Earlier this month the delicious duo announced the availability of their blends at Bigg’s stores, Jungle Jim’s and the Keller’s IGA locations in the greater Cincinnati area.

That just happens to be my neck of the woods! I took a trip around the corner to my local Bigg’s right after receiving the good news from the sisters’ marketing agent and what did I find? Fantastic placement of their teas on a short shelf (harder to get lost on than taller shelves)!

From the press release:

Fully Loaded Tea continues US expansion into “The Buckeye State”

Gourmet tea blends now available in select Ohio locations

Mississauga, ON – Fully Loaded Tea (FLT) is proud to announce its first distribution partnerships with Ohio retailers.  Starting in Early October, select bigg’s hypermarkets and Jungle Jim’s International Market will join the growing number of key locations throughout the country carrying FLT’s distinctly different product.  This continued expansion ensures that residents of Cincinnati and Fairfield will now be able to enjoy the bold and opinionated blends, already extremely popular with young professionals and celebrities.   

Katya Popoff, co-founder of FLT explained: “We are extremely pleased to be working with bigg’s and Jungle Jim’s International Market.  Bigg’s has been a supporter of Fully Loaded Tea since our inception, so we are particularly delighted as this distribution partnership confirms our immense progress, and gives us further momentum going forward. We continue to be overwhelmed by the support received from retailers such as bigg’s and Jungle Jim’s International Market – our blends are popping up on shelves throughout the US, and this is certainly a most rewarding feeling.”

The brainchild of sister-duo Katya Popoff and Olga Lenova, since the company’s launch in 2007 FLT has experienced unprecedented success and momentum with an increase in sales by more than 400 percent in 2008. The unique combination of berries and tea blends results in bold, opinionated flavors rich with vitamins and antioxidants.

FLT’s distinct blends continue to garner invitations to participate in high-profiled, celebrity events, including the Primetime Emmy Awards, SXSW Film Festival, and the Much Music Video Awards.

Ohio gourmands can look forward to purchasing Fully Loaded Tea blends at:

bigg’s hypermarket located at 5218 Beechmont Avenue and 5022 Delhi Road in    Cincinnati, and Jungle Jim’s International Market at         5440 Dixie Hwy in  Fairfield.

For more information about FLT, to purchase the blends online, or to find locations around the country where FLT is available, please visit www.fullyloadedtea.com.

Friday is Black Tea, Floral Tea, Fruit Tea, Chai and Pu’erh Review Day!

Vegetables in tea!?! You heard me right. This white tea blend from Fully Loaded Tea is interesting and enticing from the packaging to the flavor!

I’m not sure if Katya and Olga woke up one morning and BAM! they just knew to use cucumber in a tea, or what. But what I think is that they’re pure genius!

This blend is in a pyramid tea bag (sachet) and looks to have a mix of floral leaves and  carrot pieces, but I didn’t see any cucumber. It brews a beautiful tangerine-orange color. Nice and bright.

The aroma has Cucumber tart, hints of safflower, some spice and carrot and is slightly pungent.

Flavor-wise you deffinitely catch the cucumber, carrot, spice and safflower. Though marigold is on the ingredients list I certainly didn’t catch it. It is slightly sour and clearly vegetal. It reminds slightly of spinach.

The flavor is well balanced, but the aroma is the draw here. Not too bold, not weak, just a well balanced tea. Great for a change of pace and worth a try. I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys trying different teas.

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Wednesday is Green Tea, White Tea, Rooibos, Oolong and Tisane (Herbal) Review Day!

Goji berries are an understated flavor accessory. I’m of the opinion they’re not used frequently enough. From the wonderful female duo over at Fully Loaded Tea comes this Goji Force Green Tea.

This tea comes in pyramid sachets. Very popular in the industry for a few years now. Fortunately, Katya and Olga also found a way to use big berry slices and larger leaf sizes than I usually expect, all in one of these little silken wonders.

The liquor infuses to a light amber gold and provides an aroma with notes of light spice and light hints of grassiness expected with green teas.

