Tag Archives: maplewood tea

General, Tea Info, Value Shopping

Tiniest Tea Shop!

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This phrase just occurred to me when I was taking photos to update our Google listing. A kind shopper posted photos of our pre-Covid layout, back when you could really walk around in the shop.

I realized that is misleading to new folks and just uploaded some new inside shots yesterday.

Here they are too:

View from just inside the door
To the right of door, upon entry
To Go Drinks available

We may be St Louis’ Tiniest Tea Shop, but Kateri works hard to curate the Best selection of teas.

Somewhere between 100-125 teas available at any given time. We purchase in relatively small quantities to keep our stock the freshest available to us for you.

Offering luxury and hand-crafted teas in small sizes to make them affordable for everyone.

2024 Goal – to find more Farm-Direct teas, helping tea farmers and tea workers to live above the poverty level; and find you some spectacular teas along the way.

In case you did not already know:

  • you can bring your own cup to get $1 off To-Go drinks.
  • we will fill your containers at a lower per ounce price; or you can get teas in brown paper bags and fill your own containers at home [note: if you order online and get 8oz or more, select the cheapest available price and tell us in the notes to pack in paper bags].
  • Tea tins and jars are available for purchase as well
Come see our Tiniest Christmas Tree – taking up the bare minimum of extra space!
[Tree sculpture created by Tevlin, a local artist friend of Kateri’s daughter]
General

Too much black tea?

If you are like me, black tea is your primary Go-To beverage. Even so, sometimes my stomach says “too much” – needing something less acidic, more alkaline.

All tea has various health benefits, that vary due to harvesting and processing – it is a plant, after all. Green tea, being dried more quickly after harvest, has been most researched and found to have many more benefits. I can feel the difference in my stomach and in my body when I drink more (properly brewed) green tea.

It can be a challenge to drink more when the palate is more used to black. Black tea is more widely consumed in this country. The trick for me, is to blend them.

For a 16oz mug of tea, use 1 teaspoon black of choice, and 1 teaspoon of green (or adjust the ratio to suit your taste). Try starting with a Darjeeling or Assam green, or our Decaf Green (lower your caffeine intake at the same time). Use the same boiling water as for black (not a rolling boil though) and steep it for no more than 3 minutes, maybe even a little less. If using any of our teas, you will definitely be able to get a 2nd steep out of your cup (maybe even a third).

Darjeeling Green, Yanki Farms

It will still have enough of the black tea flavor to satisfy your palate, but will have less acidity. You may even be able to gradually shift it so that you are drinking more green in your cup than black. Note: If you do not like bitter tea, you usually cannot leave green tea to steep more than 3 or 4 minutes (even on 2nd or 3rd steeps). There are some green teas that are more forgiving. You will have to experiment to find them. [Our Baozhong Green, that is processed as an Oolong, and our new Mao Jian are both forgiving of forgetfulness]

Baozhong Green
General

news you can use

5/21/2020 – City of Maplewood has set up large tents on parking lots around town so you can enjoy great curbside food and drink outside with family and friends.

Our TO GO Drinks are BACK, and Curbside pickups are available Saturdays only starting this weekend – call the shop or order online – Prepay and Pickup! ENJOY!

In spite of revisions to county codes allowing some businesses to start opening – we will not be opening the shop to foot traffic yet, nor will we be vending at the Tower Grove Farmers Market – for your safety and ours. We are still erring on the side of caution.

To make it easier to keep Good Tea in stock – we offer pickup and delivery in addition to shipping throughout the U.S. with Free shipping/delivery for orders $50+ ORDER HERE

Contactless Delivery is Free up to 10 miles from our Maplewood shop w/$50 minimum order. $5 fee=no minimum order. Pickup is available on Tuesday and Friday by arrangement, and Saturday we are open for curbside purchases from 11am-4pm.

Live within 5 miles of our shop? Select “Pickup” for Free Delivery w/$20 minimum order, and add notes about your delivery location.  $5 fee=no minimum order.

For all orders, whatever delivery method, if you are located within 10 mile radius – Bill will call you to confirm delivery/pickup arrangements with you. He is in the shop on Tuesday, Friday and Saturday – and those are our available delivery and pickup days.

AND – if you have a Kuva coffee lover in your household – you can Now add 12oz bags of Kuva and we will ship or deliver along with your tea. We need a 2 day notice to get the coffee.

5/8/2020  Our recent batch of Range Free cinnamon rolls missed out on the ingredient (xanthan gum)                                    that helps the gluten free flours stick together better.... so they are a little crumbly around the edges.....

they still taste Great though…. snag some of this batch at discounted pricing (70c-85c off normal prices) until they are gone … Kateri used some of the non-raisin ones to make a stunning bread pudding [not vegan, but still gluten and nut free, and dairy-free made with oat milk]

——- Gift Cards anyone? —————

NEW – as of 5/8/20 we now have Digital egift cards – since 99% of our transactions are now taking place via shopping on our website – we have finally dipped our toes into ecards (much as we Love our paper gift certificates – they’re pretty hard to spend online – and that was sad for all of our loyal fans far away too).

Check out your options here: https://squareup.com/gift/1Z4JCR2HAKJMR/order

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