Coffee and Tea Newsletter
coffee and tea festival
coffee and tea festival

cup for education

Brewla Launches Two New Artisanal Ice Pop Flavors

During a summer visit to his sweltering hometown in Southern California, Daniel Dengrove was looking for a way to beat the heat.

“The ice pops I enjoyed as a kid tasted too…artificial” he recalls, “So I started looking for more high-end and natural ones.” Daniel did not imagine that his search would turn up blank. Rather than accept defeat, however, he reached out to his sister Rebecca, who had earned a Masters in Food Science from Rutgers University. He proposed that the two create their own line of delicious all-natural ice pops.

“I thought the idea was fabulous,” Rebecca recalls. “I started experimenting immediately in my apartment in New York.” Eventually, the two rented space in an industrial kitchen at Rutgers. After multiple iterations, they settled on the combination of a brewed base and natural ingredients for flavor and health benefits. The siblings added a rolling freezer cart and with that Brewla Bars were born.

In 2012, after two successful summers selling Brewla Bars at farmers’ markets throughout New York City the sibling duo decided to scale their operation. The two worked together to design packaging and scale manufacturing, culminating with buyer meetings and the first retail orders. In 2013, Brewla went on to win Samuel Adam’s pitch contest and competed for the title of the Wall Street Journal’s Startup of the Year. Brewla Bars are now available in select regions across the country and are set to have another record sales year.

In their continued mission to beat the heat, Daniel and Rebecca are thrilled to launch two new Brewla Bar flavors this summer and show the world what it means to “Lick Well, Live Well.”

Brewla, known for its line of all-natural ice pops called Brewla Bars, was thrilled to launch its two newest flavors at this year’s Summer Fancy Food Show held earlier this month in NYC.  Although all Brewla Bars boast a unique benefit, The Lifeguard and The Luau will be the first two in the line without added sugar.

Each Brewla Bar combines a popular flavor and a brewed base. The Lifeguard blends the flavor of strawberries with the floral aromatics of hibiscus tea. Boosted with zinc and vitamin C, this flavor contributes to a healthy immunity. The Lifeguard contains only 20 calories and 3 grams of sugar.

The Luau combines tropical fruit flavors with a white tea base. Electrolytes are added to support hydration. The Luau contains only 30 calories and 5 grams of sugar.

 “We’re very excited to add these new flavors to our product line,” says co-founder and President Daniel Dengrove. “We’ve managed to create two delicious ice pops that deliver an incredible flavor experience without the addition of sugar. Brewla continues to raise the bar by demonstrating that great tasting food can also be healthy.”

Other flavors include the brand’s bestseller, The Hero (Cherry Pomegranate + Red Tea), The Doctor (Craft Brewed Root Beer Float), and The Lullaby (Peach Ginger + White Tea).

For more information, including a list of store locations, visit http://www.brewlabars.com.

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Harmon Brewing Company Launches Hop Coffee

Harmon Brewing Company is launching a new line of craft-brewed coffee drinks to the Tacoma area. Hop Coffee™ is a fusion of the Northwest’s twin favorites: coffee and craft beer. Melina Eshinski, a professional chef, was hired to handle the special alchemy between coffee and beer.

The flavored syrups are reductions of four of the Harmon’s signature craft beers:

  • Mt. Takhoma Blonde with Orange Zest

  • Pinnacle Peak Pale Ale with Vanilla Bean

  • PT. Defiance IPA with house made Torani caramel sauce

  • Puget Sound Porter with house made chocolate sauce

“I can’t reveal all the trade secrets, but for example I mixed our Pale Ale with an all-natural vanilla extract and that is going to make a fantastic Macchiato,” said Eshinski. “The Puget Sound Porter seems a natural fit with any mocha drink.” The initial batch of beer syrups will become the basis for a series of signature creations offered by Hop Coffee the new shop located within the Harmon Tap Room. Presenting coffee in such a manner was the brainchild of co-owner Carole Ford.

“About 18 months ago, I threw out an idea to pair coffee and beer reductions,“ Ford said. We kept it under wraps until about three months ago when we started playing around with the reductions. Everyone who tasted the syrups was floored by how good they were.” Ford and her son Riley then located a local specialty roaster, Bluebeard Coffee Roasters with as much passion for coffee as the Harmon has for beer.

