I've had a bit of a time keeping a secret. I wasn't sure if it was exactly a secret, but I also just wasn't sure what to expect. A little bit back, I received an invitation to a Tea Social put on by Bigelow in Manhattan. I didn't even know the location until the week before the event, but I went ahead and booked tickets on the Bolt Bus for Mr. Tea Scoop and myself, and we planned to make a day of it.
We arrived in Manhattan shortly before noon, and the first order of business was to find a slice of NYC pizza. Hunger satiated, we set out for our first destination, Kalustyan's in Little India. Kalustyan's, as well as our second stop, were both featured in a shopping guide in the New Yorker. Kalustyan's had a lovely selection of tea, herbal and traditional, flavored, unscented, self-serve, prebagged, boxed brand-names, you name it. On the other hand, for once, I could hardly pay attention to the tea for the other offerings. I didn't find anything extremely unusual for a tea shop (although I did purchase some traditional masala chai). You see, Kalustyan's is primarily a spice shop. And we wandered through room after room of spices I had never even heard of, in almost every form. It was a truly fascinating place.
After Kalustyan's, we made our way to Grand Central Station where we found our way to Tea & Honey in one of the shopping passages. A cute little tea shop, they sold many products imported from France.
At last, it was time to make our way to The Carlton, a ritzy hotel on Madison Avenue. The hotel's restaurant, Country, was the location for this mysterious event. I headed through the restaurant and up to the second floor to the Champagne Lounge, where I signed in and received a nametag with my name and the URL for the blog. I was only the second guest, after Cherie, librarian, blogger, and ultra runner from Brooklyn. Shortly other guests started arriving, and we all mingled for about an hour. Along with Cherie, I met several other interesting women. Grace, a food blogger, aspires to visit all of the Michelin starred restaurants in NYC. Jessica runs FoodMayhem.com, another fabulous food blog. I was pleased to discover that I had already bookmarked two of her recipes from Tastespotting, although I have yet to try them. Karen from The Nibble was there. Jackie Gordon, chocolatier and singing diva, writes the blog "The Diva That Ate New York." There were other assorted guests as well, but unfortunately I was unable to catch everyone's names and websites.
Now to answer the question about what actually happened. During the first hour, we drank hot tea, of course, which was quite welcome after my chilly wanderings around the city. We also sampled one of Bigelow's new bottled iced teas, currently available in New York and Florida. We tried a mango green, which I found quite refreshing. They are slightly sweetened with cane sugar, but not cloyingly sweet. I hope they expand their line to more areas, and perhaps to include some sweetened and unsweetened black offerings as well. Along with the tea, the restaurant served a few open-faced tea sandwiches and scones with jam and clotted cream. After about an hour, most of the guests had arrived. We moved to a table where Cindi Bigelow gave a brief talk about the basic in and outs of tea. We then compared Bigelow's products to some of the leading competitors. She focused on grocery store brands of tea, Bigelow's main market. While I have done a few comparative tastings before, I had never done so with bagged teas, and I learned to look at certain characteristic that do not apply to loose leaf tea. I'd tell you, but I'll save that for a future post. Our first comparisons were visual, and then we moved to a table where we extensively tasted different types of tea across several brands, including unscented green, chamomile, peppermint, English Breakfast, and Earl Grey. We closed out the event with more chit-chat, wine, and dessert. It was altogether lovely.
As for expectations, I had worried that it would feel like a sales pitch. Luckily, I was wrong. Cindi Bigelow clearly is very proud of the company that her family has run for 65 years, as she should be. But she was very careful not to bash competitors, and to praise them when she felt it was their due. She praised several companies as being run by other "tea people." It was a pleasure to attend and to spend time chatting with her.
This is just a sneak preview of some of the food from the event. These mini lemon meringue tarts were delicious! For more photos, visit the Facebook Fan Page.
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