Happy Mother's Day!

Hello!  It has been a while since my last blog post. 

I shared this lovely green tea with my mom today.  Hope all the mothers had a wonderful day with their loved ones.  

I've been busy as you can see...yes, I am expecting!  I'm five months along now.  

Around the same time as the Toronto Tea Festival  this February I was busy with planning and volunteering to help make the second annual two day festival a great one.  I thought I was starting to get sick, perhaps the flu.  It had been a really rough winter with the Polar Vortex and all.  Found out later that I was expecting! What a amazing surprise!

Morning sickness and fatigue took over all of my first trimester.  Morning sickness can last all day, not just morning by the way...  Still working full time in my day job so I haven't made a post in a long time.  My experience thus far has given me a new appreciation of some of the things mothers go through, and it's only the half way point.

I had read and heard from others that the second trimester gets better.  I was waiting patiently and I'm happy to report that it's true!  

My taste buds and sense of smell are heightened.  A lot of the foods I normally enjoy, I can't stomach anymore.  Unfortunately tea is often one of them.  I have to be careful of my caffeine intake for the baby's sake. Now and then I'm allowed a cup or two but the tannins and any slight imperfections are now magnified and quite disagreeable to me. Lighter brews are more palatable.  

It's now after the Spring tea harvest.  One of the top Chinese tea shops in town, Tao Tea Leaf was holding their annual Spring Tea Tasting event.  Over the last couple of weeks, I carefully sipped little Chinese cup samples of the Spring teas.  

I was so happy to be able to taste and enjoy great quality teas again and catch up with many of my tea friends that I hadn't seen in months!  

I still can't drink as much as as I used to, so I only bought one tea.  Hey, that took control and effort on my part!  I decided to pick up some Tai Ping Hou Kui, since I didn't have any of this beautiful long leafed premium green tea left in my stash.  

Fresh, smooth and sweet finish.

Lots of changes ahead, stay tuned for more blog posts to come!

An Elegant Charity Afternoon Tea with Soroptimist International

The Soroptimist International of Toronto presented a lovely charity afternoon tea featuring a colleague of mine, fellow Certified Tea Sommelier and Culinary Consultant, Ingrid Folkers.  How fitting that on Mother's Day weekend, this group of business and professional women will use the proceeds of the event to help local women and young girls, in this case, the 416 Community Support for Women. 

Ingrid, a classmate for quite a few of the Tea Sommelier classes at George Brown College, has been a member of Soroptimist for four years.

Ingrid Folkers (left), Rosita Mandeville, organizer (right)

Ingrid received comprehensive hospitality training (including chef training) in Austria prior to her coming to Canada.  She makes all the foods for her afternoon teas, even the macarons!  Although her oven wouldn't cooperate, so she had to use Ruelo Patisserie's macarons for this event.

It was a lovely afternoon tea, yummy treats and good tea in company of friendly ladies for a great cause!

 

Two teas were served:

Dilmah's Ceylon Earl Grey and Ingrid's own sommelier blended Bourbon Street Vanilla Rooibos  for the non-caffeinated choice.  

The Earl Grey was well blended, strong and rich brew with just the right amount of bergamot.  You can click here for a video to find out the story of Earl Grey tea.  

The rooibos tea was enjoyable with a mild, warming, earthy taste, rich Bourbon vanilla notes, some spices, and had a sweet finish. 

Both teas paired well with the foods.  Yes, I saved bites of food to try with each tea... it must have been quite a funny sight for the other ladies at my table watching me with my camera snapping photos, taking bites of food, sips of tea, taking notes...

Citrus ginger scone, refreshing Lychee Spritzer and Earl grey tea 

the scone was light and tasty

 The afternoon tea tier had many goodies

 from bottom to middle: Mustard Pork loin with chutney on rye, Smoked salmon wheels

from left to right: curried chicken medallions, egg salad, cucumber/dill sandwiches

Mustard Pork Loin with chutney on rye

The sandwiches were really tasty, I particularly enjoyed the pork loin with chutney on rye, not a typical afternoon tea sandwich.  The cucumber sandwiches were very enjoyable too, perfectly thinly sliced, soft bread, nice dill flavour.  The curried chicken medallions were creative with the slices of egg and carrot infused bread.  The breads were slightly sweet, the curry chicken filling was mild, interesting. The egg salad and smoked salmon were more typical afternoon tea style sandwiches.

The sweets: lavender matcha tea cookies, Pot de Creme, French macarons, black velvet cupcakes. 

The rich red velvet cupcake, if you were a cupcake fan, you'd like it very much.  The lavender added a nice touch to the matcha cookies, which I quite enjoyed.  The macaron were yummy, a little bit chewy, lovely raspberry with the chocolate ganache, oh my goodness! 

I really liked the pot de creme, rich dark chocolate cup with light raspberry creme and fresh ripe raspberry, slight bitterness of the chocolate with sweetness of the berry creme, mmm.

Pot de Creme

And of course, what would a charity afternoon tea be without fancy hats and facinators!

A couple of us forgot ours though, aww darn ...