We’re chuffed that eteaket’s Royal Earl Grey has received a rave review by The Tea Taster.

“Eteaket looks like the kind of tea boutique that makes it an essential place to visit in Edinburgh (in fact, I might visit one of my favourite cities just to have afternoon tea here…) What pleased me is that they have a cracking website which sells all of their amazing teas, as well as some seriously stylish accessories.

The taste [of Royal Earl Grey] is heavenly- the sharp bergamot taste is delicately balanced by the lower notes of malty, smoky and refreshing tea. I had this tea before my breakfast and it really was a fantastic morning brew. I highly recommend it to those people who like their EG ‘just right’, it’s a regal, yet  cheerful blend that I will come back to again and again.”

Click here for the full review.

Ever fancied seeing a Superhero Musical set in a tea shop with free tea and biscuits?

The Invective Dan Kamikaze is running in eteaket Tea Boutique & Cafe from 11 to 17 August from 2030 to 2130. Book your tickets here but be quick as the first night is sold out already. £5 adults/£4 concessions.

Summary: downtrodden Orville Williams becomes superhero Dan and rushes to save the lovely Lulu from unhinged General Calamity and sidekick, Big Figure. Features robot parrot, hot tunes and free tea and biscuits. (Not based on a true story.) ‘With this crime I’ve reached the top of the tree, so won’t you come de-atomising with me?’ (General Calamity).

With summer finally here (yes, even in Scotland) and the excitement of Wimbledon upon us we thought it was about time to explore the simple pleasures of iced tea.

Although it’s one of the most refreshing drinks around, iced tea is still very much frowned upon in the UK, which is strange given its prominence around the rest of the world (particularly in the US). Have a go yourself with our simple guide and let us know how you get on.

There are two main ways to make iced tea:

HOT BREW METHOD

This is the quickest way to make iced tea.

• Brew some tea. Use roughly 2 teaspoons of tea leaves per cup of boiling or hot water depending on tea type. That’s 8oz or 227ml give or take of hot water, so about double the amount of leaves as for normal hot tea. Remember never use boiling water for green or white teas – instead leave the kettle off the boil for about 2 mins. Brew the tea for the recommended time before removing the leaves (generally 3-4 mins for most black teas).

• Pour over ice. Pour the concentrated hot tea over ice cubes in a temperature resistant jug. If your iced tea goes cloudy, add a touch of boiling water. Add more ice if necessary but be aware that this will dilute the tea. A clever option is to pre-prepare some ‘tea ice’. Just make a little extra iced tea, fill your ice cube tray with it and put it in the freezer. Why not be a little adventurous and try your tea ice with some different drinks or cocktails?

• Do you want it plain? If you want a straightforward plain iced tea, use the best quality leaf tea you can find. It’s generally best to go for teas that have bright top notes rather than more malty teas like Assam. Teas with natural floral or fruity notes chill particularly well.

• Do you prefer it sweetened? Sugar and honey make good sweeteners. If using honey, it’s a good idea to add it to the hot tea first and stir until dissolved. If using sugar, it’s best to boil one cup of water with one cup of sugar and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved. You can then add the sugar syrup to the iced tea to taste.

• Try adding other things. Another option is to add fresh or frozen fruit or fruit juice to your iced tea. Or experiment by adding various spices while the tea is still hot (we particularly like cinnamon, nutmeg or ginger). Fresh herbs like mint, basil or lemongrass also work well when added to your iced tea.

COLD BREW METHOD

This method is only recommended for green and white teas. For best results, use a good quality leaf tea and filtered water, which helps extract the tea better when brewing cold.

Use roughly two teaspoons of tea leaves per cup (roughly 8oz or 227ml) of cold water (again roughly double the amount of leaves as you would for normal hot tea). Add cold water to the leaves and refrigerate overnight (or longer for a stronger taste). Sweeten or garnish as desired.

Here is a list of our most popular teas to make iced

Unflavoured Tea: Ceylon Lover’s Leap, Second Flush Darjeeling, Ceylon Vert & White Peony.

