kinds of businesses.
We called it Tea Bureau because it is also a news bureau, it is a speakers bureau and its really the place, the go to place for everything you can possibly need.
Also, it doesn’t stop at trade.
We have created some connections for consumers as well because it is important to keep you know have the consumers be able to find you, put a face to you and your product.
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Dawnya: Yah. Let’s talk about that for a second. The retail aspect, because a lot of our listeners don’t have businesses. These listeners could go to Tea Bureau and find resources, like tea rooms?
What types of things could a person that is just a tea lover , not in the tea business, what could they find?
Gail: They would find a link directing them right to a page that is a directory of tea rooms.
If there is a Mother’s Day event going on or a charity event those things are all listed there as well. There are also fun things like we list tea radio because its fun.
There are also tea parties ideas, (you know this is one of the biggest requests I get.) There are recipes, there are themes ideas and a lot of that has already been at our website, but by creating Tea Bureau it is a directory to everything.
You can just click on Tea Bureau to find what you need. Further down on that web page are consumers connections. We also have free games on our website that so you can print like word search, tea party word search things like that and there is fun stuff for your kids too.
Dawnya: So one stop shopping . Whether you are in the business or you are consumer that Tea Bureau is a one stop shopping.
Well under this audio there is a link, but its www.teabureau.us
So Gail as a final word is there anything new that’s happening ? Is there any new product that you are excited about?
Gail: Well consumers at our website can find a pretty good variety of tea accessories. There are party games like real board games that you can buy.
We dabble a little bit in tea but we are more focused on party supplies for the website.
We also offer wholesale like our die cut gift bags. Those have been the most popular. They are absolutely gorgeous.
Each bag is in the shape of a tea pot or tea cup. We also have our tea ribbons. Those have been a good seller for years, but we just redesigned.
Dawnya: So people can come to you and not only get information and subscribe to your newsletter but Tea Bureau provides a ton of resources. Now, that is exciting!
Thank you so much for being with us today Gail. I wish you well and just definitely come back and visit us next year because I cannot wait to hear what your latest thing is!
Gail: Thanks. Have a nice day.
http://www.theteahousetimes.com/
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For more information on The Tea House Times click on the link below.
Information on Tea Bureau is provided in the link below.
www.theteahousetimes.com/teabureau.htm
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The Basics: 6 Easy Steps to a Great Pot of Tea
Bring fresh, cold water almost to a boil in a tea kettle on the stove.
In the meantime, measure out the tea: 1 teaspoon tea leaves (or 1 teabag) per cup of water. Every tea is different, calling for some experimentation.
Preheat the teapot by rinsing it with very hot water before adding the leaves. This is more important than you may think; it maintains the temperature in the pot, preparing the tea leaves so that the tea releases its full flavor when the water is poured over the leaves.
Add the measured tea to the pre-warmed teapot. Smell the aroma already? That's good.
Pour the hot water over the tea. For black and oolong teas, let the water come to a full boil before pouring it into the teapot.
Remove the leaves and serve. Some tea leaves can be used again, just let them steep a little longer each time.
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