Set them up in 12 cities, then hook up the secret cameras (with Ustream – YouTube footage available as well!) and watch the fun. Add a flashy website (honestcities.com), and you’ve got a fairly comprehensive, “social” tea marketing campaign!

Check out this article on the stunt, where the event is pitched as a study in honesty rather than a multi-layered guerrilla marketing campaign (well done, HT) and the honestcities site as well, which features a survey link & tie into facebook

Honest Tea Facebook Welcome Shot

The ultimate goal seems to be the popular quest for more Facebook “likes”. So far, I see 67,564 fans and 310 views on YouTube. Will have to check in a week or so to see how they fair. Also will be interesting to see what they do with their fan base after the coupons are gone.

It’s a fun campaign, and well thought out. I’ll admit I like it. I like probably it more than I should. Will really like it if fans aren’t left high and dry when the party’s over.

Hey! Why didn’t the honesty tour make it to Baltimore???

You know what I’m itching for right now? A cup of Pi Lo Chun. Something green, light and soothing. A gentle mouth-feel that rolls onto your tongue like a warm, lightweight blob of spring-inspired goodness.

Something that I would never in a million years dream of ordering in a place like this.

How would this be solved?

1. Show me that the tea in those tired aluminum tins behind the counter was sourced within the past month.
2. Fill my cup about 1/4 of the way with cold, cold water
3. Add the rest of the water from that horrible tap attached to your coffee maker, but no need to fill it to the top. You’ll need the space for the teabag you’ll be adding…
4. The teabag will be filled with at least a tablespoon of tea (since Pi Lo Chun is voluminous), and will be pushed into the water almost completely with the swizzle stick you’ve already used to stir the water in the cup, cooling down the coffee maker water that would otherwise destroy those precious leaves.
5. Most of the bag will be submerged, so the leaves have room to expand.
6. Finally, please let me know when you put the bag in the water! I don’t want to play the “how long has that bag been in there” guessing game.

So yeah, you think I’m going to make these kind of requests?
Especially when the guy behind the counter has already been asked to give this level of concentration to the beans he’s brewing for everyone else.
Oh hell’s no. Not if I don’t want spit in my drink.

So it’s another cafe au lait for me. Bah.

http://www.teaapp.com/

It’s super well thought out, and I love the ability to take notes as well as the timer. But please forgive when I say that I tend not to track my cups the way I tracked my daughter’s feeding/sleeping/pooping schedule when she was fresh out. I can understand a tea inventory in a shop, but to have my tea shelf’s contents on my iPhone, updated at all times, just in case? Maybe I’m not type-a enough on that one.

The app also gives you the ability to automatically post your thoughts on whatever you’re drinking to your social network of choice. But I think my friends are grateful that I don’t have the ability to tweet about every cup I drink. Just saying…

btw: 10% off Adagio coupon featured on the site.

If I had an iPhone, would I try Tea, the app? Oh hecks yeah. It’s beautiful to look out, and has a feature for every level of your own personal tea-tracking insanity. Would love to hear with people out there think of it.

Then all of the sudden, things took a turn for the worse. It became a feed for all things Tea Party.

So I shut down the alert, much to my annoyance.

Google, I want my alert back from its hijackers. Enough is enough. Fix the damn algorithm.

Bah.

Tea chest. Japan, early 20th century. Wood, exterior paper decoration, tin lining. Private Collection. Photo courtesy of Fowler Museum at UCLA

Starting tomorrow and running through November 29th, the Fowler Museum at UCLA will be presenting Steeped in History: The Art of Tea.

The exhibit features art from Asia, Europe and America. Pieces on display include paintings, tea paraphernalia, rare ceramics and prints.  Focus is not only on the items and their beauty, but much upon the politics and history surrounding tea. This comes as little surprise, as Steeped in History: The Art of Tea is guest curated by Beatrice Hohenegger, author of Liquid Jade: The Story of Tea from East to West

Tea bowl, Qingbai ware. China, Northern Song dynasty, 1050-1100. Porcelain, blue-green glaze. On loan, Asian Art Museum, The Avery Brundage Collection. Photo courtesy of Fowler Museum at UCLA

Related events going on at the Fowler Museum look just as exciting as the exhibit. Food demonstrations, tea ceremonies and LA tea tours are all on the schedule of programs planned for August through November. “Kids in the Courtyard” activities look like fun for both children and adults. In September there will be lectures from, among others, Beatrice Hohenegger herself. More information on these programs can be found at the news link found here. I wish I lived in LA – the envy is killing me! Be sure to make my envy worse and go see Steeped in History: The Art of Tea starting tomorrow!

My presentation will be on tea (duh) – focusing on why it’s my personal beverage of choice and giving a bit of a crash course in tea basics. You can read a bit more about it here.

Earthbound Tea has made a fantastic offer to Ignite Baltimore attendees! If you’re interested in receiving a free sample of tea, email me at bejoyed[at]yahoo[dot]com with your name and mailing address.

The offer is good from now until July 1st, so please be in touch soon if you are interested. Also, please mention “Ignite Baltimore” in the subject line of the email, so I don’t miss you!

Getting nervous and excited – looking forward to Ignite tonight!

Update: watch the YouTube video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nlb844JVsQY

According to the site, “Rare Brew is an online tea-lover’s community and shop designed to connect visitor with local & international tea experts and online reviews of tea from around the world.” Even more amazing is this: “In the course of 54 hours, a concept for an online tea community has gone from ideation to full launch – the blogs our up, our logo is polished, and tea is ready to ship to our customers’ doors. All in all, we couldn’t have asked for a better group of team members, facilitators and sponors to help us launch Rarebrew.com.”

I’ve just signed up, and look forward to seeing if the site’s functionality and content will make this tea community truly unique to others – so far so good. Something new to what I’ve experienced on other sites – users can create personal “blogs” on the site (powered by WordPress within the site – all blog URLs start with www.rarebrew.com – hello link-juice!) to write about different topics, and members can communicate publicly via “wires”, which are similar to “walls” on other social networks.

The site also features a “World Tea Experience. A Tea of the Month Program” You can learn more about this program by clicking the link here . Interesting  attempt to monetize content. The potential for success is there, if the site can both gain the readership and insure the tea of the month is alluring to both novices and enthusiasts.

Outside of some typos and a small glitch here and there (example – according to the site I joined the site 1 years, 12 months ago) it’s an interesting site.  More over, as a part of the Baltimore tech community, I continue to be impressed by local “tech savvy” groups like “Startup Weekend” encouraging members of their communities to get together to create unique ventures of their own.

Ps. My username at www.rarebrew.com is AJ Schwarz, if you’d like to follow.

Pps. Safe time to plug my upcoming presentation on Tea at Ignite Baltimore #3? I thought so too…

The sight of the box alone sent me into shock. There it was – what I really wanted for my birthday but had never dared tell him. How did he know of its existence? Where in the world did he get it? How did he become a mind reader?

But there it was. The lovely corrugated cardboard box wrapped in rope that could only be holding one thing…my very own Sorapot.

It is a weighty pot in brushed silver. A thing of beauty on it’s own, but far more beautiful with tealeaves in it. A bit clumsy to use in terms of opening and closing, but honestly worth the bit of extra effort not to pinch your fingers in it. The first pour was a bit awkward, since I’m used to pouring slowly – it needs to be thoroughly tipped in order to pour correctly. But once I got the hang of it I was golden.

We don’t have a display cabinet in our house. This teapot may be a game changer in that regard. Will this be the Wagenfeld Teapot of my generation? So far, loving my Sorapot…and feeling quite a bit spoiled for my birthday!