NASA Tea In Space Video

We trot this old favorite out once in a while. It's a 2003 video in which NASA ISS Science Officer Don Pettit drinks from a bag of tea using chopsticks. I'd caution you not to try this at home but that would just be silly.

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A Mechanical Assistant For The Tea Table

I shall, perhaps, be laughed at by some unfeeling censor, for including the tea table in the field of my mechanical speculations. But, in so doing, I seriously mean to be not only attentive, but useful to the ladies—who, I am old enough to believe, deserve this service at my hands. My object is to obviate for them the necessity of tediously wielding a ponderous tea-pot, until real and painful fatigue ensues: thus emphatically making a toil of that pleasure they had hoped for in administering comfort to others.

This new method of tea-making admits the use of the common tea urn—which is placed on the table near the left hand of the fair distributor. This arrangement is given at figs. 4 and 5 of Plate 27. There, A is the Urn; and B any common tea-pot, for whose spout, the cock a, has been substituted; and the handle of which has been slightly modified, so as to make it a proper centre of rotation. This tea-pot is, of course, opened before it is brought into the position shewn in the figures. At C b c, is placed, first of all, on the table, a stand of metal, terminated upward by the stem C D which forms a vertical centre to the whole apparatus: and which is sufficiently fixed[229] to the table by standing on three feet, b c, &c.; under which are stretched small pieces of Caoutchouc (or India rubber), which, by their adherence to the table, make the whole steady. By these means, the tea-pot can be turned round, by a gentle effort, till it comes under the cock of the urn, from which it receives the boiling water. And, finally, the tea-board, which is itself circular, revolves on the same axle C D, supported by the casters or rollers e f, and bringing successively all the tea-cups m, n, o, &c., to the spout of the tea-pot, where they are filled without the smallest difficulty, as will appear by a further inspection of the figures, and especially by an appeal to experience.

The above, I should presume, is all that need be said upon the subject. It remains for some rationally zealous friend of this social repast, to put these (or other analogous) ideas in practice: in which enterprize, should he succeed in pleasing the ladies, he may depend on the approbation of every lord who deserves the name.

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Tea Drinking Monkey

If you were getting ready to criticize Tea Guy Speaks for not providing enough Cute But Ultimately Pointless Animal Videos this is for you.

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Smoking a Tea Joint With Doctor Oolong

Can you smoke tea? Apparently so, though we'd definitely suggest proceeding with a certain degree of caution.

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The Scariest Tea Commercial You'll Ever See

Coulrophobes, beware.

Here's a commercial from Herbaria Tea, a Hungarian company who apparently decided that the way to sell more of their herbal tea was to scare the crap out of potential consumers. As they put it, it's "a commercial that demonstrates the calming effect of Herbaria tea in an inventive and eye-catching way."

That's a masterpiece of understatement. Watch if you dare. If you're a sensitive sort you should pass.

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The Fine Art of Tea Dueling

Here's another article I recently wrote for The English Tea Store blog.

The Fine Art of Tea Dueling
By William I. Lengeman III

Even though I don’t have all the facts, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that there’s probably not much going on in the way of dueling nowadays. Which is a good thing. If you’re like me, what little you know about dueling comes mostly from American history class (Hamilton v. Burr) or that variety that takes place in Western movies and TV shows at about the time the clock strikes high noon.

But there is actually one type of dueling going on nowadays and, as the title of this article strongly indicates, it has something to do...

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Tea Bench Made From Recycled Green Tea Leaves

ITO EN to Sell Tea Bench Made From Recycled Green Tea Leaves
(from a press release)

ITO EN, the world's leading supplier of loose leaf green tea and ready-to-drink beverage, and makers of the award-winning line of bottled green tea-TEAS' TEA® has announced that they will begin selling their Tea Bench, made from recycled green tea leaves used from the bottling production of their beverages. In the company's efforts to reuse and recycle their used tea leaves, an innovative eco-friendly synthetic resin was developed to create various products ranging from vending machines, floor mats and public benches. The products have been a part of the companies CSR recycling activities that blend harmoniously into the environment. With green tea known to have antibacterial and antiviral properties, the products retain the deodorizing and antibacterial properties. The Tea Bench is composed of 20% recycled tea leaves and recycled food trays.

The Tea Bench will be available by special order on the company website-www.itoen.com, and will retail for $925.00.

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Tea Bag and Tea Stop Motion Video

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Making Tea With The the KS-001 Robo-Arm

If you've been waiting breathlessly for a game in which you get to simulate making tea with a robotic arm, the waiting is over, thanks to the good people at Sparkling Games. Here's what they have to say about Ampu-Tea.

Having recently recovered from a traumatic motorcycle accident in which you lost your arm, you are faced with the rehabilition process. The latest in modern technology, the KS-001 Robo-arm is capable of many delicate tasks - but you will need to learn to use it efficently. What better first task for the son of an Earl than to make a cup of tea for his father?

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Adolf Hitler Teakettle? Really?

Slow news day? From the CBS site, "A J.C. Penney billboard in California has stirred up controversy after some say the tea kettle in the advertisement looks like Adolf Hitler. KCBS-TV's Dave Lopez reports."

I have to confess I don't see it. But it was apparently good for business. Maybe it's finally time to roll out my line of Josef Stalin duvet covers.

For more on this Hitler teakettle thing, here's an article I wrote recently at the Taste of English Tea site.

