Happy Earth Tea

11/05/2026

Just a friendly heads-up: Join us next Saturday morning, November 14th, for a Tea and Meditation session led by Amy Jo, the founder of Bodhi Tree Yoga, at our tea house. Discover how the effortless act of sipping tea can enhance your meditation journey. No previous meditation experience is necessary—everyone is invited!
To secure your place, please click the link here
https://happyearthtea.com/collections/tea-classes/products/meditating-with-tea

11/02/2026

Some artists start with a sketch. Sara Silvio () often starts with the materials themselves: a stone, a length of wire, a piece of something old and unusual. She lets color, proportion, and balance tell her where the piece wants to go.

It’s an intuitive way of working, and you can see it in the finished jewelry. The pieces are textured, full of movement, and carry a kind of playful confidence. Underneath it all is a fascination Sara has never let go of, with jewelry and with the women who wear it.

Her work is here this Friday for First Friday: November 6, 6 to 9 PM. Sara will be here to talk about the work, and her jewelry will be for sale. Full tea service and tea-based mocktails all evening.

696 South Avenue, in the South Wedge. Free, and everyone’s welcome.

10/30/2026

Some lines of television sent perhaps more people to the kettle than any advertisement ever could. Four words, spoken by a starship captain with the gravity of a Shakespearean actor: Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.

Sir Patrick Stewart died this week at 86. Before the bridge of the Enterprise, there was the Royal Shakespeare Company, and before that, a teenager in Yorkshire working as a newspaper reporter and obituary writer. He brought dignity to every role and grace to his causes.

This morning we’re brewing a cup of our Earl Grey Supreme in his honor. His family has asked that, instead of flowers, people support Alzheimer’s research.

Thank you, Captain.

10/27/2026

Over the past couple of years, as matcha ran short around the world, people kept asking us the same thing: why can’t Japan just make more?

Part of the answer is in this photo. That’s Niraj at the Osada family’s mills in Kakegawa, Japan, where our ceremonial matcha is ground. Each mill is a pair of granite stones turning slowly, one against the other. Shaded tea leaf goes in at the top, and a fine green powder drifts out at the edges. One mill makes about 30 grams an hour, roughly one tin.

Run the stones faster and they heat up, and the heat dulls matcha’s color and pulls its flavor toward bitterness. So no one runs them faster. Even when demand soars, the mills keep their pace.

It’s something we say in every matcha class: this tea simply cannot be hurried. Our current matcha is Okumidori from Kagoshima, stone-milled in Kakegawa.

https://happyearthtea.com/products/ceremonial-grade-matcha-organic

10/24/2026

10/23/2026

Most of us can tell the story behind at least one piece of jewelry we own. We know who gave it to us, where we were, and why we still reach for it on certain days. The piece itself is small. What it holds usually isn’t.

Rochester jewelry artist Sara Silvio has spent more than twenty years thinking about exactly that: why certain pieces draw us in, how we wear them, and what they come to mean. Her work brings together rich color, elemental shapes, gemstones, precious metals, and vintage materials you won’t find anywhere else. She’s best known for intricate woven wirework and sculptural designs that seem to move even when they’re sitting still.

Sara is also one of our tea bar regulars. Last month it was Nancy Kraus and her felted wool; this month it’s Sara and her jewelry. We keep discovering how many talented artists have been sitting at our tea bar all along, and it amazes and thrills us every time.

Her jewelry comes to our shop for First Friday, November 6, from 6 to 9 PM, and Sara will be here that evening. Full tea service all evening, plus tea-based mocktails.

696 South Avenue, in the South Wedge. Free, and everyone’s welcome!

You see more details of her work at www.sarasilvio.com

10/22/2026

Celebrating Halloween with the kiddos in the neighborhood. Lotta fun!!

10/20/2026

Some places stay close no matter how far life takes you. For me, one of them is Nurbong Tea Estate, a garden in the Darjeeling foothills, half an hour uphill from my parents’ home.

On my recent trip home I went back, this time to learn about the garden itself. It has been growing tea since around 1870, in a valley where the Mahananda and Shivkhola rivers meet. We walked the tea fields with the factory manager, watched fresh leaf arrive for processing, and heard frankly about what it takes to keep a historic garden going today.

Many of you have enjoyed Nurbong’s teas this year. Here’s the place they come from, and the people and challenges behind them.

Read the full story: https://happyearthtea.com/blogs/tea-101/nurbong-a-tea-garden-close-to-home

10/11/2026

A curious encounter with chai at Mumbai airport.

A regular at our Rochester tea house often asks us for kadak chai. It's not on our menu, but we make him a stronger, longer-boiled version of our chai. Because the word kadak means strong in India.

So when I came across this sign for kadak chai at Mumbai airport, I naturally thought of him. And also felt that the time had come to really understand what it was all about.

Turns out, kadak chai had a remarkable journey — from India's chai traditions to the Arabian Gulf, where kadak became a beloved part of everyday life, and then back again.

And just around the corner was another sign advertising Mumbai's famous cutting chai.

Different names, different traditions, and a shared love of a strong cup of tea.

I've written about the journey of this chai in our latest blog entry, **The Strong Cup: Kadak Chai, From India to the Gulf and Back**.

Find the blog post and a recipe through the link in our bio.

Have you tried kadak chai or cutting chai? Where did you have it?

09/28/2026

Nancy Kraus has considered herself an artist since she was six, when her parents sent her to classes at the Memorial Art Gallery and she painted surrounded by paintings. She became a teacher and a children's librarian, but the art never stopped: illustration, silk painting, and now felting.

She calls the process comforting and meditative. Weeks of small punches with a needle, one color at a time, until the wool remembers the feeling of an old wall in France or a hillside in Costa Rica. It's slow work. It rewards slow looking.

Her felted pieces go up this Friday for First Friday — October 2, 6 to 9 PM. Nancy will be here to talk about the work, and every piece is for sale. Full tea service and tea-based mocktails all evening.

696 South Avenue, in the South Wedge. Free, and everyone's welcome.