Time for Hot Tea!

It's National Hot Tea Month!

Shirley and I just got back to the Island after a wonderful vacation visiting family in California and Arizona. We had a lovely time seeing the sights and soaking up the sun.

A few phone photos. 

After taking some time for R&R (rest & relaxation or restaurants & retail) we feel refreshed and ready to take on 2018. Lots of things will be happening this year at The Preserve Company. Won’t get into all the details today, but fair to say the menu will experience a facelift, and there will be renovations in the gift shop, theatre and gardens.

Over the next few weeks, we will be putting a lot of items on sale on our website, we are going to refresh the store, and some items are to be cleared out. You can start to support the cause by clicking here.

24 degrees, no humidity and full sunshine are hard to leave behind, but we are glad to be home and starting the process, drinking a good cup of tea and enjoying the rest of the winter. (ok, enjoying the rest of the winter might be a stretch. LOL)

Did you know that January 12, was National Hot Tea Day? And January is National Hot Tea Month! There seems to be a special holiday for everything now, so, of course, the world’s second most consumed beverage after water deserves its place on the calendar!

I learned when ordering tea in Arizona, best to be clear and ask for hot tea or they will bring you iced tea. Interesting factoid on hot tea drinking is that in 5 short years the US has gone from being very low on the list of countries drinking hot tea to now the country experiencing the highest growth. Their increased consumption and geopolitical problems in some of the tea growing areas of the world have seen supply and demand increase the cost price of tea by nearly double over the last few years.

 In 1987, Shirley and I purchased the building above, built in 1913 as a Creamery, a pretty well worn down building on the bank of the River Clyde, in the lovely village of New Glasgow in Prince Edward Island. Our goal was to renovate and create a food destination that welcomed and treated guests to food with integrity and flavour.  While attending a food show in 1986 to sell our wares to stores, I met a Sri Lankan gentleman who was displaying his tea and teaware. Though I grew up in a family of tea drinkers, I never partook, but after sampling this product, I became intrigued. Over the next few years, I grew to love all things tea, the history, the flavours, the people who work behind the scenes in tea industry are all kind and considerate, just as one might expect from a tea drinker. LOL. The passion that tea blenders have is so infectious. I like cupping teas and blending different ingredients to create new flavours. In our “no compromise” policy in purchasing quality ingredients for our bottled products, the same applies to our tea sourcing. We have been blending and selling top quality full leaf tea since 1988, and it is a source of great pride for all of us The Preserve Company as people from all over the world have us ship our tea to their homes.

In honour of Hot Tea Month, please, leave a comment on this post with any questions or comments you have about tea. If you have a favourite tea ritual, share it with us!

This week, call an old friend and share some words of encouragement over a great cup of tea.

Life is like a cup of tea it's all about how you make it!

Have a great week ahead! 

With love from Prince Edward Island,

Bruce