Flavoured Tea: Life’s a Peach, Jasmine Chun Hao, Blooming Marvellous, White Peach.

Herb & Fruit Infusions. Although they don’t contain any tea so not strictly iced teas, these herb & fruit infusions work really well iced: Strawberries & Cream, Zen Zephyr and Cranberry Apple Riot.

Please let us know how you get on with your iced tea or if you have any interesting recipes or ideas (hello@eteaket.co.uk).

Happy experimenting.

© eteaket ltd June 2010

We ran a free tea tasting session with Chocolate & Love this afternoon and came up with some winning combinations. My favourite was eteaket’s Bollywood Dreams Chai tea with Filthy Rich dark chocolate – the tea really brought out the spices in the chocolate.

Our Blooming Marvellous green tea worked amazingly well with the Dark Strawberry & Pepper chocolate and our old favourite Chilli Rooibos was a big hit with the Dark Chilli chocolate – quite a kick.

We’ll be running more ad hoc tasting sessions so watch this space, sign up to our newsletter by emailing hello@eteaket.co.uk or follow us on www.twitter.com/eteaket or www.facebook.com (search for eteaket).

Chocolate & Love will be at the Taste Festival in London from 17-20 June where you’ll be able to try some eteaket teas and fabulous chocolate.

For the May meeting of eteaket’s book group, we delved into Science Fiction – here’s Mark MacLeod’s review of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451:

The option was Science Fiction and a list of authors and titles were suggested, I went for Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, a ‘classic’ example written in 1953, by an author who is living in the USA under the beginning of the Cold War. This was the year Queen Elizabeth II came to the throne and when colour television became available for the (well off) family home.

As a first read of science fiction in a long time I enjoyed this book and would recommend it as one that is relatively short, it does not introduce new names, planets and concepts beyond the book burning paradigm, and because of its age it is available through library and probably most second hand book shops. Oh! the 451 Fahrenheit refers to the temperature at which paper combusts, actually it is 450 Celsius but the firefighter which Bradbury asked got the scale wrong! Did I mention it was written the same year that Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Sir winston Churchill won the Nobel prize for literature and the year that Watson and Crick discover the structure of DNA!!

As lots of things we’ve read recently seem to have an ‘end of the world’ feel to them we’ve decided to lighten things up a little for June by going for Chic Lit vs Boy Lit. The choice is either How to be Good by Nick Hornby or My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. The idea is that the ladies read Nick Hornby and the gents read Jodi Picoult so we can get some different perspectives. Watch this space – and remember if you want to join us just email erica at hello@eteaket.co.uk

We’ve been running a monthly book group since September 2009 and thought it was about time we started blogging a little about what we’re reading (if for no other reason than to keep track of what we’ve read). We meet on the 2nd last Wed of every month (apart from August) from 7-8.30pm in eteaket (41 Frederick St). If you’e interested in coming along, please email erica at hello@eteaket.co.uk and I’ll send you details. By the way, it’s totally free and we supply the tea.

For the April meeting, we had a choice of two novels (Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi and The Complete Maus by Are Spiegelman). It seems that overall everyone was pleasantly surprised by how much the enjoyed these novels, particularly as most of us hadn’t realised graphic novels don’t necessarily mean superhero comic books. Everyone seemed to highly rate Maus but feelings were more mixed on Persepolis. Rachel has kindly written a review of Persepolis for us:

“I have read several graphic novels I think the first was Watchmen which has recently been turned into a film.  Shops that sell graphic novels over here tend to stock comic superhero graphic novels it is only more recently as the genre gained a tad of respectability that the wider portfolio of novels have been generally available.

Persepolis; city of the Persian is a monochrome graphic novel with a definite visual style and subject matter very different to the standard western graphic novel that arose from  the comic tradition. It is drawn by the author in black and white using patterns to denote texture and depth.  Marjane Satrapi is a young girl growing up in a steadily more oppressive Iran as it lurches from one crisis or war to another.

