Our local tea plants put out new growth in April. For us that means it is time to make some tea! We put up a post last year that partially documents our first attempts at making green and black teas. We ended up drinking and sharing the black tea more often, so this year we
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Our visited lasted 10 days. Our timing was pretty good. Paris and France have been wracked with protests over changes to their retirement system. We arrived the day of the first protest. There were some disruptions in train and bus services during the stay but nothing that stopped us from getting to where we wanted to
Read More >Brown Dog Press went on the road last month for some R & R in Paris. The road part took us to an airport and from there we made our way to France. The pandemic had kept us close to home for any trips we made. We were ready to head further out, and get
Read More >Earlier this year we went to a workshop on planting camellias offered by Camellia Forest Nursery. A couple from Tarboro NC who were also there mentioned that they had seen tea plants growing in an old cemetery in their town. Tarboro is one of the oldest towns in North Carolina. The cemetery is part of
Read More >We have written a lot about tea on this blog. We have had fun getting into that space. It has led us to several books we plan to bring out, and has allowed us to share what we learned. We read other stuff too. The idea to publish on drink related subjects started with a
Read More >We gathered leaves one more time last weekend with the goal of making black tea. The leaf handling is different in this method. Rather than preserve freshness, your goal is to have the leaf go brown from oxidation – like leaving a cut apple out on the counter. The flesh of the apple turns brown
Read More >Our success making green tea was the result of a series of Zoom talks we attended over the summer last year. The courses were offered by the US Tea Experience, a group led by the tea makers at the Great Mississippi Tea Company. The owners also offer training at their facility in Brookhaven in southern
Read More >We are two years into this publishing effort with no books to show for it. That is about to change. Our first work, Mission to Brazil (to Research the Cultivation and Preparation of Tea, 1839), is quite close to completion. An ISBN is assigned. The cover design is done. Book layout is almost finished. The
Read More >The staff headed to upstate South Carolina last weekend for a family get together. It was nice to be with family we had not been able to see in person since the start of the pandemic. Great time to catch up and hear about the various projects people had taken up over the past
Read More >We have had several surprises in the garden recently – mostly pleasant, one not so much. In addition to the tea plants, we had 10 grapevines growing on the northern edge of our backyard. The area was terraced 15 years ago to cut down on erosion. That made a nice setting for grape vines. After
Read More >The publishing business is a side line to a busy personal and professional life. It is a fun and enjoyable undertaking and diversion from the business of day to day activities. At least, that is the excuse I’ll put out when someone asks “When will you put out a book?” Fair question. There are plenty
Read More >At latitude 35o N the Brown Dog lies just above upstate South Carolina. That puts us slightly north of Chinese tea growing areas that fall around the 30th parallel. Not something you think about most days. However, that observation was made by nineteenth century American farmers and used to promote the idea that tea (Camellia
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