Getting to know Bluebird Tea Company ... - Stratford Food Festival

- For those who haven?t heard of Bluebird Tea Company before or want to know more, tell us how it all started.

?My partner, Mike and I recently returned from 6 months in Canada.? We had gone out there to get away from endless boring jobs, heartless employers and rising pressures to jump on a corporate grad scheme. Most of our family and friends thought we had gone for good but we surprised them all by returning earlier this year with the intention of setting up Bluebird.

We had both always agreed that we wanted to work for ourselves and create something unique so we could have the control over our own lives and the way we worked. We wanted our work to be a passionate part of our lives not just a means to an end and we wanted to work in a company that treated people as friends not utilities.

I have worked in the tea industry since I graduated; the highlight was managing a modern tea bar chain in Liverpool which has unfortunately now shut down. While I was in Canada I also worked for an innovative tea company and it became obvious to us that the Canadians approach tea in such a unique and fun way. So we decided to haul our lives back to the UK to try to bring that innovative approach to our home country where tea is woven through our history and culture.

Since we have been back we have worked literally 24/7 to get Bluebird off the ground and we now have a range of 25 unique loose leaf teas, unlike anything currently found in the UK. We only do blends you see, no straight teas or posh facts about estates or elevation. Our blends are fun, simple and super tasty? that was our goal and I am proud to say we have achieved it.

- What has been the latest activity at Bluebird tea that you can share with our readers?

We have recently been awarded a pitch at Carfest?s Best of British Pavillion, which will contain the top 100 small food and drink producers in the UK showcasing their products. For such a young company this is a big achievement and an excellent opportunity for us so we are super excited.

I have also been developing our website which has been fun. We are proud to have done everything ourselves from branding to site development, stall set up to accounting. We are on a bit of a mission to prove that anything is possible with a bit of hard work and a lot of passion.

- What is your favourite type of tea, if you can whittle it down to one?

We both start most mornings with an Earl?s Paradise which is amazing just black. We use real bergamot oil and it also has some strawberry, papaya and lime leaves so it has a delicate fruity hint too.

My favourite tea is also our current best seller: Cherry Lips but the Coco Chai No.5 comes a close second. I love it the traditional way with lots of milk. I also make a mean banana chai loaf with it.

Mike?s favourite is our luxury white tea blend called Nearly Nirvana but he also loves Monkey Chops which has real banana bits in it.? He?s convinced it?s one of his five a day!

All of our blends have a story behind them as well as their funky names, which is printed on the packs and on the website.

- What can visitors to the festival expect to see from your stand?

At the festival we will be selling our loose leaf tea to take home as well as hot cups to have on the day. Our house blend ? The Great British Cuppa is an excellent English breakfast tea and has been going down a storm at events all summer so far- especially given the unpredictable weather!

We also sell a selection of unique tea ware items that we have handpicked because we know they are the best out there. Many of them are exclusive to Bluebird and unlike anything currently sold in the UK.? For example we have some excellent double walled tea tumblers for loose leaf tea on the go and also all in one infuser mugs which make loose leaf tea in the home or office as easy as a tea bag.

We are also SUPER EXCITED about our festival special drinks: Iced teas and Smooches! We use our blends extra strong, add fresh fruit, milk, ice etc and make super tasty and healthy refreshing drinks. The best seller so far for the iced teas is strawberry lemonade and the best-selling?Smooche (tea smoothie) is Super T which has three of your five a day and tones of antioxidants from the green tea. All the stall holders last weekend were getting them for their breakfast!

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?- Will any discounts be available?

Yes we have a few things going on for our lovely Teabirds:

The best one in my opinion is that if you grab a tumbler you can have FREE TEA ALL DAY in it! You also get a free packet of tea with every teapot or IngenuiTEA purchased.

There will be tons of free samples going on our stall including the iced teas and Smooches and the tea cakes!

We will also be offering a discounted rate on our loose leaf tea to take home as well as coupon codes for customers to use on our online shop when they want to reorder!

- You are also doing a demonstration on each day of the festival, what will these include?

We are really excited about our Tea Mixology demonstration; it?s going to be brilliant.

We know you can do so many things with tea and we British really don?t make the most of it! So we are going to show you some unique and tasty things to do with tea and give you lots of tasters to try, including:

• Slurping, or tea tasting, some of our best-selling blends
• Making up some of our iced teas and Smooches?for you to try as well as giving you some exclusive one-off recipes to do at home which is unique as we usually keep our recipes close to our hearts!
• Tea baking tasting and recipes, including information about baking with the newly popular super tea Matcha.? Look out for our Terry?s Tea Brownies and Cherry Lips biscuits? mmmmm.
• Perhaps the most exciting: TEA COCKTAILS! We have some excellent cocktail recipes (trust us, we dedicated a lot of time and effort into getting these just right!) including MojiTEAs, FruiTEA?punch, Strawberry Daiquiris and a cheeky chilli Cuba Libre! There might be a long island iced tea in there somewhere too!

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Source: http://www.stratfordfoodfestival.co.uk/foodfest2012/?p=110

kepler 22 b st nicholas st nicholas mindy mccready mindy mccready cliff harris cliff harris