“We like to roast single origin coffees, you get a sense of place that you don’t always get with a blend,” says owner Kevin McGlocklin. “But in this case, I wanted to really complement the Harmon beer syrup profiles. The Mexican Nayarit has a hint of tropical without getting fruity. The Antigua Bella Carmona is from a fourth generation estate, and I’m roasting it in a way to bring out the caramel with a little bit of fruity sweetness to it.”

The local collaboration marks another in a long line of efforts for the Harmon, who recently worked with the Tacoma Art Museum on a special release Dr. Ink This. Earlier this year, the Harmon worked with the Institute for Environmental Research and Education and became one of five U.S. brewers qualified under a science-based, life-cycle brewing model.

Hop Coffee is going to be a full-service coffee stand offering the complete espresso experience in addition to the twin brewed signature series. The baristas (beeristas?) will be trained in proper coffee parlance and preparation.

“We are opening at 6am daily for all your coffee and brewery needs,” offered co-owner Pat Nagle. “While you sip your latte, I can fill your growler!”  http://harmonbrewingco.com

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Tea Championship Tags the Best Iced Teas
for Summer & Beyond

The North American Tea Championship (NATC) recently named the 25 best, premium iced teas in key categories. The NATC is the only independent and professionally-judged tea competition in North America and the premier platform for showcasing quality teas. Visit TeaChampionship.com for a complete list of first, second and third-place winners in the NATC Iced Tea Class.

All of the high-quality NATC-winning teas are commercially available in the marketplace. Companies with 2014 first-place iced tea awards from NATC include:

  • Argo Tea

  • Bhakti Chai

  • Crystal Geyser Water Company

  • Dr. Pepper Snapple Group

  • Honeybush Health Ltd.

  • Immaculate Leaf

  • ITO EN (North America)

  • Kelley Organic / Eastsign Foods

  • Mellow Monk, LLC

  • QTrade Teas & Herbs

  • S&D Coffee and Tea

  • Shangri La Tea Co.

  • Walters Bay.

ITO EN (North America), S&D Coffee and Tea, QTrade Teas & Herbs and Kelley Organic / Eastsign Foods boast the most first-place wins in the NATC Iced Tea Class.

“All of this year’s North American Tea Championship winners in the Iced Tea Class are exceptional and highly recommended for summer 2014 and beyond,” says George Jage, director of the North American Tea Championship at The Beverage Group, a division of F+W Media. “The NATC had a lot of high-quality iced teas to choose from. Most notably, we’re seeing an increase in premium iced tea offerings for foodservice, so we added four ‘Best ValueAwards’ in Foodservice in different categories. We also presented a ‘Best Packaging Award.’ Congratulations to all of this year’s winners; we expect them to gets lots of attention from consumers and the foodservice industry, especially in the warmer months ahead.”

North American Tea Championship first-place winners include:
(Company, Website, Category, Name of the Winning Tea)

  • Argo Tea, ArgoTea.com, Ready-To-Drink –Green –Flavored, Green Tea Ginger Twist

  • Argo Tea, ArgoTea.com, Ready-To-Drink – Herbal – Any, MojiTea

  • Bhakti Chai, BhaktiChai.com, Ready-To-Drink – Black – Sweetened, Bhakti Chai Almond Blend Ready-To-Drink

  • Crystal Geyser Water Company, CrystalGeyser.com, Ready-To-Drink – Black – Unflavored / Unsweetened, Tejava Premium Iced Tea

  • Immaculate Leaf, ImmaculateLeaf.com, Foodservice – Black – Unflavored / Unsweetened, Crushed Amber Oolong

  • ITO EN (North America), ItoEn.com, Ready-To-Drink – Oolong – Flavored, TEAS' TEA Golden Oolong

  • ITO EN (North America), ItoEn.com, Ready-To-Drink – Green – Sweetened, TEAS' TEA Jasmine Green Sweetened

  • ITO EN (North America), ItoEn.com, Ready-To-Drink – Green – Unflavored / Unsweetened, TEAS' TEA Decaf Green

  • Kelley Organic / Eastsign Foods, Tea2020.com, Instant – Black – Flavored, Lemon Flavor Black Tea

  • Kelley Organic / Eastsign Foods, Tea2020.com, Instant – Black –Unflavored / Unsweetened, Instant Pu'er Tea Powder

  • Kelley Organic / Eastsign Foods, Tea2020.com, Instant – Herbal – Any, Hibiscus Drink

  • Mellow Monk, LLC, MellowMonk.com, Instant – Green – Unflavored / Unsweetened, Just-Right Roast

