Tea Time with Melody Q

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Giveaway Alert: Karen Mom of Three

Holiday Dress Giveaway

Karen Mom of Three and Cupcake Cutie Pie have teamed up to offer a lovely holiday dress in a giveaway to Karen's readers. Isn't this a great dress?

Check out the details for entry on Karen's blog. Deadline is November 23.

Best wishes to all who enter!

Philly Coffee and Tea Festival Goodies

What Did We Bring Home?

So many good things available. We plan to place a couple orders before Christmas from a few places we didn't get to purchase from at the festival. So I went over the map and marked the spots we visited.

This is everything we brought home. Well, except for the Goshen Donuts (I'll tell you about that later).

Bingley's Teas we had to have the Jane Austen sampler.

From Capital Teas we brought home the Cinnamon Plum tea.

Chai Mookie's coco mookie was a must have. I'm glad they provided instructions.

Fashionista Tea's creamy Earl Grey has been added to our Earl Grey collection.

The larger CTC from Ghograjan Tea Estate.

A Kanlo Tea travel mug.

04 from Joseph Wesley.

Spiced Chai Honey from Taste.

I couldn't wait to read the November/December TeaTime Magazine.

I love this information from Cabot.

And, well, we brought home some Goshen Donuts, but they were devoured before we could get the pictures taken.

Yeah, they were really good!

That's our Philly Coffee and Tea Festival experience. We are so very much looking forward to reviewing these items for you (my sisters are super eager to help since they didn't get to taste as much as I have already)! I almost forgot! My coffee bean bracelet from Sun Ministries; you can see I'm it in many of the pictures.

Best wishes,

Note to readers: The Philly Coffee and Tea Festival is a public event. Melody and I went out of curiosity and to learn more about one of our favorite things - tea. Our event recap and subsequent reviews are completely our own opinions - unsolicited by event coordinators or exhibitors. All links are provided for education purposes; no purchase is required.

#phillycoffeeteafestival

Monday, November 17, 2014

Thankful for a Doll Diaries Holiday Giveaway

Awesome Doll Diaries Giveaway

Doll Diaries has teamed up with Cupcake Cutie Pie to offer a lovely holiday dress in a giveaway.

The deadline to enter is November 24. So go now.
Check out Doll Diaries for the entry rules and Cupcake Cutie Pie to find your favorite outfit.
Ours is the Christmas Chickadee.
Best wishes to all who enter!

Philly Coffee & Tea Festival Part 7

Last Few Exhibits

I do apologize for the delay in posting our last five visits at the Philly Coffee and Tea Festival. Saturday raking leaves and Great Aunt Lanie's birthday party took priority and Sunday Xyra and I went to Lancaster for the Thirty-One Gifts Spring Product Premier and then over to Lady Maree's for sewing assistance and a short visit.

Cabot Cheese

The representatives from Cabot had a great display. Informative, colorful, and whimsical. Their cow decided to jump off the wall at one point, but was quickly captured.

There were three flavors to taste. Chipotle - if you like pepperjack, you'll like the chipotle. Alpine cheddar and White Oak cheddar. These last two were really nice - sturdy flavor, not too sharp, good texture - kind of smooth.

They gave visitors a few informative brochures - one included a coupon. And I picked up one geared for younger visitors. You'll see those in the recap post.
Which would be your favorite? I liked them all.

MacDougall's Irish Victory Cakes

These cakes were so lovely. Made by the two women in charge of the display from great grandfather's recipe.

Several flavors were available to taste. We tried the butterscotch. It was moist and oh, so tasty! The other popular flavor was Irish cream.

TeaTime Magazine

I was so very excited to see TeaTime Magazine represented.

We love reading that magazine. We learn so much about tea and there are so many nice recipes. It's where we found Bruce Richardson first and now we follow his blog.

They had the several cookbooks available for sale.

And cute note cards too.

A friend was doing a magazine subscription fundraiser for Girl Scouts so we recently signed up to get TeaTime Magazine and can't wait to see it in the mail box.

Tea and Whimsey

Tea and Whimsey offered a variety of sipware and accessories. Isn't this a cute kitty teapot?

This owl set is adorable! (Do you see the young lady in the background? That's our friend from Kanlo Teas. She was really nice.)

And tea cozies! These are two of my favorites. This kitty reminds me of Lil.

And this one reminds me of her brother, Bagheera (we miss him.)

The Tea House Times

Are you looking for help with tea? Or trying to find a good tea blog? Then you want to check out The Tea House Times. The main representative, Gail Gastelu, for this exhibit was not available when we stopped. Her seminar was one we had hoped to go back to on Sunday, but didn't make it.

She had a few items for sale like this cupping set. It's beautiful.

And she had lots of information. Her Sunday seminar focused on afternoon tea etiquette.

Heading Home

It was a long, wonderful day. We left while it was still light out. Grabbed one more picture.

Those are our goodies to my right (to the left in the picture). I'll show you what's in there tomorrow.

I really hope you enjoyed our trip. So much to tell you about. Soon we'll start on the reviews. [Don't forget if you visit Simply Good Tea and find something you want to try, you can get a 10% discount by entering MelodyQ in the coupon code section at checkout.]

Friday, November 14, 2014

Philly Coffee & Tea Festival Part 6

More Great Exhibitors

Hi! Our trip to the Philly Coffee & Tea Festival has almost come to an end. Today I get to tell you about two more great tea companies and honey!

Jane Austen Teas

Who here loves Jane Austen? (Books or movies, doesn't matter.) I know there are a few of you. Well, Bingley's Teas has a line of tea blends representing your favorite characters! I'm sorry this first picture is a little blurry. The tea in front of the box is Compassion of Mrs. Bennet's Nerves. It is an herbal blend with chamomile - another tea ingredient of which I am not that fond; however, this was delightful! The other ingredients temper the chamomile nicely.

This blend is Willoughby. By it's description ("A black tea with bergamot sonnets, smoldering with youthful passion and carrying traces of a pine smoked cottage chimney."), I'm sure this would be a favorite. Thankfully, tea can't break hearts. ;-)

This area of the table was devoted to their Tea Temptress Series.

A beautiful set up with glass pots so you can see the lovely color differences in the blends.

Who is your favorite Jane Austen character? I bet they have a blend for him or her.

Kanlo

At Kanlo I met a wonderful family. Everyone was there, even a lovely little girl. They were very sweet and friendly and excited to share their teas with me.

Here I tried the Soursop blend. It was light and so very tasty - not sour at all.

They had five different blends ready for tasting: Creme Bruleee, Serene, Berry Berry, Coconut Delight, and Soursop.

Which blend do you think would be your favorite?

Taste Artisinal Market

The Taste area was a popular one. I had fun there. It's a good thing Pooh Bear wasn't here, he'd be stuck. So much lovely honey to taste.

I stayed traditional and tasted the lavender honey first. Yum! Then the spiced chai honey. So good! Last, but not least, the rosemary fig honey. Wow! That last one tasted more like a jam than honey. But it was rich, so no worries about going through a whole loaf of bread in one sitting.

They introduced a hop honey at this event. I saw on their Facebook page it was really popular.
Do you like honey? Did you know you can drizzle honey over cheese?

That's it for today. Three very yummy exhibitors.

Stop by again soon.

Best wishes,