With notes of honey some berry taste and an easy finish this tea is extremely comforting to drink. There is a slight spiced bit, almost like pepper, in the tail… but it’s subtle and not at all overpowering.

I recommend this tea to drinkers of spiced beverages, fruit teas and medium to light bodied green teas.

Monday is Teahouse/Tea Room, Accessory and Brand Review Day!

I mentioned a few weeks back that I had come across a unique product: an Electric Iced Tea Maker. The IT400 from Focus Electrics is a pretty neat piece of equipment. While several consumer level iced tea machines seem to exist, this one shows the most promise of any I’ve run across thus far.

So, on occasion I happen to arrive home with a package awaiting me at my front door. This isn’t all too unusual of course, except that a lot of the time, I don’t seem to have ordered anything. That was the case here. In this instance, the unit was provided by Hammacher Schlemmer, the oldest running order catalog in the United States.

Opening the package from a company I’d heard about only because I read the World Tea News entries every day and happened to catch an entry about their having just started offering this product. I’ve come to understand that Focus Electrics has had this model out for some time. An earlier iteration of the IT400 actually had a recall associated with it, but the company indicates that all those issues have been ironed out.

This device is made up of only a few parts:

1. A body
2. A 2 quart (1.89 liter) pitcher
3. A strainer for loose tea
4. A drip pan for bagged teas and water timing
5. A sweetener  infuser

Each part should be washed by hand (though the pitcher is dishwasher safe). This is pretty easy to do, but be careful if you’re using a brillo pad or another steel hardened brush tool. These can cause grooves in the plastic, allowing loose leaves to stick more easily and causing it to become more difficult to clean over time. I’ve not had to use anything special to clean the device’s parts if done immediately after creating a batch of iced tea. Some residue may remain in the sugar chamber if not cleaned immediately and can be difficult to clean off if left for too long.

The device is very simple. The top lid flips up revealing the 2 quart water chamber in the back. Don’t fill it above the max mark or water will spout out the back through a little circular hole designed for that purpose.  In the front you’ll find the three removable chambers for loose tea, bagged tea and sweeteners.

If you want to sweeten your tea you’ll need to remove the first two chambers and place up to one cup of your chosen sweetener into its chamber after first rinsing the chamber so the sweetener doesn’t prematurely flow into the pitcher. It makes sense if you think about it.

The Electric Iced Tea Maker comes with some nice instructions on how much tea to use for each type of tea. It even specifies how many teaspoons for loose tea and how many bags for bagged teas. These are certainly helpful guidelines, but not altogether correct from my experience. More on that in a bit.

I took the time to make several different types of iced tea with this machine over the past few weeks. From both pure and flavored greens to fruity teas. From tisanes (herbals) to blacks and oolongs. The only type or tea I haven’t covered with this machine is pu’erh.

Let me start by indicating that each tea has its own nuances and flavor profile. You may prefer your teas a bit different than I do. Although I have attempted to ensure I covered making stronger teas and sweeter teas, I may not have hit the mark just where you like it. Keep this in mind as you read on.

The Electric Iced Tea Maker provides a switch on the front of the unit for judging the strength. This switch increases pressure on the flexible bottom on the drip chamber causing it to adjust the space allowed for the liquid to make its way into the sweetener chamber. The less space, the stronger the brew and visa-versa.

The first tea I made was a Mango Green tea from The Tea Source. I placed the device on medium strength, added two tablesponns of Splenda (my preferred sweetener if I’m to use anything granulated),  added four heaping tablespoons of the loose leaves into the flexible mesh strainer chamber, filled the picther with ice, closed the device’s lid and pushed the “On” button on the its right side.

A meager ten minutes later I had a pitcher of tea. The tea held its body but was a bit weaker than I’d expected. The flavor profile was not altogether different from it’s rating as a hot tea aside from being a bit sweeter due to the Splenda.

I would say the Electric Iced Tea Maker did well on this tea and the process was surprisingly straight forward.