  • QTrade Teas & Herbs, QTradeTeas.com, Foodservice – Green – Flavored, Summer Me Baby

  • QTrade Teas & Herbs, QTradeTeas.com, Foodservice – Herbal – Any, Citrus Ironwood

  • QTrade Teas & Herbs, QTradeTeas.com, Foodservice – Green – Unflavored / Unsweetened, Emerald Green

  • S&D Coffee and Tea, SNDCoffee.com, Foodservice – Bag-in-Box – Black Flavored,Teafinity Lemongrass Basil Bagless Black Tea

  • S&D Coffee and Tea, SNDCoffee.com, Foodservice – Bag-in-Box – Green Flavored, Teafinity Blueberry Thyme Bagless Green Tea

  • S&D Coffee and Tea, SNDCoffee.com, Foodservice – Black – Flavored, Black Currant Filter Pack Flavored Black Tea

  • Shangri La Tea Co.,ShangrilaIcedTea.com, Instant – Green – Flavored, Tropical Green Quickbrewed

New NATC categories and winners include:
(Company, Website, Category, Name of the Winning Tea)

  • Honeybush Health Ltd., HoneybushHealth.com, Ready to Drink – Best Packaging, the complete line of Honeybush Bottled Herbal Tea

  • S&D Coffee & Tea, SNDCoffee.com, Best Value – Foodservice – Flavored Black Tea, Black Currant Filter Pack Flavored Black Tea

  • S&D Coffee & Tea, SNDCoffee.com, Best Value – Foodservice - Unflavored Green Tea, Rainforest Alliance Green Tea

  • Walters Bay, WaltersBay.com, Foodservice – Flavored Green Tea, Walters Bay Lime Green Iced Tea

  • Walters Bay, WaltersBay.com, Best Value – Foodservice - Unflavored Black  Tea, Walters Bay Pure Ceylon Iced Tea                                                                                                               

All NATC tea submissions were evaluated blind and through organoleptic analysis of the following characteristics: dry leaf, brewed color, brewed aroma, brewed flavor, brewed mouth-feel and brewed harmony. An overall numerical value on a 100-point scale was then calculated based on the ratings of each characteristic. Winners were determined by rank.
Wilbur Curtis, a leading manufacturer of tea brewers and accessories, is the official equipment supplier for the North American Tea Championship Iced Tea Class evaluation. Global Customized Water is the official water supplier.

The North American Tea Championship is currently evaluating spring teas.

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Care Cups™– A Summer Project with Permanent Impact

Oak City Coffee is teaming up with Wake Enterprises in Raleigh, NC and have reached their kickstarter funding goal for a project to create a new product, purchase equipment, and provide permanent meaningful work to adults in their community with autism and other developmental disabilities.  

“The purpose of the project is to create a marketable product that can be manufactured by persons with these challenges. Our market will be to Raleigh businesses as the product of choice for their office coffee,” as stated in the kickstarter prospectus.  

The product itself is the single serve coffee pod commonly known as K-cups. But the folks at Oak City Coffee are calling theirs Care Cups because they believe this is a way to express compassion in the community. By including people with these needs into our company, we're sharing in the challenges of many families in this city. 

Why Care Cups?:

  • The cups themselves are recyclable 

  • They're filled with freshly roasted Oak City Coffee- roasted on day 1, filled in cups on day 2, and delivered to you on day 3. Super fresh. One of the benefits of going local! 

  • Lower price than what you pay at the market- typical retail price is 83 cents/ cup, Care Cup producers are aiming for 60 - 75 cents per cup. 

The new business will be entirely run by people with developmental challenges, and produce a marketable product with their name on it. As market share grows, profits will support additional persons and equipment, and the business will be off and running, providing meaningful work to those in our community with special needs. Fully scalable to meet market demands.

This kickstarter project reached goal of $8.000 and was fully funded last week raising over $10,000 from online pledges. For more info visit https://www.oakcityroasters.com/

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Davidson's Celebrates 15 Years In Organic Teas

Davidson’s Organic Teas is celebrating 15 successful years as the first entirely organic tea company in the US. The company prides itself on being the first to offer a full line of, organic teas free of controversial GMOs and pesticides at unbeatable prices. Recently awarded a highly coveted NSF certification in food safety supplier audit, Davidson’s continues to pave the way in the organic tea industry for being a model of stewardship, and setting  the highest standards of food safety and processing. 

