A. I feel like food is such a trigger for people’s memories - the scents, the smells - you immediately think of where you ate that food, where you had that experience. And I feel like tea’s the same way. Making tea is a process. We generally do not grab a cup of tea to go. More and more, that’s an option, but it’s usually more of a process. It takes a little bit of time. And I think for that reason, it’s more memorable.
Q. What attracted you to blog about tea in the first place?
A. I started blogging as a way to find the tea community and to share information, my whole philosophy being that tea shouldn’t be intimidating, it shouldn’t be something that feels very elite. It should be something available to everyone. It’s an affordable luxury and it’s really easy to learn if you’re interested.
Q. How did you get the idea for the book?
A. One day I got an e-mail from a man who said, “I had a tea shop in New Orleans that was wiped out by the hurricane. We’re trying to get our company up and going, and we’d love to get you to review some tea. We hope you’re a lot nicer to us than the last Katrina.’’ I thought, there’s got to be a great story here. And so George [Constance] told me his whole elaborate story of how they started the shop, the devastation of the hurricane, and all they went through. And I realized that every shop owner and so many tea drinkers must have stories to tell.
Q. Which story that you received struck you the most deeply?
