We LOVE tea. I’m sure you know that. We drink it, we’ve sold it, been to tea conferences, and are first level tea sommeliers. Of course we had to try some of the tea at the Made in Montana show! And let me tell you, we were NOT disappointed!
2. What is your personal favorite product and why?
As true tea lovers, part of our makeup is to always be cupping ( another word for tasting) new and different offerings. On any given day, depending on our moods, the weather, the season or occasion the tea we choose to enjoy will be different. The one thing I will admit to is my complete appreciation of single origin teas. These being tea leaves with nothing else added to the cup. Laurie’s favorite type of tea is Oolong and mine is Pu’erh.
3. How do you drink YOUR tea?(I prefer a bit of sugar myself, we all know I have a major sweet tooth!)
Neither one of us adds anything to our cup. Just the tea and the correct temperature of water for that type. But we always tell our friends and customers “ it is YOUR cup of tea and you should do with it what makes you happy!”
4. What inspires you for your tea blends?
We are always thinking of and creating new blends. Our inspiration comes from many different influences. Some are suggestions or requests from our customers, our team or our own imaginations and experimentation. We just love to play with different ingredients and base teas.
5. What is your MUST HAVE tea accessory?
As for accessories, that too depends on where and when we are enjoying our infusion of choice. It is always fun to steep a whole pot for friends or serve everyone in their own individual infuser mug. If we are on the go, then our Travelin’ Tumbler is the absolutely best little vessel (Side Note- LOOK AT THESE LITTLE COZIES!). But the most important message we share with everyone is that everyone should be able to enjoy a seriously good cup of tea no matter where they are or the “equipment” they have on hand. So even if you are sitting around a campfire with nothing more than an enamel cup and your fave tea, just make some “cowboy” tea!
What we bought: The Muddy Creek Tea! Soooo good! We tried it at the show and we are hooked!
Wow, can you believe it’s April already? I certainly can’t! We are officially on our 4th monthly blog and loving it! We hope you all are enjoying this style of blogging also!
April is one of my favorite months of the year! Spring is coming, there is rain and thunderstorms, snow is melting (*hopefully*), my friends are gearing up for their summer weddings, and more! There is so much going on, and so this month’s blog we are going to try to explore all of it!
What’s Going on in the T&O House:
Y’all were expecting a spring cleaning tip weren’t you? Puh-lease, we have to be a bit more interesting than that! This month, instead of cleaning, we are getting a bit dirty!
Earlier in March, Coby discovered that we have a garden at the rental house. Not just any garden, but a FENCED IN garden so Miss Hazel can’t “help” this year. That means, it was time to go out and buy some seeds! We bought a lot of seeds (more than I care to let you all know), and starter mix and everything to help get those little guys growing! So we thought we would tell you about their first month of growing (and our first month as gardeners!).
Our little gardening “helper”Such tiny seeds!!
The first thing we did was get a seed starter from Walmart. Nothing fancy, just the one that had the little “greenhouse” lid on it. This made a world of difference from when I had tried to start seeds in years past! We got little green sprouts growing really quickly! The little greenhouse lid thing doesn’t really allow for those garden sticks to stick up very well, so we labeled them all, then took a picture with a piece of tape on one side. This allowed us to remove the garden label sticks, but also be able to rotate the seed tray while still knowing which plants were which.
all labeled!First little sprouts!!
Fast forward to a few weeks later to while I’m writing this blog. We have already transplanted the tomatoes into a bigger pot, they have outgrown the seed tray! One of the tips we got was to build a tomato cone thing, which Coby is going to be in charge of. It was also recommended we put a bit of sugar in the soil to help the tomatoes taste sweeter, but we aren’t so sure about that one. The basil has been planted in our indoor herb garden (see the DIY below!), and we are just waiting for it to be warm enough to plant the rest outside! Be sure to check out our Instagram for more photos of our garden in the upcoming weeks!
Do you have any gardening tips? Please let us know them in the comments! We need all the help we can get!