 “It’s exciting. It allows us to take a moment to recognize our progress,” said Co-Owner Kunall D. Patel, who owns and operates the company with Promilla Mohan. “From our family’s legacy of premium organic tea gardens in India to today, we are thrilled to be recognized as a leader in our industry for doing, what we believe, are right decisions by our kids and the future generations.”

Davidson’s continues to lead the charge in the tea industry as the only true farm-to-cup tea company in the nation. In 1976, Davidson’s began blending teas and bringing its blends to the market, shortly after introducing an organic line, the catalyst to eventually transition the company to an entirely organic production. The first to introduce dessert teas, honey teas and mulling spices to the consumer market, Davidson’s is a proven trend-setter, often seeing every major consumer brand follow suit.

 This year, it introduced three additional flavors of its organic, fair trade and kosher certified Tulsi Teas to its line of six existing flavors. As the first to introduce the three pillars of the sustainable agricultural movement to Tulsi farming, including organic, kosher and fair trade certified, Davidson’s hopes to share the joys of drinking this Ayurvedic “elixir of life” caffeine-free holy basil tea to the consumer.

In June, Patel was appointed to the Nevada Organic Advisory Council thanks to his work and dedication to the Nevada Department of Agriculture’s survey of standards on organics. He plans to leverage his industry expertise to guide the board in promoting organic products within Nevada and help interested companies reach organic certification.
Promilla Mohan was raised on the organic tea gardens in the Darjeeling District in India from which Davidson’s sources its products. The third-generation farms were started by her grandfather, an original tea grower in the Darjeeling District and the first to receive organic certifications.

Davidson’s has introduced six new tea flavors in more than five different package formats since the beginning of 2013 and continues to expand. Later this year it also plans to release a complete tea blending kit to the consumer market and to expand its gift item line within the next year.  The kit contains more than 12 tea ingredients for an infinite number of tea combinations, and a family-size teapot.

In light of recent trends Davidson’s introduced products to the wedding market. Planners are able to choose an assortment of teas, herbs and flowers so guests can build teas at a custom tea bar for wedding favors.

It’s this innovation and quality of product, along with diversity of product, which has made Davidson’s a top competitor in the tea industry. Teas are offered in a range of blended or unblended, bagged or loose, straight or flavored, hot or iced, fruity, oolong, cocoa and more. Davidson’s also provides a full private label line for custom tea bags, bulk teas and iced teas. For more information on the Davidson’s story, its gardens, or to purchase teas, visit DavidsonsTea.com.

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What Kind Of Coffee Drink Are You? (QUIZ)

It's no secret that our culture is a little more than coffee obsessed. We want it perfectly brewed, over ice, and in our desserts. Even our kids are into it. Coffee is one beverage most of us can't imagine going without -- not even for a day -- whether it be a short, hot shot of espresso, an iced, cold-brewed glass of coffee or a fancy-schmancy latte.

There's a lot of personality in each cup of coffee. A shot of espresso is direct and to the point; a cafe au lait is completely mellow and comforting; and a mocha frappuccino, well, that one's just indulgent and fun. Which coffee drink best represents you?

TAKE THE QUIZ at Huffington Post and find out. You might come to find that you've been drinking the wrong kind of coffee drink all these years.

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Get Ready for a Re-Phil at 2nd annual
Coffee & Tea Festival in Philly!

Mark your calendars tea and coffee fans—the Coffee & Tea Festival: Philly gets ready to return to the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center on Saturday, November 8th and Sunday, November 9th. After the overwhelming positive feedback from the inaugural Philadelphia area festival in 2013, the 2014 event promises to be even bigger and better than the first, featuring  some of the biggest names in the coffee and tea industry.

The Coffee & Tea Festival: Philly is modeled after the successful Coffee & Tea Festival:  NYC, which was featured on the Food Network's hit show Unwrapped and has been running annually since 2006. Last year, the festival debuted in the Philadelphia area and brought in a crowd of just over 3,000 attendees. "The Coffee & Tea Festival is a celebration of everything related to coffee and tea," said Kristyn Dolan, event manager at Starfish Junction. "This show continues to grow in popularity, allowing us to expand into new markets.  Philadelphia has a great coffee and tea scene, it was a natural fit for us to expand into this market,”  she added. The lineup of exhibitors, including national and local key players, is sure to delight all attendees. Like the New York City show, “this festival is targeted to become the area's premier tasting event,” said Dolan.

Tickets are on sale now.  Info and tickets at www.coffeeandteafestival.com

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