Sarah Price

The Maya Tea Company, like many businesses, has humble origins. In the beginning there was only one product, a family recipe for chai tea, blended and packaged into teabags. Ambitions were small, expectations were narrow, and even hopes fell short of what the tea company, after a decade, has become.

The advance of the internet has changed global economy forever- we are all linked in a single marketplace online. But the market is linking outside of cyberspace as well. Just last month DAVIDsTEA, a Canadian retail tea store, expanded into the United States with the opening of its first two US locations. If you are a nationalist, don't worry. The gates go both ways. While DAVIDsTEA taps into the American market, Maya Tea is expanding into Canada.

If you ask anyone on Thanksgiving what it is that they are thankful for, the answer that undoubtedly comes is "good family, good friends, good health, and good food." We are all thankful for the many blessings in our lives, and for the positive impact that others have on us. But how many of us look at it from the opposite perspective? How many of us are thankful for the things that we can do for others? That is exactly the gratitude that Manish and G.T. Dave of Synergy Drinks express.

This morning, via the company Facebook page, I learned about a controversial new endeavor in the tea world: tea grown in panda poop. The notion elicited disgust from some of our customers, but I want to examine it further. Should we fear feces?

Last weekend I threw a Halloween party. Ghouls, goblins, and unicorns danced around in the firelight. Two kegs of delicious microbrew fueled the thirsty crowd. Everything was settled—nothing had been forgotten. Except one thing: I hadn't thought about soda, juice, or water bottles. Try to think of all your guests when you're throwing a party. There should be an option for everyone. Might I suggest tea?

It is cold season. Every year these temperature changes come along with pink noses and a chorus of sneezes—I am bundled up, determined to escape the trend. Manish and Tere talked about colds this week, how to prevent them, and also, what to do if you've already got one. Here's a breakdown of their suggestions, as well as links to some of the teas that they talked about. Join us in the resistance!

I am an American, and I have never tried milk with my tea. I do take it with my coffee, just a bit for color, but I have never (not even once!) tasted it with black tea. The English would be appalled. Now, I am a literature buff, a real book-junkie. Douglas Adams is one of my personal heroes, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for George Orwell. Both of these men were English, and both took their tea with milk—in fact they insisted on it. So naturally, I think I ought to try it.

Some good news: you don't have to be a monk in order to prosper from tea's spiritual offerings. You don't even have to meditate—at least, not in the traditional sense. Manish explains this notion in this week's show: the western idea of "tea time" is, in a sense, as good a meditation as any.

In high school I began drinking. In this particular memory I held a bottle of red wine, rolled over to the back label where I could read the description to those in the front. "Who writes these?" we wondered. Never would I have guessed that someday I would have that job.

Last night I was sitting on a friend's couch, slumped back and in comfortable conversation. Tea came up. As frequent and usual as these conversations are, in this particular tea conversation something unusual occurred. But that couch and that conversation is not where this story begins. It begins in a natural hot spring in northern Arizona, over one year ago.