The Little Tea Book

$ 20.00

We are so excited to announce the arrival of The Little Tea Book. If you are looking for a sweet, concise, and creatively informative book about tea production, culture and travels, here it is written by our good friend Sebastian Beckwith of In Pursuit of Tea.

Our owner, Hayley, met Sebastian in 2009 when she was teaching culinary in Manhattan.  Everyday she would break and run to his pop-up tea shop on Crosby Street for a Matcha (her intro tea) and sometimes a Hojicha cookie. When Sebastian wasn't climbing mountains for tea, she would often find him resting on a cushion and brewing a gaiwan of one of his latest tea discoveries. He would share stories of his travels and the re-steep of the tea he was drinking - and Hayley's passion and curiosity for tea began to bloom. The Little Tea Book is as if you are there, sipping tea with Sebastian, talking and learning about tea through his travels. We recommend you find a comfy chair, one hour of your time, and your favorite tea and start a steeping/reading session with Sebastian.

The crowning stroke of this book? The beautiful watercolors by Wendy MacNaughton.  We especially love her chart of the transformation of bubbles as temperature rises in heated water.  This is so essential for tea makers!

The tea we'd pair with this book?  Wood Dragon.

About Saratoga Tea & Honey Co.

White bags of loose tea on shelves at Saratoga Tea & Honey Co.

Our passion for teas...

We are delighted to be able to share one of the largest and most varied collections of single origin traditional teas on the East Coast with our communi·tea. Personally curated by owner Hayley, these teas come to us from small farms and collectives and represent the best of their terroirs and production styles. While wondering our shelves in-person or online, you will discover familiar favorites like English Breakfast and Long Jing (Dragonwell) alongside rare teas like Shan Lin Xi and herbal tisanes blended for mindfulness, inflammation, and much more.

wall of monofloral raw honeys at Saratoga Tea & Honey Co. in Saratoga Springs NY

& bees...

Raw honey is one of nature's most marvelous gifts. Not only is honey a marvel of energy-giving carbohydrates fortified with antioxidants, minerals and beneficial enzymes - making it the healthiest natural sugar - honey comes in a rainbow of flavors and varieties with something for everyone to appreciate and enjoy. From dark, robust honeys like Buckwheat and Chestnut to light or amber honeys like Tupelo or Orange Blossom, the subtle and sometimes not so subtle flavor differences between varietal honeys lend themselves to extraordinary flavor combinations and experimentation in the kitchen, on the charcuterie board, or in your favorite cup of tea.

all started with our Queen Bee!

A trained chef, Hayley's vision for Saratoga Tea & Honey Co. has been her entire lifetime in the making. Though she was still drinking espresso at the time, the Tea & Honey seeds were planted in the kitchens of Michelin-starred restaurants with training and appreciation for food and beverage as not just sustenance, but experience and hospitality. Her time spent as a chef-instructor at Jacques Pépin's French Culinary Institute introduced her first to matcha (and its ability to enhance sustained and steady focus), then to the subtleties of single-origin traditional teas like high mountain Taiwanese oolong. As a celebrated and awarded taster and master of culinary arts, in 2015 Hayley opened the doors to Saratoga Tea & Honey Co. Since then, she has cultivated a communi·tea for discovering rare and exciting teas, extraordinary raw honeys & unique gifts produced by small farmers and artisans from around the world.