Planning for fall and Christmas Season

It is almost absurd how far ahead a retailer is encouraged to plan for a season or holiday. For instance we received a spring catalog from one of our suppliers late last October of last year. Most store switch to the next season or holiday the day after the last. Then again it takes most retailers much longer to plan ahead for marketing and store placement of the products. With us we can get in a new product, have it up on the site and announced in a newsletter on the same day. That is the nice thing about handling the web site control and marketing your self.



So today I sit here considering what we will want to add for the fall and Christmas season. Our two best selling chintz teapot sets from last season have both been discontinued so I am on the hunt for sets to replace them. I have my eye on this Vintage Christmas Set which I think has a very romantic old Christmas feel to it. The set has matching teapot, tea cups, tea bag holders and Christmas ornaments.


What do you all think? We are waiting for a list of new teas and samples from our favorite supplier. When we get that I will give you all a glimpse at our choices.

Candie

Friday update

I've got a new batch of Yixings online; what a cute bunch this is! Samples below.



Well, here it is Friday again…YAH! Remember the computer problems? Had to end up wiping my hard drive, took a couple of days to get up and running right.

Things back in stock:
Victorian Teapot Warmers
Stevia

The Watermelon-Kiwi , Blackberry Green and small tea infuser baskets will be out of stock for another week, but you can still order them. Called to order some more infusers and they said they didn’t get my order from last week. I guess I should always call them in….instead of e-mailing or faxing.

One of these days I will get pictures of work on here. Have a great weekend!

Denise

Green Tea Musings

Green tea and more green tea…  I can’t seem to get my self to drink anything but green tea these days.  I do tend to stay on one trend for a season and summer is a good time to be hooked on green tea. Green Tea is refreshing and light and doesn’t weight you down in the heat. We now have so many wonderful flavors of green teas that I can just rotate thru them and never get bored.

I am still amazed that most companies are still resistant to tea and tea products. It is hard to find good tea products in the first place and then just when they are selling really well the company then discontinues the products. They don’t seem to believe that tea is an up and coming trend. We are seeing tea converts every day from soda or coffee. People taste good fresh tea and they realize that the grocery store tea they grew up on was stale and flavorless. I am always hearing from our customers that they just can’t go back to the tea, coffee, etc. that they had been drinking.

Candie
~ Sipping Vanilla Green Tea

Boy.... What a week!

Boy….What a week I’ve had here at Culinary Teas!  Last week my computer started acting up, and then went totally down to the blue screen of death. I called Dell and was connected with this guy from India (who I had a hard time understanding). He made me take the computer apart and look at things I’ve never seen before. Then after hours doing this and that, he had me run a diagnostic that ran two and a half hours and said he would call back. Well guess what…..he never called back arrgggg. I got two error codes from the diagnostic and being the resourceful one I went on the internet and looked them up. Segments in my hard drive were corrupted! Everything I read said the hard drive was fried, then I came upon a ladies site where she had fixed hers. I tried what she did and it worked, I’m jumping up and down with glee.

It worked fine when we came back to work this week….for a couple of hours. Then my Quick Books crashed it and guess what….blue screen again. I started to pull my hair out at this point. I called Dell again, this time I got to talk to a sweet lady from Alabama. After running some tests, she had me wipe my hard drive out. So the rest of the day was spent downloading programs and getting my computer useable again. So far it has worked fine today…fingers crossed!

On to better things…..things that are back in stock this week are:

• Stainless Steel Warmers


• Two Cup Dimbula Tea Presses


• Adams Peak Rare White Tea

I hope everyone had a fantastic 4th of July.

Denise

Tea and Food Pairing

I have a background as a chef so I love pairing tea with my food. Tea accompanies food so much better than wine does. Wine has the tendency to over power the flavor of the food and you cannot drink much without feeling tipsy by the end of your meal. Teas flavor can delicately pair with the food without over powering it and allows you to drink as much as you want without needing a designated driver.

Green teas pair well with foods that are normally paired with white wines like seafood, salads, fruit, and surprisingly deep fried food because cuts thru the fat and lessens your chance of indigestion. Japanese teas like Sencha or Genmaicha go perfectly with seafood and rice dishes. Chinese greens like Dragonwell and Jasmines are a little stronger in flavor and have a stronger aroma which pairs well with Salads and Chicken dishes.  Very lightly oxidized Oolongs (Wu-long or green Oolongs) also go well with these foods.

Oolong teas that are medium to dark oxidized are a perfect pairing for Chinese, Thai and grilled foods. The flavors of these oolongs have a pronounced toastiness and are very full flavored.

Black teas pair well with foods that are normally paired with red wines like meat, curries, and desserts. Black teas are rich and full bodied teas with pronounced tannins which hold up well with richly flavored foods. Black teas pair especially well with chocolates and desserts with chocolate.

Candie

Green Tea and Weight Lose

I have more than a few pounds to lose but I have been working on it slowly. Over the last two years I have gone down 3 clothing sizes and am getting close to another. I credit a lot of this to green tea and a good diet. I can easily maintain my weight without the green tea because of my healthy diet. My family has a history of diabetes so I avoid extra sugar in my family’s diet. I should get plenty of exercise because I am chasing my 3 small children every where all day long but other than that I have a time exercising. I have arthritis in my knees and I can easily over do it and have myself hobbling around for days. When I drink Green tea all day long instead of other teas (like Wu-long), the pounds just melt away. I don’t even have to cut out the small amounts of treats I allow myself. The green tea is definitely what does it because I can cut out the treats and not drink the green tea and the weight doesn’t come off the same. For me it is just a matter of finding green teas that I like enough to drink all day long. Right now I am rotating thru our Flavored Green teas so I don’t get bored and stop drinking it. Right now I am very fond of our new Blackberry Green and a blend of our Pear Green and Watermelon Kiwi Green Teas.

I am currently wearing the smallest size of clothes I own. My goal is to have to buy a whole new wardrobe for the upcoming New Year. I will keep you posted if I make that goal. I am sure I can if I can just stay focused on drinking the green tea.

Candie