eteaket is delighted to be helping to launch a new tea-related book by Edinburgh author Sara Sheridan. The Secret Mandarin is the story of Scottish botanist Robert Fortune, one of the earliest pioneers to travel to the East to source and transport tea plants from China to India. In a twist of fate, Fortune ended up taking his unruly sister-in-law with him and they had no choice but to travel on their dangerous journey disguised as mandarin and man-servant. It’s an unforgettable story of love, fortitude and recklessness. Well worth a read whether you’re into tea or not.

To celebrate the launch, eteaket has created a special blend of tea (imaginatively) called Secret Mandarin. It will soon be on sale in our tea boutique on Frederick St until end October 2009. We’ll also be serving tea and tea cocktails at the book launch on September 2009. If you’re interested in the similarities of sourcing tea now compared to in Fortune’s days, we recently recorded a podcast with the author – we’ll post it on our blog just as soon as we can work out how. In the meantime, you should be able to find it here www.sarasheridan.co.uk. 

eteaket is again supporting SuperJam at the next Tea Party on Thursday 13 August at Meadowbank Stadium (www.superjam.co.uk/blog) . We’ll be launching our Edinburgh Blend in front of an expected crowd of 200 discerning elderly guests. Our Edinburgh Blend is available from today in our cafe at 41 Frederick St, Edinburgh. We’ll let you know how we get on and whether we manage to avoid line dancing this time.

eteaket spent a lovely afternoon at Molton Brown on George St on 30 July. Molton Brown had arranged hand massages for specially invited customers and we treated them to some tea and cake afterwards.

There was a lot of interest again in the health benefits of tea (not to mention the benefits of a delicious scone with clotted cream & jam – what could lift your mood more than that?) Amy certainly seemed in rather a good mood afterwards so we suspect some of the mini scones disappeared in her direction…

eteaket was at the Healthy Living Show in Edinburgh in July. Thanks to our fabulous Sophie who spent the weekend teaching people about the health benefits of tea and sampling some rare green and white tea and herbal infusions.