Recipe of the Month:
This month we are super into plants, and spring, and WATER! So our recipe this month is SUPER easy. We are exploring water infusions! I love infusing my water because it helps make me feel refreshed, and actually makes me drink more water! I even have two special water bottles specifically for infusing stuff into my water. So this month I thought I’d share my favorite recipes with you!
How to infuse your water:
Slice up your fruit/veggies/herbs. You want to do this enough so they release their goodness!
Add your goodies into a pitcher of water (or a water bottle).
Let sit in the fridge for at least an hour, or up to 2 days!
Sit back, and enjoy!
You can just keep refilling your pitcher of water, but keep an eye on the herbs/fruit/veggies! You don’t want them getting moldy! What are some of your favorite water infusion recipes?
DIY Tutorial of the Month:
Keeping with the theme of course, we are exploring indoor gardens for those of you that may not be able to have an outdoor garden! We have tried to do indoor gardening over the last year, because we love working with FRESH herbs, not that “fresh” you get from Walmart either. It’s my personal belief that just a little bit of fresh herbs in your cooking can make or break your dish! So we made an indoor cup garden, check it out in the DIY section! For more indoor garden ideas, check out our Pinterest!
T-Shirt of the Month:
So I went back and forth on doing Bridesmaid shirts for the t-shirt of the month this month, but I figured maybe enough people weren’t getting married! So we are doing those as custom orders. But, while we were searching for inspiration, we stumbled across a great idea! T&O started in May 2015 (I know, crazy!). So, this month, we are going back to the beginning! We are offering our Montana Mandala decal as a t-shirt! This is one of the first decals we ever offered on T&O, and it’s still one of my favorites to this day! Each decal takes me over 45 minutes to make, but it is so gorgeous it’s worth it! Trust me- it looks just as stunning on a t-shirt!
Even more exciting, because **Summer** is coming soon, we are offering this print as a tank top! We don’t carry tank tops in stock, but we have matched up with an amazing seller to get them for us! The tank tops will be pre-ordered with the same date as the first t-shirts (April 10th), then tank tops will be ordered and printed when they come in!
For this month, we will be offering 3 prints! The first two print pre-orders will end on April 10th! T-shirts will be printed on April 11th, and tank tops will be ordered and printed when they come in (usually 4-5 days). The second t-shirt print will stop taking orders on April 29th and be printed then! Order your shirts HERE!
What’s on Sale?
April showers bring May flowers! But flowers aren’t the only ones who need to be staying hydrated as warmer weather comes our way! You need to stay hydrated too! This month we are offering “water timer” bottles for your pleasure! I’m super excited about these! These are “skinny” tumblers, so they fit perfect in cup holders and are comfortable in your hands! These are 16oz double walled acrylic tumblers. With the water timer on the back, you’re sure to stay hydrated all day long!
We hope you have enjoyed our newest edition to T&O! We love you all and are so thankful to have you on our newest adventure! Like this blog? Make sure to share it with your friends! Want to be a guest blogger? Email or send us a message on Facebook outlining what you’d like to talk about! Have a product idea? We’d love to hear it! If we like it, you may be able to get commission on the idea! And of course- any comments, photos, or if you just want to say hello we’d love to see your comments below! You can also tag us on Facebook and Instagram!
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Food, wine, and friends will do that! **Note- do NOT give your dog wine! It’s very bad for them!**
Pre-food table setting! I always preset my table to help plan dishes.
My friends are super into snapchat and selfies! Who isn’t? I made these fun selfie sticks instead of setting up a photo booth!
These are so simple, fancy, and always a hit!
ooooohhh yesss….
A wine apron is a MUST for a wine tasting!
The first place prize!
I had 6 wines instead of 4, so the place mats were just decoration. The Solo cups were for dumping out wine if the guests didn’t like that certain one.
Prizes for getting the most wines correct! First place was wine, a custom bag, and two custom glasses!
