This week's Gift Project

Victorian Fingerless Mitts
free shop pattern
yarn to use: 1 skein of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran and 1 skein of Astrakan
sale price: $13.40 total (including tax)

This Week's Gift Project

Hugs In a Basket Neck Warmer
free shop pattern
yarn to use: 1 skein of Mirasol Miski (100% baby llama)
sale price: $7.55 per ball plus tax

Victoria was inspired by this neat basket-weave like knitting pattern and so designed this beautiful neck warmer. The Miski (Baby Llama) is amazingly soft and is almost guaranteed not to irritate even the most sensitive necks!

About Blended Teas

Many of you have asked about our flavored or blended teas - how do they add the flavor? what makes it a blend? So, I did a little research and I found a nice article that talks about tea blending:

http://www.teatimeworldwide.com/About_Tea/tea-blending.html

The quick answer is that essential oils are usually used to add flavor to loose leaf teas. All the little pretty bits of flowers or fruit are often just there for decoration and don't add anything to the flavor of the tea. Tea is often blended using big blending drums that rotate to mix the different ingredients. This is why most blended teas (like English Breakfast, for example) have smaller looking leaf pieces - the blending can cause the dried leaves to break up a little. Or, in the case of lower quality bagged teas, the fannings or crumbs that are left after all the good stuff is culled out are used for blending. 

Some of our most popular blends include Deb's Green Pear, Scottish Breakfast, Cherries in the Snow, and our own Village Yarn & Tea blend.

Next week I'll talk about Tisanes which are blended "infusions" that do not contain any tea leaves at all.

This week's Gift Project

Cabled Hat
free pattern here: http://www.o-wool.com
yarn to use: 2 skeins of d'ive Autunno (100% fine merino wool)
sale price: $6.35 per ball plus tax

Jasmine Tea

We serve a delicious green tea called Jasmine Pearls - so named because the leaves are rolled into tight little pearl-shaped balls. This preparation allows for several steepings of the same leaves because it takes so long for the pearls to open up and release all of their flavor. One need only use a few pearls, as opposed to a heaping spoonful, to make a delicious cup of tea.

Here is some information from wiseGeek.com about the making of Jasmine tea:

Depending on the varietal, jasmine tea may be made with green tea or oolong tea. Oolong jasmine is very common, with a rich, mild flavor which also tends to settle the stomach. Many restaurants offer oolong jasmine tea for this very reason.

To make jasmine tea, jasmine flowers are harvested at the peak of their blooming and then they are cured with finished teas in conditions with carefully controlled humidity and temperature. As the jasmine flowers dry out, they infuse the tea with their flavor; sometimes multiple passes of curing are used to make an extremely strong jasmine tea. After the curing process is over, the tea is fired again to remove the moisture exuded by the jasmine, and then it can be packaged for sale.

In some cases, jasmine flowers are left in the tea. This function is purely ornamental, as the flowers are essentially odorless and flavorless after the curing process is over.

The best jasmine tea is looseleaf, since it includes whole leaves, and no offcuttings or stems. Ideally it should be brewed loose in a teapot and strained for service, although many people prefer to use tea balls for their brewing since they are more convenient. Both oolong and green teas should be only briefly steeped, as they can turn bitter with long steeping, and the water should be just below the boiling point for the best flavor and scent.

Food Drive

This year, many families in our area will be struggling to make ends meet and will have to take advantage of our local food banks. To help out, we will be collecting non-perishable food items from now until the first of the year.

One of our fabulous customers has promised to donate $1.50 for each pound of food donated to the food banks through Village Yarn and Tea, up to a total of $200 through Dec. 31, 2008! If this sounds like something you would like to do, let us know.

This past Knit Night we collected 60 lbs of food! That's not only a great food donation but $90 in cash to the food bank as well. What a great community we have!

This Week's Gift Idea

The Bainbridge Scarf

free pattern here: http://pepperknit.com/patterns/BainbridgeScarfPattern.pdf

yarn to use: 1 skein of Lana Grossa Cool Wool Merino 2000 (100% virgin wool)

sale price: $8.77 plus tax

This fun and soft cowl works up fast and looks great on. Victoria made one up in red and she loves the way it feels. (We have it displayed up at the cash register.)

The Story of Rooibos

For those of you who frequent the shop, you are no doubt familiar with some of our Rooibos offerings. But do you know how it is made or where it is grown? Here is a quick primer:

• Rooibos is made from the needle-like leaves of Aspalathus Linearis - a plant grown in South Africa. It is not tea.
  
• Rooibos  is made following a process allegedly copied from the Malayan slaves - they cut off the twigs from the shrub and then bruised the leaves with hammers, leaving them to ferment in heaps, before drying them in the sun.
• Because Rooibos is not tea, there is no caffeine or any other stimulant. AND, it is full of antioxidants.

For more information about Rooibos, here are some links:

http://www.africandawn.com/story.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rooibos