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Tea Blog & Travels

Ray and Ellen rolling tea, Forest Hill Tea, Sri Lanka, March 2020
Read about our Tea Travels

We hope to impart tea knowledge and learning opportunities to our customers through this blog.We receive a lot of questions about tea brewing, production methods, organic tea farming and more. Here we hope to impart some knowledge and resources for better understanding and appreciating for the world\’s second most consumed beverage – tea!

Have a question or comment? Please email teamaster.

 

Recent Blog Posts

Japan Tea Tour 2024 with Little Tree Tea

  Perhaps you remember the opening of our teahouse in 2011, and the people who were instrumental in getting it off the ground, a place to meet, chill and sip tea, that became a beloved part of the Portland Community. If you knew Matthew and Kristin, then you would know their incredible knowledge, experience, and love of tea, and the cultures that create it. They’ve traveled all over Asia for tea, with nothing more than a backpack and the yearning […]

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Beyond the Six Classes: Unique and Different, Teas not often Tasted

Saturday November 6, 2021, 10AM – 12PM – Virtual Tea Tasting Workshop What about those teas we never get to taste? Greener oolongs, dark earthy pu-ers and wild tea buds, to name a few. Perhaps the green stems of Kukicha or the roasted version of Hojicha? We’ll explore and brew 5 teas and there will be one extra for you to try on your own.  Tasting will be 1 1/2 hrs with room for questions at the end. If you’ve […]

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Tea, Food and Culture Tour in the Azores

We’ve been asked many times, “When will you be offering a tea trip for customers?” Well, the time has come! We are offering a tour to the Azores of Portugal to include tea, food, wine, some walking, potentially some hiking, some geothermal hot springs and of course, culture! UPDATED FOR 2022: Six nights total, 2 islands — 4 nights in São Miguel and 1 night in Terceira. Includes international airfare, accommodations with breakfast daily, inter-island flight, daily guided tours, and […]

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Tea Journey: Sri Lanka 2020

View the photo gallery of our trip. Follow us on our travel blog and through Instagram Feb 28 – Mar 15! We’ll be traveling for tea to visit our suppliers of Earl Grey, Ceylon Tiger River, and Ceylon Adams Peak. Ceylon is the name given to Sri Lanka by the Portuguese Empire when it arrived in 1505, was transliterated into English as Ceylon. In 1972, its formal name was changed to “Free, Sovereign and Independent Republic of Sri Lanka” and in 1978, it was […]

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Video: Our Korean Teas

Our Tea Journey to South Korea, 2014. Learn about who makes our Korean black and green teas from Jukro Tea. Learn more about our tea journeys.

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2018 Taiwan Tea Journey

May 11-24, 2018 We traveled for tea, this time to Taiwan to connect with the farmers and producers of our most favorite oolong teas! Embarking on another tea journey, the owners of Dobrá Tea, a teahouse located at 89 Exchange St., Portland, will head to Taiwan for oolong plucking, production and sourcing of these cherished teas. For most of May owners Ellen Kanner and Ray Marcotte traveled with 10-12 other “Devoteas” from the US and Eastern Europe to connect with […]

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Always Environmentally Conscious

We aim to be as environmentally conscious in our day-to-day business dealings as possible. Several ways we do this: We shop two times per week for groceries from local purveyors. This affords little to no waste and we can adjust as necessary depending on the season and needs of the tearoom. We compost everything we can. Ellen has been a lifetime recycler, so she knows the value of Reduce-Reuse-Recycle -and compost!  Garbage to Garden is our partner in this effort. And we […]

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Tea Trip 2017 – India and Nepal

Mar – Apr 2017 Our recent trip for tea took us to India and Nepal, from the far eastern region of Assam tea territory near the border of Myanmar to the Taj Mahal, to the foothills of the Himalayas and the gardens of Darjeeling. Read more in our travel journals from India and Nepal.

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