Next I tried a Yanagi style Japanese sencha from Harney & Sons. One tablespoon of Splenda for sweetening, strength on High. Remember the pitcher is 2 quarts, so one or two tablespoons really doesn’t amount to much, but does help to take the edge off the coldness iced beverages project.

The Yanagi turned out very well. Again, weaker than I’d anticipated, but drop in a few berries or slices of your favorite citrus fruit and you have a very nicely blended summertime beverage here!

I would say this device works well on green teas whether flavored or pure, but it disappinted me in its strength of brew and could really make them stronger.

On to Oolong teas! Teavana’s Maracuya Passion Oolong is where I decided to try this category out with the Electric Iced Tea Maker. A medium-strong setting. No sweetener here as this tea is plenty sweet enough out of the bag. I’ll review this tea in the near future as well.

This tea came out very nice! Just about the expected strength with the right amount of flavor. When iced this Oolong is even better than it is hot! I recommend trying this out.

Good taste and flavor from this tea. Let’s see how it does on a pure Oolong!

For this category’s pure tea I chose a less creamy Oolong in a Ti Kuan Yin from Special Teas. Full of body and flavor I expected this tea to be a bit stronger given the four tablespoons of tea I used. I was disappointed with here again. It could be the tea… but from my earlier experience with green teas, I’m guessing not.

I tried a couple black teas as well. First was a well balanced Irish Breakfast from Stash. I used tea bags this time around so I could get a feel for the difference. Set on medium strong, two tablespoons of sweetener and let it brew.

The nature of an Irish Breakfast tea, being primarily of either Orthodox or CTC Assam is very strong and malty. Setting the device to “strong” would have been overkill.

This tea came out extremely well. Just about perfect in boldness and flavor, and only lightly aromatic. Just what I would expect from a great glass of iced tea.

Pure black tea still makes some of the best iced tea!

For the flavored tea of the black tea catagory, I chose to go with a Pomegranate black tea from 52teas. Medium strong with two tablespoons of sweetener. Loose tea again since I don’t have very many bagged teas.

Flavorful and aromatic, this beautiful tea turned out spectacular! Very balanced and more than modestly refreshing! I’d really like to see this iced tea packaged as a Ready to Drink (RTD) beverage.

In conclusion I should note that this iced tea machine makes a wonderful attempt at enticing the loose tea community with a simple machine capable of making great iced teas. There are some shortcomings which will be noted by the avid tea drinker, including the lack of variable temperature settings for different tea types.

Cons:

• Not as good with lighter teas such as whites and greens
• Lack of variable temperture for different tea types leads to some teas not being strong enough
• Metalic cleaning tools may damage plastics

Pros

• Only 10 minutes for good iced tea
• Variable strength toggle allows for some customization
• Up to a cup of sweetener allows you to brew great sweet teas
• Easy to clean trays
• Pitcher is dishwasher safe

Clearly there are more positives than  drawbacks, and I for one am happy to have this Electric Iced Tea Machine just in time for the hot summer months!

Help a good cause: CharityWater.org

What exactly spurred me to sign up for the World Tea Expo is something I can’t reveal much about at the moment, asside from the fact that it does indeed relate to The Project.

I learned something while out in Las Vegas… though it wasn’t related to gambling, adult inhibitions or travelling. Indelibly I learned that my greatest strength and passion is, and likely has always been, with people. What makes us tick individually. It turns out that this year’s World Tea Expo, for me, ended up being all about the people.

While Saturday certainly marked a wonderful close to a beautiful and full day of tea related adventues… it was the people I met that day which truly energized me. The wonderfully high quality teas and the colorful array of accessories were really only icing on the cake.

I ate breakfast Sunday at the Roundtable All-Day Buffet at the Excalibur. The buffet was just $25 to come and go for as many trips as you’d like within a 24 hour period. My dietician would have been aghast at the prospect if she knew… but what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas… right? I actually ended up eating rpetty well there. Fruit, eggs and grapefruit juice were what appealed to me and I chose rather appropriate portion sizes. In case you’re wondering… I did go back for lunch and dinner… but I had a middle meal during a Tweetup I’ll mention later.