We LOVE playing Jackbox! It’s a game that players can play on their phones, up to 8 guests!
Simple and cheap was the name of the game this party! These were quick and easy, and looked so fancy!
Wine and Chocolate was the party theme, but what is wine without cheese?
I was skeptical of these at first, but everyone love them!
Because dogs.
There are lots of How-To’s on how to create custom glasses. I just used Oracal 651 vinyl, cut it out with my Silhouette Cameo, and let my guests keep them!
2017 is the year of Wine! Ok, maybe not actually, but I’m running this blog and I say it is! There is no arguing though, wine is becoming more and more popular. In 2015, 913 million gallons of wine were consumed! That’s a lot. Wine is super popular with my friends, and I enjoy hosting parties, so we did a Valentines Day Mystery Wine Tasting!
To invite people, I made a Facebook event. I asked guests to RSVP “going”, and those that did got a customized wine glass for their tasting pleasure! It’s an easy way to see who is coming and get a count for food. Of course always plan for extras, there are at least 2 that never RSVP!
To make the “mystery” part of this tasting, we put 6 bottles of wine in linen wine bags (affiliate) and decorated them simply with a number tag. If you’re doing a mystery wine tasting with a bunch of different types of wine, make sure you go from lightest to darkest, but do dessert wines last no matter the color. This also gives the guests a clue when they’re guessing the wines. On the tags, I also wrote the cheese and chocolate parings. This was so Coby and I knew what to give our guests, and it would give a true connoisseur a hint!
I made wine tags with serving “hints”! I made these using my silhouette cameo 🙂
To serve the wine, remember it’s a tasting! I gave our guests very little of the wine to start off tasting with. They could taste the wine, and dump it in their spit cups if they didn’t like it. If they did like the wine, they could ask for more! That way we didn’t waste wine, because we chose a few out-of-the-blue ones! My pairings and order were:
Wine
Chocolate
Cheese
1
Gewurztraminer
Milk Chocolate w/ salt
Goat Cheese
2
Chardonnay
Milk Choc w/ Salt & Caramel
Jack/Parmesean
3
Roselle Passionfruit
White Chocolate
Pepper Jack
4
White Zin
Milk choc w/ fruit
Sharp Cheddar
5
Sweet Red Blend
Spicy Chocolate
Smoked Gouda
6
Cabernet Sauvignion
Mint Dark Chocolate
Brie
I also made coasters that showed how to properly taste wine, including the whole “Sniff, sip, spit” thing. The coasters saved my table from drips, and also made it so I didn’t have to explain the steps over and over to guests. These were simple to make! I just used cork board, the graphic below, and some modge podge! They weren’t super pretty, but they did the trick!
Fancy appetizers are a MUST! After all, this was a classy party! We made cute appetizers, and we also learned how to pair both chocolate and cheese with each type of wine for the guests. This also gave them another clue when they were guessing, but only if they were true sommeliers! Of course, make sure you provide palate cleansers in between each type of wine. My recipes were Rolo Stuffed Crackers, Candied Bacon Brie, Bacon-Wrapped Apricots, Caprese Kabobs, and “Holiday Crackers”. For this party the name of the game was simple, fancy, and cheap! Between the cheese, wine, and fancy chocolates it didn’t leave much wiggle room in our budget for other food!
These are so simple, fancy, and always a hit!
Our party games included some Virtual Reality (Courtesy of Coby’s new Vive toy), Jackbox (a game guest’s can play on their phones, it’s a new party favorite!), and of course, Rockband! Because no wine party is complete without karaoke!
There was also a prize for guessing the most wines right! We had 6 wines, and I gave guests a list of 14. The winner got 3 of the wines right, so maybe only give the guests 10 wines to choose from! The grand prize was a giant bottle of wine, a custom wine bag, and two custom glasses!
It was a ton of fun! Check out the Gallery for more photos of the party! Have you ever hosted a wine tasting? What are your favorite wines?