We will have all read of the impositions inflicted upon the people of Iran by it’s varies regimes, Persepolis gives a face and identity to each abstract horror in an almost detached manner.  I am not sure whether it’s the heavy ink visual style or Marjane’s own personality but I found it difficult to feel that horror that I knew I should as one personalised tragedy after another was paraded before me.  Similarly I could find little compassion for this young girl who seemed not to fit in any environment and constantly lectured the reader in detail regarding her own emotional turmoil.

Many in the group enjoyed the book, I did not.  I found it heavy, ponderous and self conscious. Compared to other novels that depict the tragedies of daily life and elevate the reader with a feeling of the intrinsic strength of the human spirit or communal warm and mutual support I could only feel relief that I have finished the book.” Reviewed by Rachel Hutton.

For the May meeting, we delved into Science Fiction and had a choice of Expecting Someone Taller by Tom Holt or On the Beach by Neville Shute. We’ll post a review shortly.

As everything we’ve read recently seems to have an ‘end of the world’ feel to it we’ve decided to lighten things up a little for June by going for Chic Lit vs Boy Lit. The choice is either How to be Good by Nick Hornby or My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult. The idea is that the ladies read Nick Hornby and the gents read Jodi Picoult so we can get some different perspectives. Watch this space – and remember if you want to join us just email erica at hello@eteaket.co.uk

We’ve finally sent our first eteaket newsletter.

Check it out http://tiny.cc/es2uc to claim your free Afternoon Tea, 10% off web orders until 11 June 2010, enter our Extreme Tea competiiton, details of forthcoming events and tea and health news.

It’s not perfect but at least it’s a start – technology doesn’t exactly come easily to me!

eteaket helped at the Edinburgh Breakfast Club’s Big Breakfast event on 27 April in support of local charities “Fischy Music” and “Tong-Len”. Despite the very early start, the venue was at capacity with 80 attendees all enjoying breakfast and loose-leaf tea. Over £2,000 was raised for these very good causes. Please click the links to find out more about these very inspiring charities.

The Rotary Club of Edinburgh Breakfast normally meet at The Dunstane House Hotel, 4 West Coates, EH12 5JQ at 7.10am every Tuesday. Click here for more info. 

Back by popular demand – your chance how to learn to read your tea leaves.

Ever gaze at the bottom of a cup to see the patterns that form from the left over tea-leaves? The different leaves that fall and the dust that gathers around has intrigued Psychic’s from Russel Grant to Mystic Meg for many years. It is said that the collection of these leaves can accurately predict the future, using the shapes and patterns that are formed not only in the base of the cup, but the saucer also.

eteaket has teamed up with experienced tea leaf reader Lauren to offer you the chance to learn to read your own tea leaves. Lauren has visited eteaket before with impressive results and with over 8 years of experience under her belt you’ll be in good hands.

The next event is on Tuesday 18 May, 6.30 to 9.30pm. It costs £19.99 per person and includes tea and scones.

Please email hello@eteaket.co.uk to register your interest. Thanks!

Join us in eteaket for our first ever Japanese Tea Ceremony conducted by the renowned Mio Shapely. It’s on Wednesday 28 April from 7.30-9pm and costs £29.99 per person (including Matcha and Japanese sweets). Please email hello@eteaket.co.uk or call 0131 226 2982 to book.

Rules of Etiquette for Guests at a Japanese Tea Ceremony (reproduced from: http://www.holymtn.com/tea/teaetiquette.htm)

• Be prompt in arriving so your host can begin on time.

• Remove your shoes when entering a Japanese home — the host will provide slippers to wear.

• Drink the entire portion of tea (it will not be large) and eat everything served.

• Turn the tea bowl slightly to avoid drinking tea from the front side.

• Each implement used in a tea gathering (including scroll, flowers, and food) has been thoughtfully selected by your host and has special meaning. They should be treated as objects of appreciation. Admire them and compliment your host with sincerity. This is the most important responsibility of a guest.
  

Feel free to wear a Kimono if you have one!