A wonderful opportunity to chat with Agha, the creator of Prague Tea Fest which has been organised for the first time this year, this week in Prague 25th to 26th February 2023. We hear all about it, Agha's plans and excitement and hopes for this new and exciting tea event. We hear about tea people arriving from all over Europe, we chat a bit about tea travel and the European tea growing movement. Thank you Agha, was lovely to spend this time together and hear about your exciting new tea event. See you in a few days ..read more

Another very special episode, I have the great pleasure to chat with my tea friend Sooz about her work as Award winning tea educator. I love that Sooz is so passionate about positive change, mental health and creating learning opportunities for people from marginalised groups in our societies. We hear about her work on scholarships for BIPOC practitioners and her views about tea education having the potential to being much more than scholastic learning. Absolutely fascinating, thank you so much Sooz for joining me for this episode. I loved listening to you and found it very stimulating. It mad ..read more

Oh what a pleasure it is to chat with Tim about his tea life and tea culture across the world. We have the pleasure to hear about the new book he is writing, his tea work at Postcardteas, the European Tea Growing movement, climate change and tea growing, tea processing, tisanes, tea ceramics and much more. I have so much respect for Tim and his team and their wonderful work on provenance in tea and supporting fair pay for people working in tea. Thank you so much Tim for being a wonderful guest :) See you soon over some fine tea ..read more

Oh what another tea treat. In this episode I have the pleasure to talk with Prof George van Driem about his wonderful book The Tale of Tea. We chat about camellia sinensis the plant and where it originated, about excavations of 1000 year old tea leaves, pesticides, climate change, earl grey tea and much much more. His book has 900 pages of dense and layered tea knowledge and is a pleasure to read. I love how it feels like many tiny jigsaw pieces coming together :) Thank you George for sharing your work with us ..read more

Welcome to another episode of Tea, Mud and Hope. Our conversation today is with the wonderful Shiloh Gastello, talented ceramic artist, tea enthusiast and educator. During his workshops, Shiloh invites us to go on a somatic awareness journey with tea and to consider our own wellbeing and self development. Shiloh has a wonderful way to show us to slow down and to feel a link to nature, creativity and the very rich tea culture existing at present and throughout the past. Thank you so much for what you do Shiloh. It was wonderful to hear all about it :) To get in touch with Shiloh, you can contac ..read more

Another real treat, in this episode I have the pleasure to chat with Lydia Gautier, well known tea book writer, professional in tea sourcing and passionate about fine tea. We chat about how she selects fine teas and about her travels to many tea areas across the world. We hear about her fascinating project in North Vietnam to help give teas produced in specific wild tea areas there, a protected name - Snow Shan Tea. Wonderful to hear. Lydia then also tells us about her tea book writing, we discuss climate change and the tea world and the tea awards she is involved in. Very excitedly for me we ..read more

Today's chat with Mona takes us to dreaming about tea travel and volunteering on tea farms. Mona shares her tea volunteering experiences on a White Tea Farm in China with us and its wonderful to hear about the opportunities and learning possible through volunteering. Hopefully us tea geeks will be able to explore tea gardens across the world again in the not-so-distant future. Thank you so much Mona for sharing your experiences with us, it was fun and inspiring to hear all about it ..read more

Part 1 of a two parter on Climate change and biodiversity in tea growing and tea enjoyment. This first part is a real treat. I have the pleasure of chatting with Jeff Fuchs who we all know from his award winning tea documentary The Tea Explorer. We chat all things tea, luscious tea forests, tea people, tea spaces and traditional tea knowledge. We are all connected to each other, the natural world and a changing climate. Maybe we can all find solutions together ..read more

What a treat to chat with Wenzhuo :) Based in Germany her life is all about tea. Her work gives us insight into tea history, tea art and the wonderful music played during traditional tea ceremony in China. Its fascinating to hear from her about Zhu Quan who lived about 600 years ago in China and wrote a tea manual which hugely influenced tea culture at the time. Wenzhuo translated this book into English and its wonderful to get a look into that time and how tea was enjoyed then. We also hear from Wenzhuo about her plans to grow tea in Germany and I cannot wait to visit her tea garden and make ..read more

Oh what a treat to get this insight into tea growing and making in Canada. In this episode we hear from Victor Vesely from Westholme tea. Victor is a wonderfully passionate tea maker on Vancouver Island where he has grown tea for the last 10 years. I absolutely love his organic, singleestate teas reflecting the Canadian terroir. Enjoy his story :) and if you would like to get in touch with Victor he is on Instagram on canadian.tea.maker and westholme_tea together with his talented partner Margit who creates beautiful ceramics ..read more