Also, from the good people at Roadside America, an older piece on Adolf Hitler's Tea Service, which resides in the Berman Museum of World History in Anniston, Alabama. As the text notes, Hitler was apparently not very keen on tea, but kept the service on hand for the benefit of guests. More info here.

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The Science of Tea Bag Rockets

The Breville One-Touch Tea Maker

Acrobatic Chinese Tea Pouring Video

Don't try this at home. At least not with a couple rolls of paper towels or a big sponge on hand. And of course you'll have to track down one of those teapots with the extra long spout.

The Breville One-Touch Tea Maker

Some Quirky Teahouses

Here's another article I recently wrote for The English Tea Store blog.

Some Quirky Teahouses
By William I. Lengeman III

Oh, the teahouse. According to one informed source, the number of tea houses here in these good old United States alone is somewhere around three thousand, a huge jump from a modest number about a decade and a half ago. Worldwide, there’s no telling how many tea houses there but “a whole bunch” or “more than you can shake a stick at” are probably not far off the mark.

With all the tea houses out there already and more coming to life every day it’s not surprising that some of them would fall into the offbeat category. We took a look at some of these a few months back and earlier this year we considered tea houses run by exalted rock and roll personages as...

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Drinking Tea in Strange Places

One of the strange places to drink tea that I wrote about in an article at the English Tea Store blog was a "Tea Party in the Sky" put on by Virgin Balloon Flights. See a clip below and read about all of the places here.

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A Town Named Tea

Oh, to live in a town named Tea.

Tea, South Dakota, is a small town about ten miles south of Sioux Falls. It claims to be the fastest growing city in the state. According to census figures, it has surged from a population of 786 in 1990 to 4,100 today.

Tea will hold Teapot Days in June again this year. The annual fest features a teapot display and the crowning of Ma and Pa Teapot.

The interesting thing about Tea is that the name of the town has no real connection to tea - the plant or the beverage. According to a local historian, the community began life as the village of Byron. Around the turn of the century, the citizenry realized that there were too many towns named Byron (don't you hate when that happens?) and held a public meeting to come up with ten alternate names. By the time they got up to nine they were running out of ideas and everyone was ready to adjourn for a tea break and so some wit suggested that they add Tea to the list.

The rest, as the saying goes, was history.

Image: Tea Area Historical Society


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Novelty Tea Bags Revisited

Here's another article I recently wrote for The English Tea Store blog.

Novelty Tea Bags Revisited
By William I. Lengeman III

Say what you want about tea bags, but don’t say that there aren’t plenty of offbeat novelty ones to be found in the files of the US Patent Office (and probably other patent offices, but that’s another article). Our first look at this topic was an article that ran earlier this year. But since that didn’t exhaust the many possibilities, it’s time for another round.

To start with one of the more peculiar of the bunch, here’s a look at a Tab for a Tea Bag, which was patented in 1993 and which is just a graphic of a swami-type guy...

read the full article here

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Even More Tea Gadgets & Offbeat News

Here's another article I recently wrote for The English Tea Store blog.

Even More Tea Gadgets & Offbeat News
By William I. Lengeman III

Did you hear the one about 900-year old cup of tea recently found in the southeastern United States? Well, don’t get too excited. First of all, it’s not an actual cup of tea – spillage and/or evaporation presumably saw to that. Second, as near as anyone can tell, none of the natives living here at the time had access to real tea, as in the beverage made from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant. But “tea” is a malleable word for most people, and in this case it’s one that can be used to describe a beverage brewed from the shrub Ilex vomitoria, a species of holly, which produces a concoction known as the black drink.

read the full article here

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Think Pink: Pink Tea

In addition to publishing Tea Guy Speaks, I'm a regular contributor to The English Tea Store blog. Here's an article I recently wrote for them. Click the link to read the full article.

Think Pink: Pink Tea
By William I. Lengeman III

The many types of tea might not cover all of the colors in the rainbow, but they certainly come close. The best known, of course, are green and black. After that come white and oolong. Of course the latter is not a “colored” tea in the strictest sense of the world, but there are those who sometimes refer to it as blue tea. Just as the idea that what many Chinese know as red tea is what the rest of us call black tea. Some of the more obscure types of colored teas are yellow, a Chinese variety that’s not unlike green or white. Then there’s purple tea, a type developed relatively recently by African researchers.

All of which is a rather roundabout way of introducing a concoction known as pink tea...

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Synchronized Tea Drinking At The Olympics?

It's not an Olympic sport just yet but here's a video of a finely honed synchronized tea drinking team in action. And here's a blog post that helps to explain what it's all about.

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The Tea Gadget & Offbeat News Report

In addition to publishing Tea Guy Speaks, I'm a regular contributor to The English Tea Store blog. Here's an article I recently wrote for them. Click the link to read the full article.

The Tea Gadget & Offbeat News Report
By William I. Lengeman III

You don’t have to look too hard to find a silly news headline these days. One of my favorite tea-related ones in recent weeks comes from the British press. It’s the one that claims that Yorkshire Tea Saved My Lamb’s Life. While I thought I’d heard of many, if not most, of the alleged health benefits for tea, somehow this one got by me. Apparently, said sheep had eaten poisonous rhododendron leaves but was saved by her quick-thinking owner, who proceeded to brew a very strong cup (8 bags per cup) of Yorkshire tea every two hours for two days. And that’s how it’s done.

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