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Drink no evil: monkey-picked golden (Photos)
Bitterness is a hot-button topic in this column. If you learn nothing else about a black tea from these pages, you'll learn its degree of bitterness. This is because the tannins in a tea don't...
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Insurmountable obstacles: Red Rock Coffee Shop
Normally, this column does not review establishments. It doesn't seem fair to judge an entire place by a few cups of tea sold from it, when a shop experience has so much to do with atmosphere,...
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Tea for Two at Ten Thousand Villages; that's five thousand villages each!
Don't believe the website for Pittsburgh's Ten Thousand Villages (5824 Forbes Avenue, Squirrel Hill) when it says they have no February events. It's all right; it's hard to make time to update...
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Organic vanilla rooibos and me: This sort of thing is my bag, baby! (Photos)
Ten Thousand Villages has one store in Pittsburgh – 5824 Forbes Avenue, Squirrel Hill – and it sells tea. Oh, it sells many other fine products, from crafts to coffee, but your Pittsburgh Tea Examiner...
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Ti Kuan Yin: Iron Goddess of Mercy. Quiet. Delicate. Dark. (Photos)
She is of the mountain, and she is the mountain. The Iron Goddess of Mercy stands unbowed on the shelves of Margaret's Fine Imports (5872 Forbes Avenue, Squirrel Hill).To be fair, the “goddess” in...
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Fresher than it sounds, but not by much: loose-leaf pu-erh (Photos)
Pu-erh is aged. Just like you! Those spring chicken teas might have all kinds of fancy whippersnapper qualities like, you know – flavor, but these are really just distractions.Oh, all right, that's...
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Groupon this weekend for half-price at Margaret's Fine Imports
Though this space usually advocates more eternal concepts -- usually styles of tea -- a slight detour today brings us to Groupon. Until Tuesday (dear God, no, not that band), you can pay Groupon $10....
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Rooibos, the Overlooked: Iced tea hero
It's summer again in Pittsburgh, and that means it's time for bizarre on-and-off rain, sauna-level humidity in the overpolluted streets -- and our favorite: Delicious, home-brewed iced tea. Well,...
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Exotic for everyone: Tangiers Lemon White tea (Photos)
Here in the United States -- in Pittsburgh, especially, it seems -- we like things to be home-grown. "Made in the USA" or "Pittsburgh's own" are tags that are used to ensure, for many, the...
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Chai for winter's chill at Coriander India Grill
This fall in Pittsburgh has been especially cold, already. Two more months of this before winter, and I'm not sure we have any other recourse but tea. Enough tea this season is sure to keep us warm...
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Precious dew: Japanese gyokuro green tea. (Photos)
Shielded from the balmy, summer sun, gyokuro grows for two to three weeks, waiting to be plucked. Theanine and caffeine levels swell under the shade, and so gyokuro, the humble little sencha, becomes...
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Flowers and sausages: Unorthodox iced tea
To quell your first thought: No, this kid probably isn't a tea lover. But he is unorthodox.Today's theme is adding floral to iced tea. If you need some prodding to make your own iced...
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If you think it's delicious -- and it is -- that's Lemon Chiffon.
If the seventies taught us nothing else, we all left that era knowing it's not wise to fool Mother Nature.Lemon Chiffon tea, from Pittsburgh's illustrious Prestogeorge, fools Mother Nature in more...
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Green Tangerine; Montélimar! (Photos)
All right, readers -- so it's not what The Beatles were singing about. And, in fact, green tea contains fluoride, which will help your teeth, unless you're guzzling the stuff by the gallon.What it is...
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Pai Mu Tan: the White Peony
It is white tea, though it tastes of nature. In fact, Pai Mu Tan (Grade #1, we're told) is naturally withered, not pan-fried or steamed, in the sun. Relatively untouched. You will feel the primal...
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Tea. Earl Grey. Creamy.
Cream. It's mostly fat. We like the taste of cream because it makes us feel like we're getting enough calories from protein and fat to survive the winter. (That's evolutionary holdovers in action,...
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Margaret's Tea Classes: Cheaper than Ever!
Let's face it: Tea is complicated. Here in Pittsburgh, there is a resource that can guide you through the choppy waters of Camellia Sinensis.(. . . Besides your humble Pittsburgh Tea Examiner.)In...
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All In This Tea screening at Winchester Thurston School
Tea has a long and storied history. Its discovery is the stuff of Chinese legend. Though we speak much here of its flavor, and a bit of its benefits, our Burgh-centric take on the miracle leaf is...
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Pecan Pie Rooibos from Hallowed Grounds
Rooibos is a drink that's just now reinventing itself. There was a time when most Rooibos you would find on store shelves was branded as "red tea," when Rooibos is a completely separate plant. At the...
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Organic Japanese Tea Garden (Garden not included)
Subject: tea. Composition: often, dried leaves, herbs and spices. Now, before leaves are dried they're presumably growing somewhere. And an industrial tea operation, like any agricultural industry...
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