Tea 104 with the Tea Association of Canada and a visit to Montreal for the love of tea!

Edited post on the 22nd of August 2014 for the new tea blog

I started Tea 104 (yay!). I missed 102 and 103 but it doesn't matter, after I passed 101, they told me I was free to do any of the 7 other classes in the order I wanted. I went to visit my family in September before the move so I missed the other classes. I stayed pretty long until October, but managed to try out an afternoon tea set from the Queen Elizabeth in Montreal. If you are in the area. Try it! It's worth the $26 I promise! The best "plain" (it was vanilla flavoured) scone you'll ever have. Lightly crunchy on the outside and so soft and fluffy and just sweet enough on the inside. A raisin scone, double cream, organic jams (you can actually taste the difference as they are not so sweet and the marmalade one is less bitter), tea sandwiches and some finger desserts made it quite a lovely tea event for myself. The tea selection was good but not pristine in my opinion. They had their own blends which were good enough I guess.

Here is what it looked like! I was also rather lucky as they told me they only serve it after 3 in the afternoon and there I was at 1h30pm, one of the rare days I could get someone to take care of my son so I could enjoy some me (and tea) time! The man in charge felt for me, knowing what it's like to finally have a day off and looking forward to something like that. I'm glad I got a little whinny. I usually don't like it when I do my pitty-me tone, but for once it did well. Then I went for the Tea exposition the Pointe-à-Callière museum was having. Lucky me again, it was the last day, so I almost missed it! During my time in Québec. I signed up for some tea workshops at the Camellia Sinensis, so I made sure my stay had tea in focus.

Now I know I promised to talk about some gyokuro teas that I was supposed to test, but unfortunately, I've been way too busy. It's on my list and after my class is over, so after the 18th of December, I'll get to it. Right now, they are making me test SO MANY teas, it's crazy! Next week I'll have 23 teas to try and jot down info about.

In any cases, I'm searching for a Christmas gift for my husband (even he doesn't know what he wants...) and I may have gotten something. I really like the online tea shop Yunomi and I know I will sound like I'm plugging it in my blog, but they gave me this link to share with friends and since I don't really wanna bug my friends, I'll share it with you, tea lovers! It's 20% off your entire purchase and seriously, they have really interesting teas! I thought banchas were the poorer teas and they got farmers who made amazing things out of these (well, we'll see as I've just ordered a bunch and haven't received them yet).
here: http://curebit.com/x/xOrd7i
This one also works: http://curebit.com/x/QMGAaQ
Curebit is some company that organizes those deals for online shops, I think, as I've seen that for other websites (like when I registered to some magazine, I got a deal to share through curebit as well. If you're unsure, just look it up - it's safe! (I know I always do before clicking on some unknown link as I'm very careful...)

And yeah, I do get some bonuses if you guys get referred through the link, so I guess it's win-win! (oh, and if you like them, register! Once you get the Chajin status you can qualify for free international shipping!)

I'll be working on my class project now. I'm thinking of doing a power point presentation on India. I thought that if I felt too overwhelmed or unsure of how to handle the presentation I'd do it on Japan since I know Japan best amongst the tea countries, but I got a good feeling about this. India has interested me for quite a while so I want to try something out of my comfort zone and challenge myself a bit. Even if I'm not very good at naming everything I smell and taste in black teas, I like how rich India is - and not just for their black teas, they got a few other types as well, like Darjeeling white tea!

I promise to get into the gyokuro teas again! See you next time (hopefully within the next month!)!