Sunday and Monday were where it was all at. Two more sessions: “Selling Your Tea Online Successfully” and “Creating A Menu With Cost & Creativity in Mind” bisected my morning and afternoon. Both presentations were steller! I couldn’t have been more pleased with the investment I made in paying for these two sessions.

Michael Cramer of Adagio Teas covered a wealth of great information related to community building… engaging and keeping your customers on your website and helping with conversion of simple visitors into customers who buy your products.

Melinda Decker, owner of LaTeaDa Tea Room in Clinton, IL provided an interesting presentation as well. While her ideas mostly focussed on her more traditional Victorian style tea house… she provided a number of robust and reusable ideas for making the most out of the materials you buy, simply by using the same ingredients to make multiple products… such as a cake, cobbler or pie being turned into a dessert in a glass.

I spent the rest of Saturday, literally networking with people. Hitting booths, talking people up over tea, getting my business cards handed out and really just getting to know people.

I ran into Jack Cheng of Steepster.com, Lindsey Goodwin of VeeTea, The fine guys over at Village Tea, Ty Beddingfield of Gamila… the inventors of the Tea Stick and a plethor of other completely wonderful folks on Sunday. Several of these folks, plus Ilya from Adagio Teas showed up for an evening Tweetup after the expo floor closed and we had some grub and drinks. In particular, Ty and I really talked for a while about ideas and things. A wonderful day.

After dinner Sunday night, I hit up Cherry, a dance club over in the Red Rock Hotel. This club was one hell of an experience! I thoroughly enjoyed the hours spent there dancing and admiring the crowd. I really get energized when a club is as alive as Cherry was that night. Rare I think, for a Sunday night.

Now it’s Monday morning. The sun is up… but I’ve been awake for hours already. To protect myself some from JetLag I have always tried to awaken as close to Eastern time as possible. I worked out in the rather meager (by my standards) health club in the Excalibur… an amazingly expensive $20 a day on top of the room bill.

After breakfast at the buffet again, I made my way over to the expo for some tea and my morning session: “Reaching Beyond Your Front Door For Additional Income” and then on to my afternoon session: “Price it Right & Sell it Smart.”

Ronald Eng of Kopius Teas put on a wonderful presentation. Very well spoken with great diction and clarity. His ideas were understandably expressed and he was very energetic about answering questions. A serial entrepreneur, Ronald had some great ideas and concepts to share.

Robert Hedrick of Holton & Heath also had some great insights on proper pricing, commodity vs exclusive and the power of branding potential. This was a also a very good presentation.

The rest of my “day” on Monday was spent scurrying around making my final connections with brands and companies, procurring more business cards in exchange for mine as an attempt to build more outlets and opportunities for me to grow with the tea industry over the next couple decades.

I did end up linking with Ronald Eng and Emilie Yanagi of Kopius Teas, the people at Zojirushi North America, a couple great folks over at TeasEtc, Maria Warman from Art of Tea and I cannot forget Nora of Golden Star Tea who has an amazing sparkling bottled tea beverage presented in a chapagne bottle!

At the end of the day I ran into May King of the new UK tea brand, MayKing Tea as well as a few other friends including Norman who is starting a tea garden in Hawaii! I ended up going out dancing with these two and we had a wonderful time out at Margaritaville down the strip after throwing back a few drinks at Liquidity, a bar in the Luxor Hotel & Casino.

I don’t want to leave anyone out… but I’m HORRIBLE with names… I ended up meeting several hundred people at the expo and coming away with some great friendships made over the three day event.

I have to recommend this event to anyone starting a new tea business, or anyone already in the industry!

I’ve already made the decision to head back to Las Vegas next year for another round of tea education. Maybe by then I’ll already have a small presence in the tea industry and be ready for some thoughts on expanding to becoming a tea brand. Here’s to the future!

Help a good cause: CharityWater.org