We’ve just been informed from auraTeas that they have a new 10% off discount code available through March. Here are the details:

Offer: save 10% with any purchase
Code: spring
Expire: 03/31/08

We’ve had some great tea by them so this is a great opportunity to pick some up with a discount. Check them out at http://www.aurateas.com/.

We’ve traveled a long way since starting STeaP, from an off the cuff whim to actually traveling and filming an episode in NYC. Along the way, we’ve met some great people (you) and had a whole lot of fun drinking some great teas.

Brandice and I have recently been thinking of expanding the show past my dining room and going to more tea rooms and tea events throughout the country. We also want to upgrade some equipment, like microphones and cameras, and get more prizes to give away like the last showdown (which we both thought was a blast). There’s even a cool event in NY in April called the Coffee and Tea Festival that would be awesome to go to but it would cost about $300.

All of this will require financial backing of some sort. So far, nearly everything has been out of pocket for us. Getting outside money will allow us to do a lot more with STeaP in general. This, of course, is a big step for us and I wanted to get the community’s input on how it could go down. I think there are a couple of options here, but I wanted to get people’s input into what everyone thought was best.

Options I see are:

1. Get a sponsor or three. This would mean that there would be ads on the show. I wouldn’t want it to be blatant and I wouldn’t want to be beholden to liking a tea I thought was gross, but it would mean advertising and logos in the actual episodes.
2. Ask for donations, NPR-style. That would mean money from all of you and a slower “growth” cycle. Also, you’ll be giving us money to go to cool places and buy you prizes. It seems weird to me, but maybe it does make sense.
3. We could sell something of value. There’s a concept! We’ve thought of doing T Shirts and maybe even a quick reference book. There could be DVDs (If you’re all gluttons for punishment!). With this, we could make a small overhead and use that towards the things we want.
4. We don’t do anything different. We could just live on the equipment we have now, stay in our dining room and just give away prizes that tea shops donate. With all the free tea donations, I don’t think I’ll be buying tea for a while so future expenditures look to be pretty low. This would be called the “Don’t sell out” option, I guess and if that’s what people want, then that would be fine with us.

If you would like to leave your two cents on the subject, please comment below. What would you like the future of STeaP to be? If we should grow, what’s the best way? Are you avidly against ads in the show? What about on the blog?

This is what will happen if you let that forgotten cup of tea sit for too long. I feel a little better about my frequently forgotten cups of tea all over my apartment, knowing that I have never found them so horribly neglected and full of icky things.

Official tip of the day? Don’t subject your poor tea mugs to this!

Masto’s latest episode of “Does It Go With Tea?”

As an aside, I’d love to test all of these delicious-looking cupcakes and see if they go with tea as well. It would, of course, be for the greater good of food tasting. ;)

It looks like the iTunes feeds download has been down all weekend. Our current hosting solution, BingoDisk, has had problems since Saturday and they expect to be back up on Monday. We’ll be sure to get Episode #18 up then. If you’re new to our show, we’re very sorry this happened! But if you try again later today, everything should be worked out (according to them).

UPDATE: Still down. There’s been a statement from the CEO of the hosting company, but no idea on when it will be back up. Please watch via Viddler or on this site until we’re back up.

This week, STeaP’s in New York! We had a little visit to the Big Apple and stopped by Alice’s Tea Cup: Chapter 2 at 156 East 64th St. We had a great time and even meet up with Chris and Michelle, who have been life-long STeaP fans.

We first interview Haley Fox, one of the co-founders of the Alice’s Tea Cup chain of tea rooms in New York City and talk to her about tea rooms and what compelled her to start one in the first place. We then try two of their most popular teas, Mauritius, a strong tea from the island of Mauritius, and Sessa, and very round bodied and smooth Assam.

Exciting things are in store for STeaP. Stay glued to the website to learn more! www.steaptv.com.

Here are some teas that we’ve been sent by tea companies for review. We’ll be doing an episode on these teas, so if you’d like to purchase them and drink along with us, order samples of each! :) The first person to email me with a link to this entry will get a sample pack of the Might Leaf teas (so you won’t have to order them and you can drink along).

This is something that we will be doing at regularly at STeaP, in order to allow you (the viewer) a chance to try some of these new teas with us, and to give you information ahead of time about the companies we are going to be featuring. If you have suggestions, or if you are affiliated with a tea company that you would like to have featured on STeaP, please email us at steap@steaptv.com. We are more than happy to try any teas that are sent our way!

To find out more about each tea, you can click on the images below and you will find links in the picture descriptions that will lead you to the company’s website.

As we’ve mentioned before, STeaP is hitting NYC this week as part of the contest that Joe won (mentioned earlier), and we’re inviting YOU to join us! Here are the details, just in case any of you happen to be near New York City and would like to see us film a very special episode of STeaP:

• Who: Joe & Brandice (w/ special guests Chris and Michelle)
• When: January 11th at 9:30 a.m.
• Where: Alice’s Teacup, 156 East 64th St., New York City, NY 10023

If you’re in New York City this Friday, stop by and join us!

Also, keep an eye out on our blog for some upcoming alerts that will let you know what we’re going to be reviewing ahead of time, so that you can try the teas with us. :)

This is it! The eight contestants’ teas are tested and a winner is chosen! There were no losers, since all eight contestants will be receiving free teas, but there was definitely one tea that came out on top.

Watch the video to see who won our first Tea Showdown:

Filming took about five hours total, so you may notice a bit of caffeine-induced hysteria and what may have been a case of caffeine hangover by the time we had sipped our way through eight cups of tea.

The Disembodied Voice (Amy) joined us for this episode as a third official judge of the eight teas. Each of us drank each tea and gave them each a score between 1 and 10. The tea’s three judges’ scores were added together to give the tea its final score, with the highest final score being the winning tea. We also announced each judge’s favorite (i.e. highest scored) tea.

Here are some of the pictures from our tea-drinking marathon:

If you were one of our eight contestants, you can expect an email from us in the very near future so that we can obtain mailing addresses for each of you and get your pick for your free tea. We’re emailing each contestant one at a time, in order of highest to lowest Showdown scores (the highest score getting first pick of the free tea).

This has been a really successful event for STeaP, and we look forward to bringing you more contests and promotions throughout 2008! We have also received samples from several tea companies that we will be featuring soon, so watch for more opportunities to win tea goodies and learn more about what some of the smaller tea companies have to offer. :)

Filming the New Year’s Eve episode and brief sneak peek at an upcoming oolong we’ll be reviewing from Aura Teas. Hopefully this will tide you over until we make our Tea Showdown available for amazed viewing and stupendous awe. :)